We need more industry
Discussion
crankedup 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..... 
Not sure about replacement, but Green industries and all the spin-offs are one avenue forward.
DJC said:
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?
If everyone had your attitude we would all be cooking on log fires sat in caves. Show me your evidence that workers would not go mining, they seem keen enough elsewhere in the World! Forget about the histrionics and be positive. Rules are there to be broken, nothing, and I mean nothing, is set in stone. I like to live in hope and in twenty years time tech' may just help us with our valuable natural resource. If they all think like you in the high tech' industry fYou 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?
k help us all.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.
Hope has disappeared. 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.
This country lost the plot some time ago.
As for attracting overseas companies to set up here, didn't you notice they are ALL here now!
Foreigners not only set up here, they own most of what we had left! It's happening daily.
Even a simple bridge built across rivers are an impossible task for us now, we import foreign ones!
Look at the massive wind farms appearing, most if not all are foreign owned.
Even today, this morning, god forbid, Dutch company Eneco announced plans to build a windfarm within a 76 square mile area!!! 8 miles from Peveril Point in Swanage, 10 miles from Bournemouth and 8 miles south west of The Needles and the Isle of Wight coast.
Jeez. We are mad. We have quite simply lost the plot!
Glad I'm old enough to have seen many years when this nation was truly independent and it was 'green and pleasant'.
Now it's just 'Green' ie: overrun with idiots lacking any experience whatsoever and acting stupid.
As for the 'high tech industry we have growing' suggested before, WHO owns it? Tell that statement to the Chinese and they'd laugh their heads off. We have a lot... but we don't own it. They who own it can jump ship any time they like, that's the problem.
The industry I work in was totally British owned. Those who supply me with my goods are now still there, many after decades and decades. So what's changed in the last few years? EVERY single one of the companies I deal with is now foreign owned!
Edited by dandarez on Friday 18th February 19:37
crankedup said:
If everyone had your attitude we would all be cooking on log fires sat in caves. Show me your evidence that workers would not go mining, they seem keen enough elsewhere in the World! Forget about the histrionics and be positive. Rules are there to be broken, nothing, and I mean nothing, is set in stone. I like to live in hope and in twenty years time tech' may just help us with our valuable natural resource. If they all think like you in the high tech' industry fk help us all.
The real problem is that coal mining, just like ship building simply is not possible in the UK. The end product could not be sold. Other countries are doing it far cheaper.k help us all.The reality is that we require mechanisms that will create employment for large numbers of manual labourers, with an employment spectrum that allows the harder working and the brighter to rise through the ranks. I.e we need to replicate the kind of emplyment that our old manufacturing industries offered.
But, it can't possibly be via any of the old systems which have gone. These systems have been politicised to the point that the masses think that there is actually a market for the product but that Govt is stopping it from happening. The reality is that they died long before they were actually killed off. They were a millstone round this country's neck.
Where the genius comes in is in creating new roles, new avenues. But we are stuck focussing on the old. We are a bunch of mourners standing in the rain at a grave site expecting the body to come back to life.
Until we change our attitude and start looking forward and applying the considerable brains that we have nothing can change.
crankedup said:
If everyone had your attitude we would all be cooking on log fires sat in caves. Show me your evidence that workers would not go mining, they seem keen enough elsewhere in the World! Forget about the histrionics and be positive. Rules are there to be broken, nothing, and I mean nothing, is set in stone. I like to live in hope and in twenty years time tech' may just help us with our valuable natural resource. If they all think like you in the high tech' industry fk help us all.
In English?k help us all.I would just like to offer an observation on the use of robotics and automation.
In the industry in which I work, the introduction of robots didn't lead to the loss of staff. It meant that those staff were freed up to think about other processes and systems that could be improved.
Also, the robots worked in isolated parts of the bigger process. In a blunt analysis of what happened, this resulted in a requirement to use manpower to feed more throughput to the automated parts, and manpower to manage the higher output of the automated steps.
I'd summarise the above by proposing that it's rare for automation to replace an entire manufacturing process and that step by step introduction of robots requires more workers to supply more raw materials and deal with the output.
So, those who say robots replace workers may have a point but it is not applicable to all situations.
In the industry in which I work, the introduction of robots didn't lead to the loss of staff. It meant that those staff were freed up to think about other processes and systems that could be improved.
Also, the robots worked in isolated parts of the bigger process. In a blunt analysis of what happened, this resulted in a requirement to use manpower to feed more throughput to the automated parts, and manpower to manage the higher output of the automated steps.
