culture that sought forgiveness, not permission, and empowered people to take the call rather than back off, making a decision. i think that this is a lesson for any organisation, public or private, large or small, it doesn't mean being rash, this is important, it means being brave and using judgment and the best possible data to dry decision—making. this was not like buying any other commodity product, we could not place an order, we had to back lots of pulses and invest it at risk. as one of the greatest ever american football coaches said, you miss 100% of the shots you do not take, so we took plenty of shots with the unwavering backing of the chancellor and prime minister, we put hundreds of millions of pounds at risk, and not all of them came off. some are stale in early trials and are far away from deployment. but the important thing is that some of the