We need more industry

[Tsippy]

ewenm said:

Tsippy said:

I've mentioned it before, but my MP believes that the loss of heavy industry will be replaced by new Green industries.... woohoo.....

Which are only even vaguely sensible financially if supported by big government grants... which weren't available to other actual useful industries. Imbeciles.

In fact British industry has been increasingly penalised via taxes to support 'Green inititatives'. Look at the 'environmental surcharge' on energy bills, the new carbon credit nonsense.... it's sickening that any government could actively try to ruin an industry and I'm amazed that there's any industry left in this country

[thinfourth2]

MX7 said:

Uhura fighter said:

What could we build that would put people into work?

Robots.

What a hi-tech quality product that needs skilled clever workers

It would never work

[DJC]

The way you lot talk sometimes I often have to question whether I have a job as apparently my industry doesnt exists instead of thriving.

[prand]

Some good news I saw the other day:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/11/tin_mine_i...

Relatively small scale, but I hope this is the start of the UK starting to open up primary industry again. Hampered by planning restrictions apparently (inevitably?), but good news all the same.

Now for some more coalmines.....

[Uhura fighter]

thinfourth2 said:

MX7 said:

Uhura fighter said:

What could we build that would put people into work?

Robots.

What a hi-tech quality product that needs skilled clever workers

It would never work

A few skilled workers could build clever robots, they could build more robots, we can all put our feet up till "Judgment day"..........

[DonkeyApple]

crankedup said:

Following decades of negative Government action toward our creative manufacturing industries, the penny has at long last dropped. Question Time on BBC the issue was raised, general panel agreement Yes we do need many more small manufacturing industries that would help out with our National financial and employment problems
The rot was setting in during the 1970's when the Unions and Government went head to head, we all lost.
Hope that Governments of the future will be more creative encouraging entrepreneurship and manufacturing in the U.K. whilst continuing to attract overseas Companies to set up here.
Living in hope or deluded, maybe both.

We could do with lots more labour intensive industry.

There are too many problems to be able to get anaywhere with this though.

We have living costs that mean wages are far too high to manaufacture anything low end in a competitive way against the BRICs.

Anything complicated requires robots or educated people. We don't have enough educated, skilled people for this and again, they are very expensive.

Health and Safety costs instantly put us offside to the BRICs.

Hand built things are st. Look at any handbuilt car and compare it to a machine built car. They are badly put tgether, bug ridden pups. Astons only started staying together when they started using modern tech.

What we actually need is completely new thinking. It's impossible to compete against the BRICs in any form of 'basic' engineering or any industry which requires high labour numbers. Can't be done.

If we know this can't be done, but we still have the problem then we need knew ideas, not trotting out disfunctional old ideas. It's just stale thinking.

We need to think of modern ways to utilise high numbers of less than fully skilled labour. Wars and colonialisation are out as well. It's definitely a stickler.

[mrmaggit]

BRIC's?

[Tsippy]

DonkeyApple said:

Health and Safety costs instantly put us offside to the BRICs.

Hand built things are st. Look at any handbuilt car and compare it to a machine built car. They are badly put tgether, bug ridden pups. Astons only started staying together when they started using modern tech.

What we actually need is completely new thinking. It's impossible to compete against the BRICs in any form of 'basic' engineering or any industry which requires high labour numbers. Can't be done.

If we know this can't be done, but we still have the problem then we need knew ideas, not trotting out disfunctional old ideas. It's just stale thinking.

We need to think of modern ways to utilise high numbers of less than fully skilled labour. Wars and colonialisation are out as well. It's definitely a stickler.

How can the H&S riddled West compete with this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRzkWxdakFo

[Twincam16]

MX7 said:

ewenm said:

Don't they also have a history of government support for their heavy industries?

Yup, and they still have a tripartite education system.

Something we could learn a lot from, in fact.

In this country, we funnel millions of kids through state schools, where their overall grades, not the quality of teaching or the relevance of those qualifications to the economy, is upheld as the most important thing so the school can show the results to OfStEd and get a good report.

As a foil to that, the fee-paying sector are free to educate kids the way they want.

Problem with this is that the pool of people educated to their full potential is getting increasingly small. It's exacerbated by the number of questionable degree courses - yes, you may have a 'degree', but if you scraped into a former FE college with a university charter to do Hair & Beauty, you can't consider yourself the same as someone doing Nuclear Physics at Manchester, even though the piece of paper says you are.

The education system in this country needs a radical shakeup of the kind no government would currently agree to. It will potentially take ten to fifteen years to transition current schools in a complete restructuring.

For starters, it has been long observed that the format of primary-school lessons, in which a 'topic' is approached using multiple disciplines, produces keener learners than the subject-separated secondary-school approach, especially up to the age of about 13/14. Obviously this is also the way many things happen in the workplace too. So, keep kids in a primary school environment until they're 13/14. Should help to preserve the notion of 'childhood' better too. A 13-year old as the oldest child in a school with 5-year-olds in it has a greater sense of responsibility than a 13-year-old trying to get in with a 'cool' gang of 16-year-olds.

By this point it should be clear as to where their predominant skillset lies, so they can be sent to a school that best develops their skills for a fulfilling career. At this juncture, specialist colleges dealing with the arts, the sciences and the humanities will channel these skills between the ages of 14 and 18. These colleges would have specialised careers advice, links with industry and universities, and would help place their leavers either in apprenticeships, work or university.