I'd summarise the above by proposing that it's rare for automation to replace an entire manufacturing process and that step by step introduction of robots requires more workers to supply more raw materials and deal with the output.
So, those who say robots replace workers may have a point but it is not applicable to all situations.
jonnylarge said:
I would just like to offer an observation on the use of robotics and automation.
In the industry in which I work, the introduction of robots didn't lead to the loss of staff. It meant that those staff were freed up to think about other processes and systems that could be improved.
Also, the robots worked in isolated parts of the bigger process. In a blunt analysis of what happened, this resulted in a requirement to use manpower to feed more throughput to the automated parts, and manpower to manage the higher output of the automated steps.
I'd summarise the above by proposing that it's rare for automation to replace an entire manufacturing process and that step by step introduction of robots requires more workers to supply more raw materials and deal with the output.
So, those who say robots replace workers may have a point but it is not applicable to all situations.
Indeed, there will always be a need for skilled and semi skilled people to fill the gaps and fill the shortfalls, but none the less, automation has for the last 500 years led to a reduction in unskilled labour requirements and put economic pressure on skilled labour.In the industry in which I work, the introduction of robots didn't lead to the loss of staff. It meant that those staff were freed up to think about other processes and systems that could be improved.
Also, the robots worked in isolated parts of the bigger process. In a blunt analysis of what happened, this resulted in a requirement to use manpower to feed more throughput to the automated parts, and manpower to manage the higher output of the automated steps.
I'd summarise the above by proposing that it's rare for automation to replace an entire manufacturing process and that step by step introduction of robots requires more workers to supply more raw materials and deal with the output.
So, those who say robots replace workers may have a point but it is not applicable to all situations.
We also have the problem that post the 70s, we spent the 80s and 90s knowing that if we wanted to build a company we had to avoid British labour if we had any desire to succeed. There is no escaping the fact that the British worker contributed significantly to their own decline. The effects of which we still see today insomuch as you can hire a Pole for less and they complete the job and don't rob you. It will take a long time and a lot of hard work for the British labourer to undo the image problem that it has created for itself.
I recall being in a meeting where the single reason the firm decided to outsource a call centre to India was not economic but that no one in the company could face running a team of British call centre workers and all their sick notes, excuses and the admin hassles.
I've also spent 10 years watching graduates become more and more unemployable and worthless yet demanding more and more before they've even crossed the threshold.
We have a work ethic problem that now runs very deep across the whole spectrum of society. The Baby Boomers have raised an entire L'Oriel generation.
And while all this is going on, the usual people and their off spring keep their heads down and plod on and deliver. But these people, again across all walsk of life, are looked down upon and pilloried by the lazy, feckless and jealous.
DJC said:
crankedup said:
If everyone had your attitude we would all be cooking on log fires sat in caves. Show me your evidence that workers would not go mining, they seem keen enough elsewhere in the World! Forget about the histrionics and be positive. Rules are there to be broken, nothing, and I mean nothing, is set in stone. I like to live in hope and in twenty years time tech' may just help us with our valuable natural resource. If they all think like you in the high tech' industry fk help us all.
In English?k help us all.crankedup said:
You may have given up all hope like so many it seems, try to see beyond what is in front of your face and argue against it, do something about it. Its called entrepreneurial forward thinking. Take a seemingly impossible situation, turn it on its head, never be defeated, explore every possible angle. If that still isn't going to bring it alive then shelve it for the future and explore the next opportunity. Alternatively continue as you are, seemingly anchored to other commentators aspirations which you cannot seem to aspire to yourself. You have such a small minded negative mind.
Given up all hope? Wtf?All hope of what?
I just showed you the roadmap from the past to the future and you are determined to wish to see us returned to the past!
What small minded, lacking in aspiration, negative job and industry do you think Ive work in and do? Please do inform me, Id love to know.
The sad fact is that this country is fcked, I don't really what caused it, I was going to say that it's the left leaning ideology that has screwed us, but I honestly don't know the reason. We still have a decent Car manufacturing industry in this country - 'British' manufacturers like Jaguar, LR, Mini, and also Honda Nissan and Toyota, so it is not that we can't do it.
The Germans have a thriving economy, and it s because they 'make' things. Audi, BNW, Mercedes, VW, Porsche, all quality high value products.
