IT is perhaps just as well for Tory Cabinet members that they do not seem to be embarrassed by their errors, given the ubiquity of their foolish mistakes.

However, you would hope Arm Holdings co-founder Hermann Hauser’s flagging this week of some specific consequences of the ruling Conservatives’ Brexit “idiocy” might have triggered at least a few blushes among this most brass-necked of Cabinets.

The decision of semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings’ Japanese owner, SoftBank, to float the UK-founded business in New York rather than London must surely have been something of an embarrassment to the Conservative Government when announced last month.

And you would imagine it must have been all the more humiliating given widely reported major efforts by prime minister Rishi Sunak and predecessor Boris Johnson to attract Arm Holdings’ listing to Britain.

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It was surely not half as much of an embarrassment though as the firm view of Mr Hauser about a key factor in the decision by SoftBank: Brexit. And that is before we even get to the Arm Holdings co-founder’s most apt characterisation of the Conservatives’ move to take the UK out of the European Union as “idiocy”.

Once again, we have an expert highlighting the loss of opportunity arising from Brexit. The fact that the Tories have tried to claim that Brexit has had quite the opposite effect - with their creation for a while of what looked like a desperately named post of Minister for Brexit Opportunities - does not change the reality of the situation.

We should make no mistake – Arm Holdings and its technology constituted one of the very big success stories of recent decades in the UK quoted company arena ahead of the acquisition of the business by SoftBank in 2016. A return of Arm Holdings to the London stock market, with SoftBank’s flotation of the business, would therefore have been something of a big deal.

What was probably at least as interesting as Mr Hauser’s view of the specific situation regarding the decision on where to float Arm Holdings was his broader point about the UK’s reputation on the international stage.

Mr Hauser told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The problem is, to go IPO (initial public offering) on two stock exchanges at the same time is an enormous amount of work, so the administrative effort…is double. And the fact is that New York of course is a much deeper market than London and partially because of the Brexit idiocy of course the image of the London Stock Exchange has suffered a lot in the international community.”

Asked if he was saying that, as a result of Brexit or partially as a result of Brexit, there is just less money to be raised in London, Mr Hauser replied: “I think that is correct.”

While he declared that Arm was “arguably one of the more…globally successful technology companies in the UK”, Mr Hauser’s take that Britain had been left behind in the broader semiconductor sector in a global context as a result of decisions made during the Margaret Thatcher era was also interesting.

He said: “The British semiconductor industry itself on the hardware side of course is not comparable to the American, Chinese or even European semiconductor industry. Sadly we have lost that during the Thatcher era when we decided not to support Ferranti or Plessey at the time…This is a train that has left a long time ago.”

His comments on this broader issue appeared to chime with the thoughts of James Anderson, former co-manager of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.

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Mr Anderson told The Herald in 2017 that he was getting “more and more pessimistic” about the UK’s ability to create companies of truly global scale.

He cited a “lack of economic seriousness” from the UK Government, the Brexit situation, and the culture of the City as key factors limiting Britain in this regard.

Arm Holdings was among Scottish Mortgage’s particularly successful investments on the UK stock market.

Mr Anderson, in a UK context, took issue in 2017 with the “Brexit argument” that benefits from the devaluation of sterling in the wake of the vote to leave the EU would make up for loss of “industrial muscle”.

The veteran fund manager, who is now chairman of Swedish investment company Kinnevik, said: “I can’t see that a major industrial company will put all their production capacity into Britain, where there are worries about the supply chain and access to markets. I am not sure there is much intellectual evidence that devaluation is a way out of anywhere.”

Mr Anderson, reflecting on the period since 1979, told The Herald in 2015 that “the tragedy of the entire post-Thatcher era is this notion of creating entrepreneurial freedom hasn't translated into us producing great companies”.

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He cited telecoms giant Vodafone as a UK-based company of scale that had been built up during this period. However, he pointed out that Vodafone had been built by combining assets through mergers and acquisitions and by expenditure of capital, "rather than any great inventions".

Mr Anderson highlighted his belief at that stage that Arm Holdings, which was one of Scottish Mortgage's top 30 holdings at March 31, 2015, was a great company.

However, he added that it was a "pity" Arm Holdings was "not an even greater company" given the importance of the microprocessor specialist's technology.

You would imagine that, if the ruling Conservatives’ significant and concerted efforts to attract Arm Holdings to list in London again had succeeded, the Tories would have made the most of the opportunity to present such an occurrence as a vote of confidence in the UK.

The Financial Times reported in January that Mr Sunak had revived talks with SoftBank regarding a London listing for Cambridge-based Arm Holdings. According to the FT, Mr Sunak met Arm’s chief executive, Rene Haas, in December at Downing Street and Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of SoftBank, joined by video link.

The FT reported that the meeting had been described as “very constructive” by two people briefed on the matter and “positive” by another.

Whatever high hopes the UK Government may have had of attracting Arm Holdings back on to the UK stock market - at a time when the Conservatives seem desperate to crow about anything which could possibly be presented as a vote of confidence in the country post-Brexit - have come to nought.

And, while Mr Hauser’s comments might feel like a rubbing of salt in the wound, the Tories would do well to heed them if they want to mitigate future damage from their Brexit “idiocy”.