In the 1970’s, Ted Heath, his fellow politicians such as Tony Benn, civil servants and unions etc, had first destroyed the aircraft industry, then the ball-bearing industry, fishing, then the car industry, and were in the process of following up with the shipbuilding industry and others. And helicopters. And the political destruction of GEC (employing 250,000 and the biggest company on the FTSE ). And we’re still doing it. Just three examples among hundreds of thousands of others: ARM, Cadbury’s, almost Unilever, now Vauxhall and British Steel. All huge world class industries. Gone! Squandered to feed politicians ego. Idly doing nothing.
Note: Industries were being softened up years before their actual death or dismemberment or sale.
Britain was the sick country of the West. Going downhill rapidly. And still is!
At the time there were three glaringly obvious things wrong with us: taxation, unions, and government interference. Industry was and still is to this day the perfect golden-egg-laying goose.
Government after government deliberately and with malice and stupidity either did nothing or made it worse. Successive governments seemed to believe and still do that the hysteria of Union leaders and Labour party MPs were the voices of the people. It was easy. Civil Service and a lot of substandard but noisy Labour MPs allowed the trap to be sprung.
In 1974 we joined the Common Market. Ted Heath and the establishment had already virtually destroyed Britain. They could see no other way out. They had no appetite. Brexit shows that they’re still failing. However, the 2016 Trade Union capture of the Southern Rail fiasco shows that they still have no clue. Nothing has been done or even discussed. They’re still just hoping it’ll all go away. Politicians have learned nothing.
From 1975 till now the EU managed to destroy all our Fishing, High Tech Manufacturing etc and left us with fraudulent finance, sandwiches and low tech cars. And industries made up of vices like gambling and drugs. And foolish bureaucracies such as compliance, fair trading, crime prosecuting services, regulators. Quangos to the left of us and NGOs to the right, and charities with sympathetic names to entice the weak minded.
From 1960 to 2000, the EU was flexing its muscles, and constantly making things more difficult. Making and selling British goods of world quality and technology world wide became more and more impossible. It became easier to sell goods to Papua New Guinea or Argentina than to Europe, but it became more difficult to make them. Staying in the EU became the soft (in the head) option instead of solving the real problems.
The real problems were taxes (obvious and hidden ), regulation (needed, but botched) of the financial sector, legal sector, education etc, and crazy Unions, their power structure, their corruption of purpose and power, by politicians of all parties. At least Cameron and Osborne tried to bring some sanity back. Some unions by the seventies were already moving on from the old model, but politics stopped all that.
We come to the crux of the matter. The three things wrong with us. In simple terms they were Taxation (tax kills companies ), Unions, Over-Government. Some new and simple ones can now be added for the future: Globalisation, feral banking/fiscal management, education, and (a mixed blessing ) the financial sector. Into this mix, Ted Heath, by arrangement with the EU, threw ‘The Abolition of Price Maintenance Act’ which purpose , despite the name, was to destroy manufacturing in Britain and replace it with Retailers Heaven: importing rubbish and selling cheap with no responsibility, no monetary or economic understanding, nothing … just take the money.
Every year this act destroys things a bit further and delights politicians with its absurd GDP consumerist measure. Destroy it and we gain in quality, curtailing the internet retailers who are basically smugglers and parasitical. GDP is increased (bad), but hides the fact that GDP/ person (GDP/C = per capita or living standard ) is dropping. Another example of proud politicians boasting while destroying.
GDP announces to the world that we are here to be screwed.
The world wants to trade with us, and always has. The Government doesn’t care. Governments hope they might be helping. They aren’t. At best only rarely or rather only as unintended consequences.
Chapter and verse on these matters are simple but need to be taken one simple, single step at a time. But they can be treated using simple project management tools or, if you prefer, simple maths tools or, preferably, by common sense and thought.
Undoubtedly an excellent article. I’ve been commenting that there used to be a ‘Quality Control Department’ in a company. Judging by the c**p now up for sale there is not now. I feel that there is very little I can do when goods are substandard, particularly when bought online. Perhaps when, soon, we are free of the EU we may set about restoring our previous high standards. But it probably does need much more overhauling of political and bureucratic institutions. Personally I don’t know all the answers and will have to judge as we go along.