If a UK trawler breaks down and needs a new engine, we have to tow it across the North Sea to Holland or Germany where a new BMW Marine engine is fitted.
Were talking about building the High speed rail ling from London to Birmingham, it will cost billions, and guess where the trains and rolling stock will come from? Hitachi in Japan, or from the french or Germans, How is that going to help our economy?
Cunard have the new(ish) QM 2, built where? In France.
Were soon going to build some new power stations - in a rush because Labour didn't believe in Nuclear power, they believed we could make do with Wind power and Generating plants running on chicken $hit - and the new Nuclear stations will be built here by the French.
I'm old enough not to have to worry about things any more, but all you poor ba$tards in your 20's and 30's are in for a rough future. I don't envy you at all. If the French and the Germans can do it, there is no reason why we can't do it as well, but we have just left it to late, and those industries have died, it's to late to resurrect them - were fcked!!
The Germans have a thriving economy, and it s because they 'make' things. Audi, BNW, Mercedes, VW, Porsche, all quality high value products.
If a UK trawler breaks down and needs a new engine, we have to tow it across the North Sea to Holland or Germany where a new BMW Marine engine is fitted.
Were talking about building the High speed rail ling from London to Birmingham, it will cost billions, and guess where the trains and rolling stock will come from? Hitachi in Japan, or from the french or Germans, How is that going to help our economy?
Cunard have the new(ish) QM 2, built where? In France.
Were soon going to build some new power stations - in a rush because Labour didn't believe in Nuclear power, they believed we could make do with Wind power and Generating plants running on chicken $hit - and the new Nuclear stations will be built here by the French.
I'm old enough not to have to worry about things any more, but all you poor ba$tards in your 20's and 30's are in for a rough future. I don't envy you at all. If the French and the Germans can do it, there is no reason why we can't do it as well, but we have just left it to late, and those industries have died, it's to late to resurrect them - were fcked!!
JensenA said:
The sad fact is that this country is fcked, I don't really what caused it, I was going to say that it's the left leaning ideology that has screwed us, but I honestly don't know the reason. We still have a decent Car manufacturing industry in this country - 'British' manufacturers like Jaguar, LR, Mini, and also Honda Nissan and Toyota, so it is not that we can't do it.
The Germans have a thriving economy, and it s because they 'make' things. Audi, BNW, Mercedes, VW, Porsche, all quality high value products.
If a UK trawler breaks down and needs a new engine, we have to tow it across the North Sea to Holland or Germany where a new BMW Marine engine is fitted.
Were talking about building the High speed rail ling from London to Birmingham, it will cost billions, and guess where the trains and rolling stock will come from? Hitachi in Japan, or from the french or Germans, How is that going to help our economy?
Cunard have the new(ish) QM 2, built where? In France.
Were soon going to build some new power stations - in a rush because Labour didn't believe in Nuclear power, they believed we could make do with Wind power and Generating plants running on chicken $hit - and the new Nuclear stations will be built here by the French.
I'm old enough not to have to worry about things any more, but all you poor ba$tards in your 20's and 30's are in for a rough future. I don't envy you at all. If the French and the Germans can do it, there is no reason why we can't do it as well, but we have just left it to late, and those industries have died, it's to late to resurrect them - were fcked!!
The Germans have a thriving economy, and it s because they 'make' things. Audi, BNW, Mercedes, VW, Porsche, all quality high value products.
If a UK trawler breaks down and needs a new engine, we have to tow it across the North Sea to Holland or Germany where a new BMW Marine engine is fitted.
Were talking about building the High speed rail ling from London to Birmingham, it will cost billions, and guess where the trains and rolling stock will come from? Hitachi in Japan, or from the french or Germans, How is that going to help our economy?
Cunard have the new(ish) QM 2, built where? In France.
Were soon going to build some new power stations - in a rush because Labour didn't believe in Nuclear power, they believed we could make do with Wind power and Generating plants running on chicken $hit - and the new Nuclear stations will be built here by the French.
I'm old enough not to have to worry about things any more, but all you poor ba$tards in your 20's and 30's are in for a rough future. I don't envy you at all. If the French and the Germans can do it, there is no reason why we can't do it as well, but we have just left it to late, and those industries have died, it's to late to resurrect them - were fcked!!
DonkeyApple said:
Indeed, there will always be a need for skilled and semi skilled people to fill the gaps and fill the shortfalls, but none the less, automation has for the last 500 years led to a reduction in unskilled labour requirements and put economic pressure on skilled labour.
