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

[beorhthelm]

We as a country are having our identity washed down the river by these idiotic politicians...

I'm afraid this is what you get when you elect a load of Old Etonians. They imagine that getting screwed by the bigger boys is the normal way of things.

why blame the politicans? when was the last time you went out and brought British? when there was plenty of British electronic goods did you buy the British one or the Japanese/German one? buy BP/Shell or the cheapest fuel? Vodafone or anyone else? champagne or local sparkling? i know there's not alot of everyday British goods to buy, but its from decades of change. the British want value for money, most emphasis on the money, less on quality and little to nothing on country of origin.

 

[Juan Albion]

Phil wasn't so far away. "Pearl"? Yeah, right...

 

[ferring seagull]

One of the factors involved in the demise of the shipbuilding industry was one of 'demarcation' and this from local knowledge of a very major shipbuilder.

Trade Unions were so powerful that they wrote their own agendas so, when a contract was awarded to the shipbuilder for say a large passenger liner, all the various departments were not synchronised and management had insufficient control of the production process.

I know, for example that this resulted in (specific example) carpenters fitting out cabins only to have their work undone by plumbers, electricians then arriving to do their particular work hence involving great expense (and in some cases with a detrimental effect on the original high quality workmanship)

The effects on cost go a long way to understanding the demise of the industry and why other nations have grasped the nettle.

It is a fact that representatives from the far east visited the UK shipyards to understand their procedures and quality and took that knowledge away to subsequently 'undo' the British Industry.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Oi

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.

why blame the politicans? when was the last time you went out and brought British? when there was plenty of British electronic goods did you buy the British one or the Japanese/German one? buy BP/Shell or the cheapest fuel? Vodafone or anyone else? champagne or local sparkling? i know there's not alot of everyday British goods to buy, but its from decades of change. the British want value for money, most emphasis on the money, less on quality and little to nothing on country of origin.

This. I can remember the huge campaigns in the 60s to buy British. It's why the Mini was so celebrated as it was British.

Cheap expendable workers in the Far East were mass producing goods for less money & flooding our market. Workers with no rights being paid the equivalent of £5 a week, making fridges, TVs, motor bikes, etc.
Automation meant that jobs were being lost in the engineering sector. There's no such thing as a qualified draughtsman now, it's all autocad. There's more steel being produced in Sheffield now, than the 80s when all the mills were being closed.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Regarding the steel a major reason was the very high energy costs in this country it's more expensive to make steel here than other European countries never mind China.
And the reason for this is because the EU gave a massive subsidy to keep the cost of energy down and keep us competitive but our treasury decided to sit on the money instead.
But the Government said there was little they can do.
More lies and bullshit from this evil Conservative government that so many mugs voted for because they only listened to the scare tactics from the Tories and The Daily Mail.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

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.

When Thatcher got in. She destroyed British manufacturing and replaced it with the service industry (banking, *******, etc).

 

[Hampster Gull]

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.

When the unions and Labour destroyed the economy in the 70s. We are great at niche manufacturing though

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

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

So, so true.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

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 ?

Where did it go wrong?

When we lost our empire and could no longer force other countries to send raw materials to our country to process them before sending them back?

Or when we signed up to free markets and were unable to set tariffs on imports to protect our industry from cheap foreign imports? (although we would lose a lot of our foreign market competitiveness because of retaliatory tariffs on our exports to them)

Or when the minimum wage was introduced when staffing costs (*indirect and direct) were pushed up far higher than in other countries, meaning it was cheaper to produce abroad and ship it to England than produce it here? (*indirect in terms of suppliers costs carry a staffing cost too as well as a staffing costs associated with staff directly employed by a business)

Or the introduction of the welfare state, which has to be paid for by taxation, meaning Governments have to raise more and more from individuals and businesses to keep these services going? (- eg. high fuel prices and the knock on effects for the costs of transporting raw materials / finished goods)

And so on.....

 

[gordonchas]

Thatcher deliberately killed our manufacturing base when she decided to turn us into a service economy. She broke the unions who might have opposed her. She allowed whole industries to slide into decline.

Despite what practically every contributor to this thread seems to think, the value of British manufacturing has risen consistently since the 2nd World War.

Traditional heavy industries were in terminal decline way before Thatcher, and anyone who cares to look at the experience of any other industrialised western country will find exactly the same trends as we saw in Britain.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Based on 2012 figures....

Average hourly wage in China USD 1.81

Average hourly wage in the UK USD 13.60

Therein lies the answer as to why we have very little heavy industry left in the UK.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Based on 2012 figures....

Average hourly wage in China USD 1.81

Average hourly wage in the UK USD 13.60

Therein lies the answer as to why we have very little heavy industry left in the UK.

And the solution?

 

[The Spanish]

if we could be paid for whinging and bitching the UK would be doing even better than the trillion dollar economy it is. if people believe the negative narrative that the whole economy is based on the futures exchange then good luck to them it just isnt true.

people generally can see no further than that and have no idea what other markets we lead in.

no one on here moans that brightons economy is based on selling rock, stags do's and conferences and we should never have given up fishing.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Based on 2012 figures....

Average hourly wage in China USD 1.81

Average hourly wage in the UK USD 13.60

Therein lies the answer as to why we have very little heavy industry left in the UK.

The Chinese workforce can also be sacked at a moments notice, as there are plenty more where they came from. I've seen it in action.

 

[beorhthelm]

And the solution?

the only possible solution is to trend water until that wage gap balances out to such a point that transportation, energy and other costs mean its just as cheap to make it here. or improve productivity, so more is made per hour. automation is one way to see this achieved, we may well see production of many goods return to these shores as it becomes more sensible to have a robot make it here rather than a chap in China.

 

[Beach Hut]

I understand all of that, it's just so SAD that China can do that sort thing so much cheaper than we can.

There are other factors to this:

Cost of living in UK means higher wages than China, having the NHS needs employees to contribute so higher wages but balance is health care accessible to everyone.

What we can do and do very well is precise high end engineering but what is appalling in the UK is we pay tax credits as a lot of wages do not match the high cost of living.

You know me I am blue blooded in football and politics but the tax credits system has to be changed.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

the only possible solution is to trend water until that wage gap balances out to such a point that transportation, energy and other costs mean its just as cheap to make it here. or improve productivity, so more is made per hour. automation is one way to see this achieved, we may well see production of many goods return to these shores as it becomes more sensible to have a robot make it here rather than a chap in China.

Probably right, there. But with robots on the job, what happens to the workforce? Other work I suppse (Corby). The other (quick) solution is to ban Chinese imports, which would mean reprisals. In the medium term, a more subtle approach involving preferential contracting for UK mega projects. I think the Tories are staggerimg around like drunkards right now, though....

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Based on 2012 figures....

Average hourly wage in China USD 1.81

Average hourly wage in the UK USD 13.60

Therein lies the answer as to why we have very little heavy industry left in the UK.

And the solution?

Subsidise our industry to the tune of $11.79ph per worker, paid for by the 40% of the wages that they will pay in tax from that ($5.44ph paid in tax) to keep that industry going? - rather than using that subsidy money to pay for things like the NHS, Policing, etc.....(which again have no exportable value and no real income generation potential to be able to pay for themselves, costing the tax payer)

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Probably right, there. But with robots on the job, what happens to the workforce? Other work I suppse (Corby). The other (quick) solution is to ban Chinese imports, which would mean reprisals. In the medium term, a more subtle approach involving preferential contracting for UK mega projects. I think the Tories are staggerimg around like drunkards right now, though....

China is one of our biggest customers, so we would be losing the export market.

 

[beorhthelm]

What we can do and do very well is precise high end engineering but what is appalling in the UK is we pay tax credits as a lot of wages do not match the high cost of living.

the problem with this is its circular: wages dont match the cost of living because theres a lack of wage demand due to employees being subbed. a genius masterstroke to get millions of people dependant on the state. now its £35bn taken out of the economy to give out as the government (rather than the economy naturally) sees fit. but for a lot of industry, espcailly heavy industry, energy is a big factor as well, its got very expensive to to run factories here.

but then again that cost of living issue... thats a complex beast itself, along with a desire to have stuff cheap we want a lot of it. how much is the real cost of living verses the cost of expectation? somewhere along the line we developed a sence of entitlement in this country, little luxuries arent good enough, we want big luxuries. this feeds the problem both ends, beacuse we want to have lots, cheap, but dont (didnt) want to work in the factories. some like to claim Thatcher destroyed industry, we know this is political tosh. industry had already declined massivly by the 80s. if it was profitable to make things here wouldnt good Tories do so? of course they would, and do. just not those same everydays items we had made in the past to deteriorating standards. 70's cars were a joke and much of the lamented industry was crumbling by the time the 80s rolled around. 1980 we were considerably behind the French with over 20% lower GDP, 30 years on we are about the same and spent most the past 15 years ahead, yet somehow those decisions back then are all wrong. seems something was done right.