Buy British: our salvation?

[Fatman2]

freecar said:

Yes let's get rid of all imported goods, we'll be eating grey paste before long!

We don't grow hardly any of the good things we all enjoy in this country and if we did the price would be ridiculous.

Oh and the link is 404!

Hmm I don't know.

I'm eating a perfectly ripe conference pear grown by a Mr. Adrian Scripps from Kent. Very tasty and perfectly British.

Oddly enough a vast amount of the produce in M&S or Waitrose is sourced from the UK nowadays.

[Bebee]

tonym911 said:

Bebee said:

Remind me again, what do we make that I might want to buy? Apart from a loaf of bread that is!

The question is what COULD we make that you might want to buy. Trying to look ahead here.

I see, Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You............JFK.

Ok, I want a Merc,Porker,BMW quality British made bread van.

I question often in my mind why the zee Germans are better than us at making stuff, I can't think why, are we still gloating about winning the war and more interested in strikes, than to get our heads together and knuckle down to making anything that will outlast the products of other countries, I say not yet, we will at some point I know it.

[Fatman2]

Maxf said:

Bebee said:

Remind me again, what do we make that I might want to buy? Apart from a loaf of bread that is!

We make some awesome hi-fi stuff. Some of the best audio equipment you can buy is British.

Surely we could grow a good deal of our own food if we went back to buying things which are in season?

Indeed, up till recently I had stuff from Naim, Roksan, Systemdek, and TDL.

I still have stuff from ProAc and Roth and am planning on something from AudioNote at some stage as well as a Michel turntable.

[EDLT]

Maxf said:

Bebee said:

Remind me again, what do we make that I might want to buy? Apart from a loaf of bread that is!

We make some awesome hi-fi stuff. Some of the best audio equipment you can buy is British.

Surely we could grow a good deal of our own food if we went back to buying things which are in season?

We make a lot of high end products in general, and quite well too. We can also make a few mass produced things, so long as it is run by a foreign company.

[OdramaSwimLaden]

bobbylondonuk said:

the list of British products is a good idea.

I'll start:

Jaguar....oh!
Landrover.....oh!

[king arthur]

oyster said:

Good grief, where do I even begin with this one.....?
What about all those people currently employed in imports (finance, marketing, sales, transports, business services etc.)?

Why wouldn't they be re-employed by the British businesses that benefit from Britons buying British?

oyster said:

What happens when other countries do likewise? I presume you have a plan for how to deal with the millions of jobs that will be lost from our exporters too?

Are you saying that if we stop buying Spanish apples, Americans will stop buying Jaguars? I don't think it works like that.

If the only reason foreigners buy our products is because we buy theirs then it's a pretty sorry state of affairs. How come we buy so many German cars? They don't buy ours.

[Fatman2]

I think there needs to be a clear distinction between manufacture and design. We probably don't manufacture as much as we did but we still have a massive design input into a great many things.

Sadly science and engineering is dying off very slowly due to a lack of recognition from joe public and the fact that we're selling our secrets to up and coming countries.

I honestly don't know how we solve this as a nation but I have utmost faith in our government to lift us from the decay

[anonymous-user]

If we adjusted our approach to buy more British produce from British owned companies surely, amongst other things, that would benefit us as it would increase government tax revenue to make some in-roads into the government deficit?
I think we need to re-assess what we feel about quality, longevity, price and value. I think we've gone too far down the road of price, have no idea of value, and have forsaken quality and longevity for a cheap product. Hence why China are doing so very well!

[otolith]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

There's an assumption there that the Chinese can't make quality, durable goods, and that they can't make them cheaper than we can.

[freecar]

tonym911 said:

freecar said:

We don't grow hardly any of the good things we all enjoy in this country and if we did the price would be ridiculous.

Two questions: why, and why?

You're kidding right?

Climate.

We can't successfully grow many different varieties of fruit here let alone the other products.

British grown tea?

British grown coconuts?

It's totally possible to grow these things here if we do them inside and heat the greenhouses, but that is very expensive and is not worth the investment.

Life is far too modern for us to try to become self sufficient, the cost of doing it would be ridiculous.

[Norfolkit]

freecar said:

tonym911 said:

freecar said:

We don't grow hardly any of the good things we all enjoy in this country and if we did the price would be ridiculous.

Two questions: why, and why?

You're kidding right?

Climate.

We can't successfully grow many different varieties of fruit here let alone the other products.

British grown tea?

British grown coconuts?

It's totally possible to grow these things here if we do them inside and heat the greenhouses, but that is very expensive and is not worth the investment.

Life is far too modern for us to try to become self sufficient, the cost of doing it would be ridiculous.

Seriously how many fking coconuts do you eat in a year, seriously.
This country has a superb climate for growing stuff bar the tropical, bananary, pineappley type stuff.
We get almost all of our fruit and veg from the local farm shop, way better quality than a supermarket and beats them out of sight for price (on local stuff). If you want to live on a diet of tropical fruit and flying fish fair enough but to say 'We don't grow hardly any of the good things' (sic) is frankly rubbish.

[obob]

Can't grow mangoes, tea, pineapples, coffee. There's a few vineyards but probably not enough to meet demand. These things I have everyday.

All the high quality stuff is fair enough but how many people can afford a pair of Loakes shoes for a couple of hundred? It's all low volume stuff as we can't produce stuff at decent value.

[marshalla]

obob said:

All the high quality stuff is fair enough but how many people can afford a pair of Loakes shoes for a couple of hundred? It's all low volume stuff as we can't produce stuff at decent value.

We used to be able to produce good quality, high volume, low price.

And I dispute your use of the word "value" at the end of that sentence, btw.

[williamp]

sinizter said:

After having paid 40-50% tax on earnings to begin with, I am not going to give away more money due to some misplaced feeling of nationalism.

Why is it mis-placed? Keeping your cash in the UK is a good idea. keeping local people employed means they have more cash in their pockets, so they will spend it in shops, bars, etc and demand will grow for a higher quality of living- nice bars emerging from long-closed boozers, etc etc

It makes everywhere a nicer place to live, with less boarded up shops
A sense of community will develop
It will reduce crime, as more people will have a purpose in life
More people in employment means more tax returns, meaning more money spent on the NHS, schools, roads etc etc
More people in employment means less on benefits- less scroungers, less drain on resources, more availalbe for schools, NHS, roads etc etc
YOUR standard of living will improve

whats not to like? A misplaced sense of british "fair play" to other countries meaning they deserve you cash more then someone in the UK??? Worried about breaking some nonsensical EU law, when then EU itself seems intent on self destructing long before this will ever reach a court of law?

I always buy british whenever I can afford to do it. I tried a German car, its too unreliable. The next will be built in britain.

[freecar]

Norfolkit said:

freecar said:

tonym911 said:

freecar said:

We don't grow hardly any of the good things we all enjoy in this country and if we did the price would be ridiculous.

Two questions: why, and why?

You're kidding right?

Climate.

We can't successfully grow many different varieties of fruit here let alone the other products.

British grown tea?

British grown coconuts?

It's totally possible to grow these things here if we do them inside and heat the greenhouses, but that is very expensive and is not worth the investment.

Life is far too modern for us to try to become self sufficient, the cost of doing it would be ridiculous.

Seriously how many fking coconuts do you eat in a year, seriously.
This country has a superb climate for growing stuff bar the tropical, bananary, pineappley type stuff.
We get almost all of our fruit and veg from the local farm shop, way better quality than a supermarket and beats them out of sight for price (on local stuff). If you want to live on a diet of tropical fruit and flying fish fair enough but to say 'We don't grow hardly any of the good things' (sic) is frankly rubbish.

Look at the ingredients on the food you eat.

Then come back and apologise!

Had a cup of tea today? Or coffee? Orange juice? Sugar? I could go on but I hope you accept that there are a fk of a lot of things we all have that can't easily be replaced.

We could grow these things here but the cost would not be accepted.

Don't even get me started on electronic goods, cars etc.

The idea of buying British would be a world on little choice and higher prices.

[obob]

marshalla said:

obob said:

All the high quality stuff is fair enough but how many people can afford a pair of Loakes shoes for a couple of hundred? It's all low volume stuff as we can't produce stuff at decent value.

We used to be able to produce good quality, high volume, low price.

And I dispute your use of the word "value" at the end of that sentence, btw.

Why?

How many people find value in £300 shoes, the people on here might kid themselves that they last for years but my Dad's had a pair of Clarks that he's worn every day for 12 years. I've got a pair of shoes from Topman worn loads over 5yrs and still going. Now that's value.

[elster]

There should be a buy British campaign for sure.

However it needs to be in every other country than ours.

[macar]

EDLT said:

We make a lot of high end products in general, and quite well too. We can also make a few mass produced things, so long as it is run by a foreign company.

Triumph motorcycles, owned and run by an Englishman and (mostly) built in Hinkley. Why don't our police forces run these terrific British machines?

[ExChrispy Porker]

I make things out of Oak.
There is no decent British Oak,( we made ships out of ours) so I use French or Eastern European.
It's as simple as that really.

[macar]

ExChrispy Porker said:

I make things out of Oak.
There is no decent British Oak,( we made ships out of ours) so I use French or Eastern European.
It's as simple as that really.

Have you planted any trees for future generations of craftsmen?