We also have the problem that post the 70s, we spent the 80s and 90s knowing that if we wanted to build a company we had to avoid British labour if we had any desire to succeed. There is no escaping the fact that the British worker contributed significantly to their own decline. The effects of which we still see today insomuch as you can hire a Pole for less and they complete the job and don't rob you. It will take a long time and a lot of hard work for the British labourer to undo the image problem that it has created for itself.
I recall being in a meeting where the single reason the firm decided to outsource a call centre to India was not economic but that no one in the company could face running a team of British call centre workers and all their sick notes, excuses and the admin hassles.
I've also spent 10 years watching graduates become more and more unemployable and worthless yet demanding more and more before they've even crossed the threshold.
We have a work ethic problem that now runs very deep across the whole spectrum of society. The Baby Boomers have raised an entire L'Oriel generation.
And while all this is going on, the usual people and their off spring keep their heads down and plod on and deliver. But these people, again across all walsk of life, are looked down upon and pilloried by the lazy, feckless and jealous.
I agree with your assessment.We also have the problem that post the 70s, we spent the 80s and 90s knowing that if we wanted to build a company we had to avoid British labour if we had any desire to succeed. There is no escaping the fact that the British worker contributed significantly to their own decline. The effects of which we still see today insomuch as you can hire a Pole for less and they complete the job and don't rob you. It will take a long time and a lot of hard work for the British labourer to undo the image problem that it has created for itself.
I recall being in a meeting where the single reason the firm decided to outsource a call centre to India was not economic but that no one in the company could face running a team of British call centre workers and all their sick notes, excuses and the admin hassles.
I've also spent 10 years watching graduates become more and more unemployable and worthless yet demanding more and more before they've even crossed the threshold.
We have a work ethic problem that now runs very deep across the whole spectrum of society. The Baby Boomers have raised an entire L'Oriel generation.
And while all this is going on, the usual people and their off spring keep their heads down and plod on and deliver. But these people, again across all walsk of life, are looked down upon and pilloried by the lazy, feckless and jealous.
Our problem, as a nation, is that we are self-absorbed.
Take the enormous load of time-wasting bureaucracy: while the Chinese are forging ahead with real work and getting things done, we're constantly being stopped in our tracks by self-indulgent, largely unnecessary regulations and form-filling.
And for what, to potentially save 3 lives a year. Well I'm sorry, there are 7 billion people on this planet now, the human race isn't exactly facing extinction. Bureaucracy is stifling the enjoyment of the many and holding the nation back.
Take statutory paid holidays: another great example of British self-absorption. Why should companies be legally obliged to pay their workers to go on holiday for up to a month each year? It's ridiculous, no wonder so many jobs have been outsourced to countries where companies don't have to put up with this kind of crap.
Honestly, if the UK is going to succeed, we need get over ourselves.
Brighton Derly said:
Our problem, as a nation, is that we are self-absorbed.
Take the enormous load of time-wasting bureaucracy: while the Chinese are forging ahead with real work and getting things done, we're constantly being stopped in our tracks by self-indulgent, largely unnecessary regulations and form-filling.
And for what, to potentially save 3 lives a year. Well I'm sorry, there are 7 billion people on this planet now, the human race isn't exactly facing extinction. Bureaucracy is stifling the enjoyment of the many and holding the nation back.
Take statutory paid holidays: another great example of British self-absorption. Why should companies be legally obliged to pay their workers to go on holiday for up to a month each year? It's ridiculous, no wonder so many jobs have been outsourced to countries where companies don't have to put up with this kind of crap.
Honestly, if the UK is going to succeed, we need get over ourselves.
We have one of the most passive workforces and populations in the industrialised world. Our unions don't take part in the running of businesses, as they do in Germany, they don't go on strike for no reason at all, as they do in France, and if you think that they don't provide value for money then I suggest a holdiay in south Italy.Take the enormous load of time-wasting bureaucracy: while the Chinese are forging ahead with real work and getting things done, we're constantly being stopped in our tracks by self-indulgent, largely unnecessary regulations and form-filling.
And for what, to potentially save 3 lives a year. Well I'm sorry, there are 7 billion people on this planet now, the human race isn't exactly facing extinction. Bureaucracy is stifling the enjoyment of the many and holding the nation back.
Take statutory paid holidays: another great example of British self-absorption. Why should companies be legally obliged to pay their workers to go on holiday for up to a month each year? It's ridiculous, no wonder so many jobs have been outsourced to countries where companies don't have to put up with this kind of crap.
