Dyson job losses

[toppstuff]

Tuna said:

'Achieved' implies that it was previously far lower and has dragged itself up to that position.

Not true though is it? Amusingduck's 'meaningless statistics' are relevant here. The UK's position has remained pretty much unchanged during membership of the EU. So to imply membership has had any effect at all on our standing globally is... meaningless. Is that enough context?

You ignore history.

The UK came into the second half of the 20th century deeply in debt and with an economy on a war-based footing with next to no commercial enterprise - as everything had been thrown into the war machine.

The countries of Europe, we can now see, ultimately jumped up out of the ashes of WW2 and in the case of Germany enjoyed a massive dividend in terms of economic development and the establishment of a manufacturing base that went on to dominate the continent. We gave up much of our capacity and ended up evolving into a service based economy - we gifted much of our heritage away ( aerospace to the US for example).

Being in the EEC ( then onto the EU ) could, perhaps have allowed us to catch the coat tails of the growth of Europe and of Germany. Without the EU, maybe, we would never have kept our position as the 4th /5th largest economy?

Of course this is something we will never know and I am making up this theory as I go, but it seems to have some logic to it...

[vxr8mate]

toppstuff said:

Tuna said:

'Achieved' implies that it was previously far lower and has dragged itself up to that position.

Not true though is it? Amusingduck's 'meaningless statistics' are relevant here. The UK's position has remained pretty much unchanged during membership of the EU. So to imply membership has had any effect at all on our standing globally is... meaningless. Is that enough context?

You ignore history.

The UK came into the second half of the 20th century deeply in debt and with an economy on a war-based footing with next to no commercial enterprise - as everything had been thrown into the war machine.

The countries of Europe, we can now see, ultimately jumped up out of the ashes of WW2 and in the case of Germany enjoyed a massive dividend in terms of economic development and the establishment of a manufacturing base that went on to dominate the continent. We gave up much of our capacity and ended up evolving into a service based economy - we gifted much of our heritage away ( aerospace to the US for example).

Being in the EEC ( then onto the EU ) could, perhaps have allowed us to catch the coat tails of the growth of Europe and of Germany. Without the EU, maybe, we would never have kept our position as the 4th /5th largest economy?

Of course this is something we will never know and I am making up this theory as I go, but it seems to have some logic to it...

Logic, where?

One might argue being in the EU held us back with restrictive, long drawn out trade deals, us contributing more than we got out and signing away much to support lesser countries develope.

[Melchett1905]

1. Didnthappen

"Interesting this morning at local tip to see 3 Dyson hoovers in the skip. They looked quite new. As I left a lady arrived with another. I asked her if it had broken. “No. I’m just disgusted at the hypocrisy of Dyson”. #dumpthedyson"

https://twitter.com/Beagle141/status/1088001489241...

[PBDirector]

toppstuff said:

The UK came into the second half of the 20th century deeply in debt and with an economy on a war-based footing with next to no commercial enterprise - as everything had been thrown into the war machine

we gifted much of our heritage away ( aerospace to the US for example).

This, this and thrice this. We were fked, and we gave up so much.

our financial sector, knowledge from our tax havens and cheltenham capabilities have kept us a seat at the top table.

[bitchstewie]

Melchett1905 said:

#Didnthappen

"Interesting this morning at local tip to see 3 Dyson hoovers in the skip. They looked quite new. As I left a lady arrived with another. I asked her if it had broken. “No. I’m just disgusted at the hypocrisy of Dyson”. #dumpthedyson"

https://twitter.com/Beagle141/status/1088001489241...

I can't see anyone doing this either.

[steve_k]

bhstewie said:

Melchett1905 said:

#Didnthappen

"Interesting this morning at local tip to see 3 Dyson hoovers in the skip. They looked quite new. As I left a lady arrived with another. I asked her if it had broken. “No. I’m just disgusted at the hypocrisy of Dyson”. #dumpthedyson"

https://twitter.com/Beagle141/status/1088001489241...

I can't see anyone doing this either.

I took the Dyson years ago and bought a Henry

[bitchstewie]

steve_k said:

I took the Dyson years ago and bought a Henry

I wouldn't buy a Dyson because of the reputation they had (have?) in the industry for breaking.

But if I had a perfectly working one I wouldn't bin it because of Dyson moving his HQ.

The chances of someone doing that and doing it at exactly the same time as someone who tweets about Brexit a lot happening to be at the local tip to speak to them and ask them why seems too much of a stretch to me.

[PBDirector]

steve_k said:

I took the Dyson years ago and bought a Henry

Henrys are amazing but a lot of fine dust passes through and gets blown back out the other side. Miele all the way for me! (I’ve owned all three brands)

[cardigankid]

PBDirector said:

toppstuff said:

The UK came into the second half of the 20th century deeply in debt and with an economy on a war-based footing with next to no commercial enterprise - as everything had been thrown into the war machine

we gifted much of our heritage away ( aerospace to the US for example).

This, this and thrice this. We were fked, and we gave up so much.

our financial sector, knowledge from our tax havens and cheltenham capabilities have kept us a seat at the top table.

Exactly true. If you really want to boil your piss on this topic read a book called Empire of the Clouds by James Hamilton-Paterson. America was determined to hole Britain before the water line, and quite apart from the indebtedness, every penny of which had to be repaid, Britain had and has this attitude that if you give the Americans the Crown Jewels they will be nice to us. The Special Relationship. I like America and Americans, they have a basic capitalistic just do it approach, resources and land, but in no way are they going to prop up Britain on the world stage other than as a glove puppet, and hopefully a cheap one.

At the same time power was abrogated by the British Civil Service in two world wars and they have never really relinquished it. I have little faith in politicians and about the same in civil servants' ability to run businesses. They both however have an enormous sense of entitlement and superiority. I understand that the military are now being briefed to step in to prevent chaos if Brexit goes badly. Great. That went well on the Somme.

I suspect some people on here were not around in the 60's and 70's and therefore did not witness the wilful self destruction, almost like a death wish, of what in the 1950's had been a poor but proud and hopeful nation. I won't bore you with the detail. We are however now going to re-enact precisely that. It seems clear to me that the British economy is going to dip whatever form of Brexit actually happens, assuming it does. The best we can say about Brexit is that the value of the pound will drop which will make British exports cheap and should boost the shares of some British companies. The lesson of history however is that our reliance on imports immediately negates that benefit and fuels inflation. Who remembers 'the pound in your pocket will not be devalued' in 1964? The next big risk is going to be a Corbyn led Labour government, and the extreme left wingers need us out of the EU in order to carry out the economic reforms which they want, which I would classify as Trotsky II. But there is no magic money tree. Our currency is kept afloat by confidence alone, and tax and spend economics have been proved many times not to work. If the confidence goes, the currency goes, and it will happen extremely fast. We have been there before. Anyone remember 'I'm Backing Britain'? No? That also went well. The Americans are never going to bankroll that, nor would I.

Dyson, and many others, are already in the process of packing their bags, as this will be an economy best exploited from outside it. If you doubt that, take a look at the central London residential property market. Saigon 75 isn't in it.

What we should be doing is getting into serious talks with the Germans and getting a deal which is essentially remain, without the ECJ or the Euro, then have a second referendum on that. If the UK and Germany work together that is a world beating proposition. Neither the Americans not the Chinese are going to save our bacon.

[matchmaker]

steve_k said:

bhstewie said:

Melchett1905 said:

#Didnthappen

"Interesting this morning at local tip to see 3 Dyson hoovers in the skip. They looked quite new. As I left a lady arrived with another. I asked her if it had broken. “No. I’m just disgusted at the hypocrisy of Dyson”. #dumpthedyson"

https://twitter.com/Beagle141/status/1088001489241...

I can't see anyone doing this either.

I took the Dyson years ago and bought a Henry

You do see a lot of broken Dysons at our local tip. I've never seen a Henry there. My wife, who is a cleaner and has been most of her working life, swears by Henry vacuums. She has used a Dyson and wasn't impressed.

[Tuna]

cardigankid said:

Dyson, and many others, are already in the process of packing their bags, as this will be an economy best exploited from outside it. If you doubt that, take a look at the central London residential property market. Saigon 75 isn't in it.

If Dyson moves it's research operation or lays off staff, you'd have a point. If James Dyson himself started selling off some of the 25,000 acres of land he owns in the UK, you'd have a point. He's not.

As for the post war stuff - indeed, it's true, we ended the war deep in debt and with near catastrophic structural problems. We rebuilt from that and the 50's and 60's saw the UK finding it's feet - two whole decades of hard work before we joined the EEC. Did the EU subsequently have a dramatic effect on our position on the world stage? Not as much as the transformation of union power in the 80's and Heath's commitment to the 'white heat of technology' in the 70's. As ever, correlation does not equal causation.

Does the EU have the capacity to benefit the UK in the future - even more open to question at present.

It's a persistent fallacy that we trade with Europe because of the EU (or, indeed, our own government). We trade, innovate, build and visit largely despite the interventions of bureaucrats.

Edited by Tuna on Saturday 26th January 16:20

Edited by Tuna on Saturday 26th January 16:22

[Mort7]

We've had two Dysons. A DC07, which blew up its motor, then a DC14, which also blew up its motor. We then discovered that we could get the motor and all other faulty bits replaced for around £70. The motor blew a further two times, by which time some of the plastic body had degraded to the point where it was falling apart. This wasn't replaceable.

The filters had been changed regularly, and it was only used for daily domestic purposes. Utter crap IMO, and to add insult to injury the engineer told us that they only cost £26 to build new.

We now have a Shark. Far better design, works better than a Dyson IMO, and cheaper.

[Melchett1905]

Mort7 said:

We've had two Dysons. A DC07, which blew up its motor, then a DC14, which also blew up its motor. We then discovered that we could get the motor and all other faulty bits replaced for around £70. The motor blew a further two times, by which time some of the plastic body had degraded to the point where it was falling apart. This wasn't replaceable.

The filters had been changed regularly, and it was only used for daily domestic purposes. Utter crap IMO, and to add insult to injury the engineer told us that they only cost £26 to build new.

We now have a Shark. Far better design, works better than a Dyson IMO, and cheaper.

I have a Dyson and a Shark. The Dyson is older and still going fine. The shark we had to buy a new head for it as the flexible hose split.

[Murph7355]

Melchett1905 said:

I have a Dyson and a Shark. The Dyson is older and still going fine. The shark we had to buy a new head for it as the flexible hose split.

Was bought a DC16 as a gift when they first came out. Still going strong despite lots of abuse.

[TTmonkey]

matchmaker said:

You do see a lot of broken Dysons at our local tip. I've never seen a Henry there. My wife, who is a cleaner and has been most of her working life, swears by Henry vacuums. She has used a Dyson and wasn't impressed.

Picked up a Dyson at the tip recyclables about ten years because I needed a part.... the flex hose. The thing looked almost brand new. Took it home for a fiver, removed a hair clip that was causing it to shriek when running, and it has served us faultlessly for about 12 years.

Throw away society is shameful.

[Tuna]

As always, you'll remember the bad experiences. I've had Miele, Electrolux, Vax, and Dyson - all worked very well even when some of them were quite cruelly abused. We moved to a Dyson handheld after the in-laws had a great experience, and the fact you can just pick it up and do a pretty good job makes sure it gets used regularly.

Dyson is reportedly less reliable than Miele or Numatic (according to Which), but is on par with Vax, Electrolux and Hoover. In our case, the design of the Dyson is the reason why the Miele is sitting unloved in the cupboard. Horses for courses and all that.

[ex1]

Tuna said:

It's a persistent fallacy that we trade with Europe because of the EU (or, indeed, our own government). We trade, innovate, build and visit largely despite the interventions of bureaucrats.

I agree.

This is exactly why we are going to be fine.

[cardigankid]

Tuna said:

cardigankid said:

Dyson, and many others, are already in the process of packing their bags, as this will be an economy best exploited from outside it. If you doubt that, take a look at the central London residential property market. Saigon 75 isn't in it.

If Dyson moves it's research operation or lays off staff, you'd have a point. If James Dyson himself started selling off some of the 25,000 acres of land he owns in the UK, you'd have a point. He's not.

As for the post war stuff - indeed, it's true, we ended the war deep in debt and with near catastrophic structural problems. We rebuilt from that and the 50's and 60's saw the UK finding it's feet - two whole decades of hard work before we joined the EEC. Did the EU subsequently have a dramatic effect on our position on the world stage? Not as much as the transformation of union power in the 80's and Heath's commitment to the 'white heat of technology' in the 70's. As ever, correlation does not equal causation.

Does the EU have the capacity to benefit the UK in the future - even more open to question at present.

It's a persistent fallacy that we trade with Europe because of the EU (or, indeed, our own government). We trade, innovate, build and visit largely despite the interventions of bureaucrats.

Tuna old son, I’m not sure if you are trying to agree with me but you have got so much wrong there it’s hard to know where to start.

If Dyson owns 25,000 acres in UK, and I’ll take your word for it, it means nothing either way. Keep or sell, it won’t benefit the rest of us.

Next, it’s a common belief that what matters is keeping the R&D function in UK irrespective of where the manufacturing takes place. That is an old delusion that was sold to Margaret Thatcher’s Ministers in the 80’s when she was mistakenly destroying the industrial infrastructure and encouraging asset strippers. Creative destruction, don’t you know? Keep the high value jobs and let the blue collar factory jobs go to India or wherever. They duly parroted it out at supporters business lunches to show how clever they were. The reality is however that ultimately the research and design function ends up being located where the manufacturing happens because they are so closely related. That is how China got so powerful.

Britain did not make itself rich and powerful in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. The post war Labour Government implemented a lot of high profile policies like dismantling the empire, nationalisation and the NHS. However, they basically continued the wartime regime including rationing, both because they couldn’t afford not to, and because that was the route to where they wanted to go. This was the period when Orwell wrote 1984, and you can understand why. They believed that they were building a socialist Britain. The public were so sick of all the austerity that they voted Churchill back into power in 1951. By this time Churchill was gaga, but his dashing younger acolytes wanted to draw a line in the sand and return to the days of glory, not realising they were gone for good. Remember you are dealing with people who were young men in the days when Britain was world no.1, and could not grasp how things had changed. An alliance with the USA was always the foundation stone of Churchillian politics, so giving the USA all the technology we possessed seemed a logical step. They did not reciprocate, wanting above all else to ensure that Britain’s days as a world power were over. This became clear when they told us to back out at Suez, which ended Eden’s Prime Ministership. I have a friend who, hard as it is to believe, was dropped in with the Royal Marines and went through the whole embarrassing saga.

The Labour Party was turned into a national force by the Second World War, encouraged the power of the unions, who came to control them, and a large part of the country believed in the socialist future. An even larger number at that time, and I was one of them, still believed in Britain’s importance in the world, were fiercely patriotic and believed that it was a matter of time before the lefties would be swept aside and British industry would once more be the best in the world. We still had a lot of major international companies, and the Commonwealth was portrayed as a modern equivalent of the old empire, which Britain led by right. And Britain had got richer, but this was due to the technology boost provided by the war. The entire world had got richer. British cars were regarded as the best you could get. German cars were a poor and rust prone distant second. The overwhelming majority of the cars on the road were British.