Crucially though, these colleges would have equal status. Problem with our old tripartite system was that Grammar schools reigned supreme, kids in Secondary Modern schools were treated as being at the bottom of the heap, and there weren't enough Technical schools at all.

We need a system like this, otherwise when China, India and Brazil are running the show and we've got a country full of people who took all the easiest subjects they could and don't actually know what they're good at, we'll have a hell of a lot of hungry mouths to feed and bugger-all for these people to do, and in that scenario we'll end up either cap-in-hand to the IMF, or worse - China.

[Digga]

mrmaggit said:

BRIC's?

For those who have spent the last ten years on a desert island:

Brazil
Russia
India
China

[tinman0]

ewenm said:

Vimto156 said:

pugwash4x4 said:

yep we can all go back into heavy manufacturing and industry if we all agree to take a massive pay cut

Funny but i don’t see the Germans taking massive pay cuts. They have one of the strongest economies in Europe and is in the main manufacturing based.
The days of relying on consumer/services lead economy are numbered I feel.

Don't they also have a history of government support for their heavy industries? We don't and you can't change that by now saying we should have supported them more.

Perhaps the German unions weren't quite so militant in their opposition to changing working practices. Perhaps the German governments were more inclined to support their heavy industries. Perhaps the German people were more inclined to buy German products (as they were actually of decent quality...).

Germany also has the huge advantage that Germans generally buy German cars.

Whereas in the UK, we get overcritical of our manufacturers and generally beat them to death.

Remember Lotus asking for £40m to create a new factory in the UK a couple of months? PH said no.

[carmonk]

Just been on the news that China will be producing millions of commemorative plates for the royal wedding. Obviously the people buying them are real patriots...

[cg360]

J B L said:

Unions are strong in Germany (IG Metal to name but one and probably representing 95% of all workforces) but they are ready to talk.

ie: we have a plant in Germany, in it there are 3 to 4000 employees depending on workload. 2 years ago, our company said: "you either lower cost in that factory or the new production line will be open in another country". IG Metal went back to the workers who accepted pay cut/freeze and 2 years later everything's back as normal (salaries on the rise and unlocked) and 600 new jobs were created. The process was so refreshing to see happening and it only took 1 month to implement. No strike, no aggro.

The other advantage of the German industry is that they can maintain high prices because they actually manufacture quality/high end equipment. A lot of German production tools are installed in Far East factories because they are durable and trouble free.

IMO this is what UK (and EU) manufacturing needs to set its sight on and compete with.

Companies also have a much fairer conversation with their workforce than is typical over here. Benefits are good, reward structures common. Being a good employee is highly valued, whereas over here, the norm is that good employees don't get 'noticed' in case they want a pay rise.

It builds a relationship which isn't based on mutual suspicion.

[crankedup]

Uhura fighter said:

The point was made on QT and in the QT thread that robots do the work now.

What could we build that would put people into work?

Build upon what we already do better than others, high tech/science. Also high quality bespoke merchandise. More investment and backing required by banks and Government.

[Adrian W]

Its easy really, Buy British and support british manufacturers and products, if we had the economies of scale the far east had we would soon be competitive, instead this goverment and the last encourage importing

[crankedup]

prand said:

Some good news I saw the other day:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/11/tin_mine_i...

Relatively small scale, but I hope this is the start of the UK starting to open up primary industry again. Hampered by planning restrictions apparently (inevitably?), but good news all the same.

Now for some more coalmines.....

Coalmines, my passion to see re-opened.

[DJC]

You are an idiot.

You have already been told why they will not be reopened and who ensured that would happen. There is also no real desire for them for the workforce to go back down the mines. In brutal honesty they had become by the 70s little more than the modern equivalent of the Workhouses. There would be riots if we tried to introduce the notion of mining being a suitable career for the masses in current times.

We also have a superb high tech industry in Britain and it is growing. It requires a lot of investment though and a highly skilled workforce. We need to give it time to grow. People do not want to go back to the days of mass low skill low pay manufacturing. You seem to want to force that.

How about you actually listen to those of us in the high tech industry?

[MX7]

Twincam16 said:

MX7 said:

ewenm said:

Don't they also have a history of government support for their heavy industries?

Yup, and they still have a tripartite education system.

Something we could learn a lot from, in fact.

Actually what I meant, as I understand it, is that they based their system on our old system.

[Twincam16]

MX7 said:

Twincam16 said:

MX7 said:

ewenm said:

Don't they also have a history of government support for their heavy industries?

Yup, and they still have a tripartite education system.

Something we could learn a lot from, in fact.

Actually what I meant, as I understand it, is that they based their system on our old system.

It was the other way round. We based ours on theirs, only forgot to bother with the technical schools properly, and the Secondary Modern schools were massaged into a 'lower' status by the Private schools lobby, who feared an attack on their status.

Tellingly, the grammar schools were probably the best engine of social mobility this country has ever had. Sadly, it seems the teaching profession, which is institutionally left-wing, is terrified of the notion of academic selection as it suggests we're not all the same, and as a result leaves the door wide open for the organs of state and business to be dominated by ex-public school types to a heavier degree than since the Victorian era

[crankedup]

Tsippy said:

I've mentioned it before, but my MP believes that the loss of heavy industry will be replaced by new Green industries.... woohoo.....

Not sure about replacement, but Green industries and all the spin-offs are one avenue forward.