Honestly, if the UK is going to succeed, we need get over ourselves.
This country is superb in certain aspects. No country can hope to manage it in all. IT has been mentioned. Another is motor racing. F1 technology is largely British based with just the one other team.
I assume it is not your life, or that of anyone in your family, that is being put at risk.
You live, and run a business?, in a stable country. You make money from this country's stability. But you don't seem to want to pay the cost of it. Workers are passive partlty because they do get holidays. You want them to work 52 weeks a year? Then look to the Mediterranean Africa and the Gulf states.
What is called the typical reaction to innovation from the British worker is in fact enlightened self interest. The much maligned Luddites were in fact not initially objecting to machinery but merely the fact that they were put out of work and were left starving. What did the industry owners' expect. It is obvious what they wanted - more profit.
For a short period of time I worked in a unionsed factory. I did not like the way my union committee
were running things so I put myself forward and was duly elected. It changed my attitude to bosses, I can tell you.
It came in very handy when interviewing offenders when I became a police officer because I could tell when people were telling lies. Bosses would say one thing and do something else entirely once they'd got what they wanted. The ones at that firm were comapletely without shame. I decided to follow their example.
From being a 'loyal' worker I took my skills - I'd done a lot of self financed training - and sold them to other firms. As soon as I got the offer of another higher paid post I'd move on. Two small firms shut once I'd left, although my leaving wasn't the sole cause. I was accused to being selfish: perhaps I should have been a businessman and then I could moan about these lazy staff who, just because they worked all week for me, wanted to take the occasional holiday. Oh, and those who moved from firm to firm just because they got more money.
It strikes me that union officials and bosses are identical in their aim. They just want what's good for them and theirs. And if it kills three people a year, well there's always someone to take their place, the worlds full them.
I have to agree about many people in this country being self absorbed.
MX7 said:
Twincam16 said:
It was the other way round. We based ours on theirs
I don't think we did. Ours was introduced in 1944, and theirs was part of the post war restructuring.DJC said:
Given up all hope? Wtf?
All hope of what?
I just showed you the roadmap from the past to the future and you are determined to wish to see us returned to the past!
What small minded, lacking in aspiration, negative job and industry do you think Ive work in and do? Please do inform me, Id love to know.
I don't want to go back to the past, but have you noticed how China are exploiting for their own National wealth, the natural resources available to them? The past, for me it was hard work but at least very rewarding both in terms of financial reward and personal satisfaction. Do you not know that sometimes you have to go back to see the future? If we could extract and use coal from the U.K. then I have no doubt that the extraction techniques would be far removed from that used last century. My hopes in this particular industry may be some distance away in terms of time but I find having positive thoughts is the only way forward. We need people in the U.K. who are forward thinking, determined and positive, no point in casually accepting second best. Its only my point of view, if you think I'm an idiot so be it. All hope of what?
I just showed you the roadmap from the past to the future and you are determined to wish to see us returned to the past!
What small minded, lacking in aspiration, negative job and industry do you think Ive work in and do? Please do inform me, Id love to know.
Twincam16 said:
MX7 said:
Twincam16 said:
It was the other way round. We based ours on theirs
I don't think we did. Ours was introduced in 1944, and theirs was part of the post war restructuring.Digga makes some excellent points.
Certainly, the works council model whilst imperfect, appears to have served Germany relatively well; it foistered a non-antagonistic workplace psychology that avoided the bulk of Britain's woes during the 70s and 80s, as countless millions of days of lost productivity simply bled from our little island.
Whilst the 'Robbo v Edwards' type shows undoubtedly took centre stage, egged on by searing, riven, political dogmas, we punters in the audience, as it were, have to take our share of the blame.
Sure, the argument about crap motors causing the demise of our car industry is difficult to counter in the face of a hewn from stone, 1979 C2 Audi 100, say but it didn't prevent our gallic brethren loading up on their own versions of the life-wiltingly wretched Marina 1.8 (never mind the 1.3!)
In this respect, we British as a public are fundamentally wired differently to the more 'hive minded' permeation that defines the local, global competitive cultures and with a population some million (I am quite sure) higher than the figure usually trotted out for public consumption it all becomes quite unsustainable and in time, the only outcome will be some form of quasi nationalised dystopia since the potential invokers of the violent purge we probably require are too fat to oblige.