I worked mid 1990s for British Steel and then, after exit from the ERM and subsequent devaluation, the company were making big profits – all that began to change when Blair took over and Brown privatized the BoE. (now even with a weak £ and permanent trade deficit, it has been made uneconomic to manufacture here, apparentty. Incidentally, for example, the single 40 yo radiator I replaced with a double – is now flaking with rust after 4/5 years)
It doesn’t really matter which which hue of enemies of the British people are at the helm, the top few go to their internationalist meetings (Balls was caught with a suitcase full of official documents, by the alt. media, at Bilderberg, when he searched for his ID) and get their orders. The damage has already been done and if it’s not the carbon fraud and other sabotage, such as EU policy, it’s the City of London with its outrageous power to create MONEY FROM NOTHING and simply buy up any public company.
It doesn’t matter how dedicated and clever people might be, it was decided (One guy said in that the decision was made in the 1930s) to shut this country down and I even suspect that the ridiculous union strife was engineered; if the British troops at the Somme could be persuaded to walk towards the enemy (giving them time to set up machine guns after the barrage) destroying their own livelihoods isn’t so unthinkable (probably the wrong word).
For me Britains economic decline may have commenced when Attlee and his chums were possessed of the theory that if big government/central planning could achieve so much in wartime then think of what it could achieve in peace time. And so this bunch of addled socialists aided by the compliant Conservatives and Liberals set off down the socialist road of public spending rolling out welfarism and nationalised industry. A perfect breeding ground for the growth of union militancy which cost Britain dearly. The ‘planners’ meant well of course but their folly set Britain on the road to uncompetitivness and loss of its appetite for industrial entreprenuerialism.
Not only the article but also the comments are excellent. I’m so glad we still have thinking and caring folk. I do hope that Boris succeeds. Mogg alone gives me hope
Add to that the CO2 enhanced Global Warming hoax, founded by Ken Lee Lay CEO of the Enron Corporation, publicised by Al Gore, the BBC, David Attenborough, the British Government and Educational system. Thus we have reached perfect death knell of all British Industry.
Ken Lay: heard George Galloway on AJones (Austin TX), before he got beaten up, saying how he was going down to Paraguay, where the Bushes have a huge ranch adjacent to a US base to look for Ken!! (I think it was to be called “Where’s Kenny Boy” – in collaboration with a well known internet financial guru)
Apparently there were many irregularities about Ken’s death – apart from all the ‘great and the (not so) good’, who were at his funeral – in a similar manner to the execution of Timothy McVeigh and (I believe), much documentation, relating to Enron was destroyed when Building 7 (allegedly) collapsed due to fire on 9/11 (the one the BBC reporter said – of the ‘Solomon Bros. Building’ – had already collapsed while it can be seen over her shoulder at through the window on Manhattan)
I agree with all of the above comments to an excellent article. I would add the Probation Service in the seventies aided and abetted by social services. I also witnessed some of the shenanigans going on during the miners strike which was a scandal.
Glen this is Brilliant! It’s something I’ve vaguely known since I was a wee skinny schoolboy down South in Africa. (My father spoke often about this).
As a young engineer in electricity distribution in Johannesburg I remember the brand names on equipment such as transformers and switchgear, Reyrolle, Hawker Sidley, English Electric etc. Almost the entire JHB electricity distribution system was ‘made in England’! A little searching reveals that some have survived here to a degree. But what shocked me when I settled in England was how hollowed-out heavy industry has become. I toured extensively at first, driving through villages seeing house upon house and always wondering: Where do they all work?
My first UK engineering job turned out to be a shut-down operation. First to go was the radiator plant and with it the radio repair facility in the same building.
Next to go was the world-wide administrative office which the team I was part of set up to manage the newly established radio repair centres in every country across the globe (excluding the US). My last task was to train Manuel (based in Pamela, Portugal) to do my job. Six months after I’d left I fielded my last question from Manuel. “Hey Michael, how do I …?” After I’d helped him as best I could I told him I was now losing touch with the business, he was on his own. I often wonder how he’s getting on. A nice enough chap.
Two additional things:
I suspect that the EU is but a part of the main problem which is MUCH further East. (The one with cheap electricity generated using coal.)
And the second, which in a way is part of the first, is the high cost of electricity being driven ever higher by the Green (red) Global Warming scammers.
And as for names, here’s one that’s bound to irk the ire of older, dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters that fits right in with Lyin’ Ted (Heath) and all the rest you’ve mentioned in terms of hollowing out British industry:
(At the time, who would’ve thought? She was THAT good!)
Margaret Thatcher http://webtv.un.org/watch/margaret-thatcher-united-kingdom-general-assembly-48th-plenary-meeting-8-november-1989/2286588196001?page=4
Which only goes to show that although ability in a politician is good, ability, especially extraordinary ability, when coupled with bad intentions can only be extraordinarily bad.
So, although we’ve seen a good start, perhaps even better than expected, still we must ask:
“Quo Vadis Boris”.
Thank you Michael . Incidentally in about 1952 or so I trainedas a Radio and Radar Mech. in the army. Hey Ho.
The comments by your correspondents hint at sabotage but don’t reveal the real culprits. Tories who had lost the will to govern. “No government dependent upon a democratic vote can agree in advance to the necessary..(or words to that effect) “the people must be led slowly and unconsciously into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences…” Peter Thorneycroft “Design for Europe” 1947.(see my article about the Party System on http://www.cravenfreedom.com.
Then there is this item which ties in with the socialist side of things.. “There is no proletarian, not even a communist movement that has not operated in the interest of money, in the direction indicated by money and for the time permitted by money and that without the idealists amongst its leaders (Red Robbo?) having the slightest suspicion of the fact.” Oswald Spengler “Decline of the West”. Allen and Unwin edition p 427.
Since we are led to believe that capitalism and communism are deadly opponents you need the key to unravel that apparent contradiction. Readers can contact me via the http://www.cravenfreedom website.,
I hope Tony Benn can be forgiven for his economic crimes. But mentioned here alongside the likes of Ted Heath et al. is more punishment than he deserves. I heard him speak fiercely against our EU membership alongside Christopher Booker at the Friends Meeting House Euston Road, years ago. He was easily the most articulate and outspoken eurosceptic member of the Labour Party in his later years.
This is a fair synopsis of our British problems.
Although I voted to join a Common Market, by the 1980s I disliked the EU, and now hate everything about it. Upon the referendum, and the storm of lies, by both sides, my mind was made up more than 30 years prior to the National decision. You can, I am sure, understand my anger that after three years from our vote, we are still in the EU !
Boris Johnson might, just might, be the PM to change our fortunes around. So far it looks good, but we will know more by the end of October. It was plain to see upon joining Europe, that our industry would have to give way to that of Germany and France, and our Governments and actions by our Unions, ensured this. The head of our Fifth Column, Heath, took my vote on the Common Market, but fell to the Unions with his ”Who Governs Britain ?”
I have an odd background. I have been MD of a Wholesale Company, but then a Shop Steward for the TGWU as well as the Branch Secretary. – 22 years in the first, and 12 years in the second. I have experienced more than most within the details of your ‘Economics Lesson’. ….. From the guidance given by Accountants, to the meetings in ‘Smoke filled Rooms’ at Transport House ! – How I made sense of it all is still a personal mystery !
I have never seen our Parliament in such a mess, nor such a dithering disaster as May, as PM ! Hopefully, we at last can say that we have a British PM. – If it becomes necessary to prorogue Parliament upon this EU question, then Parliament will only have itself to blame. Personally I would support Boris in this for the enactment of our Democracy, which has been so badly wounded by Mrs May, and the Labour Party’s self interest, ahead of National requirements !
You know all this then
I was there to, The business owners sat back on complacency, did not invest, refused to see the arising countries as competent to overthrow the British claim to be the best. The motorcycle and car industry were the most glaring examples, they have now proven that managers and owners have a case to answer. Not the British workers, Churchill said give us the tools and we will do the job, still stands!
Remember Red Robbo? Remember the Socialist/Communist dream? Which was actually a nightmare. The escalating and still flourishing ‘Social Services’ trough, into which the work-shy and the millions who are wallowing in ‘self-inflicted’ wounds have become not only accustomed, but which they demand with a fervour reminiscent of Bedlam – don’t put anything IN – just sit back and TAKE IT OUT. Who cares where the money comes from – just tell the Givernment to borrow, borrow, borrow. Short-sighted self-indulgent ignorant ‘consumers’ – consuming everyone else’s money – except their own!
No time to sit with the kids and speak of the glory of their forebears – no time to teach them self-restraint or personal liability and personal responsibility – Oh No – bung them the latest extortionately priced Nike or over-hyped ‘moblles’ – billions of pounds worth of Chinese sh-t hitting our retail shelves – subsidised by the slave-level wages of pathetic Asian slave factories. Great! “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” – somebody else will do it; somebody else will pay for it; somebody else is responsible – blame the Police, that’s ALWAYS a great excuse for escalating crime – NOT my little Johnnie – Oh No – not little Johnnie who gets home at midnight from the last gang-meeting!
I believe you Paul that you are right also that Corruption is a significant but smaller problem as you say. I also believe that quality ( Not labels ) is one key to the environment.
You are absolutely correct Len, The Japanese began the job by taking the Brit invented bearing materials and made top quality high revving engines for Motorbikes and Outboards and took our Markets immediately. They also improved the Quality of materials to take our and american car marketsd. Deservedly. British management after the war was mostly pretty poor as you say.. Investment as you say was apalling. But letus look at why.. Investment income was taxed at 19s 6d per £ . Would you borrow investment money at that tax rate. Course you wouldn’t. Would you invest your own Of course not.
Let us look at the other problems. Management . – All through the war firms of all sorts were flat out and straining every sinew to get it out through the door. No excuse. Investment for volume only. Payment patchy and variable. The young ones never allowed to fight.But most did.. As officers and died. Young aggressive management was scarce, andeasily seduced away. So the old managers with a key to the management toilets were everywhere. So To the workforce.
Untill the 60’s most workers were unbelievably glad to get back to work and live again. and gave short shrift to agitators, but by 1968. the workforce was changing and the war was over by 20 years and not enough had changed. All the 40 year olds that had fought had retired. 30 year olds were now coming up to retirement even the 18 year olds were experienced and gave little attention. However industry had mostly taken note. The exceptions were where mainly larger firms held sway , like the Cars, Shipbuilders,,steel makers, etc and their suppliers were stuck with very little or no incentive to improve ( Taxagain ) and were trapped as was the whole supply chain Patent holders had lost 20 years an oher countries now had your patents The country was a mess with no understanding of work or what supplied work. So obviously Politicians must as the only priority have tax, Heath and Wilson and others including Thatcherere baffled and useless.. So agitation was king .I’ve watched Thewhole process and been a part of of all of it.
What I am trying to do is give some understanding of all sides. And to the biggest problems that as a country we face. TAX and UNIONS are the prime problems . BOTH would welcome a change from the politically inspired and fostered political attitudes.
The people who work at all levels in a business are all dependant on the business and all are wanting its success. It needs to be equitably shared. Not the way the leftys or labour want it but equitably. And realistically So IT IS NEEDED NOW.
25 years ago I hoped UKIP might be ready and Doing its job … HA.
All I am saying here is ‘GET READY ‘ . Cause it is going to get serious.
A top article and tells it as it was and probably still is although it wasn’t all the fault of unions political decisions and management the work forces at many of the larger organisations refused to do much if anything about union representation. Some of the larger ‘strikes’ were an illustration of what the few could do to the many for their own political ends. Watching people vote their industries into oblivion had to be seen and witnessed to be believed, There was also another issue that you have missed out and that is the corruption which operated at a low and high levels in some industries and is now almost forgotten. By the way, ‘British Steel. is not the British Steel that many of may think of it’s now just a company.
Corruption nowexists almost everywhere now. After the war it was ver rare except in London. . NowadaysEverybody insists on a share ..usually 0.5 to 1 %, But partucularly in Government connected contracts.
The EU has been bleeding us dry with the assistance of our own governments. It has always been the intention to remove industry from UK over to Europe, making Germany the powerhouse at OUR expense. Such blatant treachery should have been punished. Instead these b’stards are given titles!
Excellent article.