Leading Article: Pop goes our export revival?

There is a common, cheerful view of Britain's economic future which goes like this: once we were good at making things and exporting them. Then we slipped down the exporters' league table. But now we are brilliant at services - including pop - and are becoming a successful nation of exporters in a new way.

One of our biggest new exports in this sense is Liam Gallagher of the world-bestriding group Oasis. And what does he do? He turns away from the plane at the last minute before their US tour and says some very uncomplimentary things about Americans. But a pop group without the main man sounds uncomfortably like the old jokes about British cars. Late delivery and insulting the customer? A reviving export economy, even for pop, can't be built like that.