Then again, Britain has never really been a milk and honey zone; other than a brief decade or three after the war, it's always been a bit grim.
It is simply farcical and naive in the extreme to think you can create a sea of burgeoning high tech bods; there has to be sufficient economic imbalance to empower/motivate the achievers (many of the thrusting Tomahawks who bestride PH, for example) whilst keeping everyone else sufficiently well off/wealthy in a historic/relative context that basic existence is, for want of a better expression, 'pleasant.'
To some extent, the hippy societies of Scandanvia achieve this and the price of this is an adjustment of and in individual/societal attitude; we want our Zonda R but we are deeply troubled by the notion of any impoverishment in our midst.
So, we take a GT3-RS, instead and the whalers from Trondheim, for example, don't feel too peeved and everyone can mince about all lardy-de-da Gunner Graham, as it were.
In our country, we shouldn't baulk at the notion of mass re-employment/some subsidy for potentially (globally) uncompetitive endeavour - coal, steel, The Panther 6, etc - we should be screaming at the incidence of tax, per se since it is tax (and regulation, for that matter) which is the cancer eating away at the heart of all bodies in economic peril.
Perhaps if we abandonned our ridiculous obsession with democracy and worried more about the real freedoms that only the lowest tax economies can afford, we'd emerge from the miasma of bourgois mediocrity that has plagued Albion since The Restoration.
And who's to blame? I'll tell you. That infernal Chakrabarti woman: you can't go sodding anywhere without here judgemental scowl glaring at you like some puritanical magistrate. She's got sod all to say and she's saying it too loud.
Certainly, the works council model whilst imperfect, appears to have served Germany relatively well; it foistered a non-antagonistic workplace psychology that avoided the bulk of Britain's woes during the 70s and 80s, as countless millions of days of lost productivity simply bled from our little island.
Whilst the 'Robbo v Edwards' type shows undoubtedly took centre stage, egged on by searing, riven, political dogmas, we punters in the audience, as it were, have to take our share of the blame.
Sure, the argument about crap motors causing the demise of our car industry is difficult to counter in the face of a hewn from stone, 1979 C2 Audi 100, say but it didn't prevent our gallic brethren loading up on their own versions of the life-wiltingly wretched Marina 1.8 (never mind the 1.3!)
In this respect, we British as a public are fundamentally wired differently to the more 'hive minded' permeation that defines the local, global competitive cultures and with a population some million (I am quite sure) higher than the figure usually trotted out for public consumption it all becomes quite unsustainable and in time, the only outcome will be some form of quasi nationalised dystopia since the potential invokers of the violent purge we probably require are too fat to oblige.
Then again, Britain has never really been a milk and honey zone; other than a brief decade or three after the war, it's always been a bit grim.
It is simply farcical and naive in the extreme to think you can create a sea of burgeoning high tech bods; there has to be sufficient economic imbalance to empower/motivate the achievers (many of the thrusting Tomahawks who bestride PH, for example) whilst keeping everyone else sufficiently well off/wealthy in a historic/relative context that basic existence is, for want of a better expression, 'pleasant.'
To some extent, the hippy societies of Scandanvia achieve this and the price of this is an adjustment of and in individual/societal attitude; we want our Zonda R but we are deeply troubled by the notion of any impoverishment in our midst.
So, we take a GT3-RS, instead and the whalers from Trondheim, for example, don't feel too peeved and everyone can mince about all lardy-de-da Gunner Graham, as it were.
In our country, we shouldn't baulk at the notion of mass re-employment/some subsidy for potentially (globally) uncompetitive endeavour - coal, steel, The Panther 6, etc - we should be screaming at the incidence of tax, per se since it is tax (and regulation, for that matter) which is the cancer eating away at the heart of all bodies in economic peril.
Perhaps if we abandonned our ridiculous obsession with democracy and worried more about the real freedoms that only the lowest tax economies can afford, we'd emerge from the miasma of bourgois mediocrity that has plagued Albion since The Restoration.
And who's to blame? I'll tell you. That infernal Chakrabarti woman: you can't go sodding anywhere without here judgemental scowl glaring at you like some puritanical magistrate. She's got sod all to say and she's saying it too loud.
DonkeyApple said:
The reality is that we require mechanisms that will create employment for large numbers of manual labourers, with an employment spectrum that allows the harder working and the brighter to rise through the ranks.
Surely what we need is for those only qualified for manual labour to get some useful skills. There is no mechanism to create demand for workers with nothing to offer.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff