Britain's shame... how did we forget how to make things ?

vegster · Oct 22, 2015

It's been a rather awful few days for me watching Cameron and Osborne suck up to the Chinese president. So, we are unable to build our own nuclear power stations unless we get help from the French and Chinese and of course, they then have the opportunity to make money out of us as the electricity generated is going to cost us a darn sight more than present.

A month or so back we were sucking up to the Japanese to build our trains for us too so where did it go wrong ? Soon we will lose what remains of our UK Steel industry too ( although its almost all owned by overseas companies ), when it's gone you can't bring it back.

If you look at the Victorians they built infrastructure and built it to last and with some style as a bonus, nowadays about the best we can make is coffee. We have now signed a deal which saves China the inconvenience of targetting us with a few missiles as soon we will have 3 working nuclear bombs in place to save them the bother.

When Michael Gove declared that Jeremy Corbyn was " An enemy of the State" for his declared views on nuclear weapons had he not considered DC's shameful sellout ?

W.C. · Oct 22, 2015

vegster said:
It's been a rather awful few days for me watching Cameron and Osborne suck up to the Chinese president. So, we are unable to build our own nuclear power stations unless we get help from the French and Chinese and of course, they then have the opportunity to make money out of us as the electricity generated is going to cost us a darn sight more than present.

A month or so back we were sucking up to the Japanese to build our trains for us too so where did it go wrong ? Soon we will lose what remains of our UK Steel industry too ( although its almost all owned by overseas companies ), when it's gone you can't bring it back.

If you look at the Victorians they built infrastructure and built it to last and with some style as a bonus, nowadays about the best we can make is coffee. We have now signed a deal which saves China the inconvenience of targetting us with a few missiles as soon we will have 3 working nuclear bombs in place to save them the bother.

When Michael Gove declared that Jeremy Corbyn was " An enemy of the State" for his declared views on nuclear weapons had he not considered DC's shameful sellout ?

It's something I've often wondered about too, when exactly did Britain get bad at making things. I've been around the world a little bit and when ever I come back to the UK it's something I find very noticeable. Reminds me of the IT crowd joke with the 'made in Britain' stickers.

Pavilionaire · Oct 22, 2015

Nonsense - our economy is diverse and thriving. We're making a balls up, we're make a hash and we're making a pig's ear. What more do you want?

spring hall convert · Oct 22, 2015

Thatcher and Blair.

Anything after them, the horse had already bolted, to be absolutely fair to the current shower.

I loathe the fact that the Tories can use Blair as an example of Labour running down industry when we all know that Blair is far closer to them than he is to the current Labour Party.

vegster · Oct 22, 2015

We are just cheap tarts hanging around at the bar waiting for the next high roller to come in then go all gooey eyed when they get their wallet out.

skipper734 · Oct 22, 2015

I was thinking about this the other day, not so much making stuff but inventing stuff. Most of the stuff we as a country invented has been given away, developed and built by America.
The last few things I can think of that were actually invented and built in this country were the wind up radio followed by Mr Dysons Vacuum cleaner.

Theatre of Trees · Oct 22, 2015

spring hall convert said:
Thatcher and Blair.

Anything after them, the horse had already bolted, to be absolutely fair to the current shower.

I loathe the fact that the Tories can use Blair as an example of Labour running down industry when we all know that Blair is far closer to them than he is to the current Labour Party.

Goes much further back than that. Possibly 1920s-30s though the war offered a stay of execution and broken rade patterns meant we continued to make many of our doestic items into the 1950s. Fron there you are lookig at failure to modernise, failure to observe trends for exports, poor labour relations, poor management, end of Empire which allowed Dominions to make their own choices, poor government procurement policies, oil price rises in the 1970s. One interesting factor is the role of the stock market, firms have always been encouraged to float to expand which opens them up to hotile takeovers from abroad. unlike the French we don't protect valuable home industries.

Theatre of Trees · Oct 22, 2015

Add to that an educational system which puts more emphasis on classics than engineering. That comes from a Public School educated elite.

Bold Seagull · Oct 22, 2015

And while this is going on, we're letting another UK industry slip through our fingers.

Just because current economic factors make importing steel right now a more viable option, doesn't mean that will always be the case. We let these industries go, and in 5 or 10 years when the economic dynamics change we realise we're held to ransom on all our steel importing.

We rescued the bankers, didn't really punish them, or impose any punitive restrictions, and yet we cannot save the steel industry that thousands in this country rely on. Letting this go is a short term saving that will have long term consequences. After all the lessons we should have learned about the loss of our industries through our recent history, and yet we appear to be repeating the same mistakes.

beorhthelm · Oct 22, 2015

we make pleanty of things, tend to be higher end tech that isnt so well known, or its designed here for manufacture on large scale plants elsewhere. all your mobiles and tablets will be using ARM designed chips.

people want to pay less for goods so companies pay less for components and materials. we dont make steel as cheap as elsewhere, then Chinese overproducing dumps the price, so the industry suffers. do you expect a company to continue to subsidise a loss making factory, if so for how long? Redcar has lost some 1bn in 3-4 years iirc, its simply not a viable factory. that said in the case of steel there is a case for strategic manufacturing, but then this is already being addressed by large subs. what you are seeing is companies looking for a hand out while its a news story.

end of the day, generaly, we the consumer have voted on where we want prodcuts made and chosen where ever is cheapest.

Danny-Boy · Oct 22, 2015

W.C. said:
It's something I've often wondered about too, when exactly did Britain get bad at making things. I've been around the world a little bit and when ever I come back to the UK it's something I find very noticeable. Reminds me of the IT crowd joke with the 'made in Britain' stickers.

Seempls. When Maggie and her Cronies decided we didn't need Steel, Coal, Shipbuilding etc. (unionised) but could prosper on banking and commercial earnings (non-unionised)..

HH Brighton · Oct 22, 2015

Danny-Boy said:
Seempls. When Maggie and her Cronies decided we didn't need Steel, Coal, Shipbuilding etc. (unionised) but could prosper on banking and commercial earnings (non-unionised)..

This.

Pretty disgusting whats gone on this week with the Chinese being treated like royalty, deals to build new nuclear power stations whilst cutting back on solar energy, our own steel industry crumbling, Junior Doctors hours, Tax Credits. The trouble is enough people in this country stopped caring about others to enable this to happen.

Bold Seagull · Oct 22, 2015

HH Brighton said:
This.

Pretty disgusting whats gone on this week with the Chinese being treated like royalty, deals to build new nuclear power stations whilst cutting back on solar energy, our own steel industry crumbling, Junior Doctors hours, Tax Credits. The trouble is enough people in this country stopped caring about others to enable this to happen.

The electorate effectively tied the noose and handed the rope over.

pastafarian · Oct 22, 2015

If anyone gets bored knocking the country here are two links with some light reading

some incredible scientific advances this century especially in medicine,helped out by great British ingenuity
http://www.britsattheirbest.com/ingenious/ii_21st_century.htm

some of the best minds and manufacturers in Specialist Cars
http://www.smmt.co.uk/wp-content/up...cturing-a-uniquely-British-success-story1.pdf

Rule Britannia

matski_98 · Oct 22, 2015

beorhthelm said:
we make pleanty of things, tend to be higher end tech that isnt so well known, or its designed here for manufacture on large scale plants elsewhere. all your mobiles and tablets will be using ARM designed chips.

Exactly. We make (and invent) plenty of things.

Times have changed and countries like China and India now specialise in heavy industry because they have the physical resources, the space (and critically) a readily available, cheap workforce to work in factories. While the UK (and other countries in Europe and the West generally) have moved into the knowledge based economy. For example engineering, finance and IT are some areas which we, as a country, excel at and are world leaders. We have a growing economy based on sectors like this and employ hundreds of thousands of people doing so.

I'm not saying the demise of our manufacturing industry isn't a loss to the country in some way but times have changed and to say we don't make things anymore is doing us a bit of a disservice.

Bold Seagull · Oct 22, 2015

pastafarian said:
If anyone gets bored knocking the country here are two links with some light reading

some incredible scientific advances this century especially in medicine,helped out by great British ingenuity
http://www.britsattheirbest.com/ingenious/ii_21st_century.htm

some of the best minds and manufacturers in Specialist Cars
http://www.smmt.co.uk/wp-content/up...cturing-a-uniquely-British-success-story1.pdf

Rule Britannia

That is great, of course we can be very proud. However there is a great irony in celebrating our famed expertise in car and vehicle manufacture when we are allowing our steel industry to disappear.

Man of Harveys · Oct 22, 2015

Didn't I read somewhere that more cars are being manufactured in the UK than ever before? I could be wrong.

Hiney · Oct 22, 2015

When I was at B&Q, I remember talking to a buyer about why all the garden furniture was being bought in from China.

He said that it was cheaper to buy 10,000 garden furniture sets from China, then it was to get them from a company in Bradford. The quality was largely an irrelevance, it was ALL about the COST

How have we allowed this to happen.

beorhthelm · Oct 22, 2015

Man of Harveys said:
Didn't I read somewhere that more cars are being manufactured in the UK than ever before? I could be wrong.

true, and apparently we make more cars in Nissan's Sunderland plant alone than whole of Italy, and export more than anyone apart from the Germans. not bad for a dead industry.

matski_98 · Oct 22, 2015

Hiney said:
When I was at B&Q, I remember talking to a buyer about why all the garden furniture was being bought in from China.

He said that it was cheaper to buy 10,000 garden furniture sets from China, then it was to get them from a company in Bradford. The quality was largely an irrelevance, it was ALL about the COST

How have we allowed this to happen.

Its the global economy. If you want to buy a good quality, hand made garden set from a company in Bradford then you can still do that. Its just that most people would rather buy something cheap from B&Q with the expectation that they'll be back buying another set in a couple of years when the old one has fallen apart. People don't really buy things to last anymore, they buy things for convenience.

Another example would be clothes shops like H&M, Primark and New Look. People know they are buying crap quality but they do anyway because they know, at the end of the season, they'll chuck it all away and buy something new.

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Britain's shame... how did we forget how to make things ?

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