Unfortunately, the politicians and the civil servants had given away many of our technological advantages, and Britain’s industries were chronically inefficient, often poorly managed, and subject to serious and growing industrial unrest. This was financed and organised from the USSR and its objective was to make British industry so inefficient that it would collapse. Capitalism would have been proved a failure and the new Socialist state could rise and take over.

The Conservatives were tired and tarnished by failure, and following Harold Macmillan (‘Winds of Change’ and ‘You’ve never had it so good’ ) and Alec Douglas Home, both of whom I met, albeit rather later, Harold Wilson won a landslide victory for Labour in 1964. It was Harold Wilson not Edward Heath who made the ‘White Heat of technology’ speech at the Labour Party Conference in 1963. It was a rallying cry on the lines of ‘wonder weapons are going to save us’. In fact the drive to make Britain a leader in technology failed, Labour actually cancelled major technology projects like Blue Streak and TSR2, principally due to American influence and pressure.

I cannot tell you how disappointed those little boys in primary school were when TSR2 was cancelled. We read the Eagle, we read the Hotspur. We knew TSR2 was better than anything the Americans had and the sense of betrayal was palpable. That wouldn’t happen today. Not remotely. We had maps of the world on our school jotters and the Commonwealth was coloured pink. It was easily two thirds of the worlds land mass.

Labour couldn’t make ends meet. The pound was devalued to try to make British exports more competitive. Taxes were increased. The Unions were appeased, loading costs on British companies. Through the 60’s quality dropped, prices rose inexorably. The Jaguar of 1970 was not the quality product of 1960. Britain could not compete. Industrial unrest was referred to as ‘the British disease’. The only successful industry of the time was asset stripping.

Edward Heath won the election of 1970, and that was the last time I remember the people generally thinking, this is it, now we are going to get things sorted out and fight our way back. Edward Heath was, on a charitable assessment, and without opening up some of the nastier allegations relating to him, an unpleasant arrogant prick. The unions basically destroyed him. Fuel ration cards were distributed, and fuel was limited in supply. You had to queue for half an hour to buy two gallons at one service station, then do the same at another one. There were strikes and power cuts. The country was down to working three days a week, the other days there was no electricity and you were supposed to stay at home. This is the strong successful country you are portraying as having no need of the EU. Heath took Britain into the EU which was a capitalism based economic union, to try to get some kind of economic stability back.

Labour returns. Industry goes from bad to worse, and in 1976 we end up begging the IMF to help us out. The country is on the point of civil war, with private armies being set up by people like David Stirling. Caught between the unions and reality, Labour lose the 1979 election to Margaret Thatcher, who renegotiated the terms of our EU membership to a far more favourable basis. That was someone who knew how to negotiate. Tony Blair / Gordon Brown gave that position away as a PR stunt. Ronnie Reagan wins the Cold War, and Mrs T smashes up the unions in a way the old woman Heath was unable to. However, she also smashes up Britain’s industrial base in the belief that we can survive as a service economy. She has absolute faith in the City of London and deregulates them. Britain is a service economy, dependent on the City of London, with the economy being kept afloat by importing cheap goods from the Far East and reselling them at ridiculous profits in retail centres.

By the time the Tories realise their mistake, the only answer is to systematically sell off every company utility or asset Britain has, often to foreign investors. Reindustrialisation is done by foreign owners. Politicians get looked after when they retire. This whole process gets so corrupt and venal that by 1997 the Tories are so discredited that New Labour come to power under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They simply continue the Tories policies on the understanding with the City boys that they will fund the social policies to keep their voters happy. 2007 - Credit Crunch, since then we are working on printed money. And please note, when we next need to raise funds, there is nothing left to sell off.

I could go on, but I hope you get the point.

[anonymous-user]

cardigankid said:

...she was mistakenly destroying the industrial infrastructure...

...she also smashes up Britain’s industrial base...

It doesn't matter how many times you repeat it. It's not true. Industrial production rose 20% under Thatcher and another 15% in the following decade.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 27th January 04:24

[zygalski]

That's not the full story.
From the very same page you took your graph from: