The U.K. is suffering the consequences of her neo liberalism.
You complain about U.K. dropping its industrial base…,,which was ideologically driven by Thatcher…..and you say she is the answer
Do you know what day of the week it is?
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You complain about U.K. dropping its industrial base…,,which was ideologically driven by Thatcher…..and you say she is the answer
Do you know what day of the week it is?
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I'm referring to her character, her backbone, her traits. Sorry, I'll start to spell out exactly what I mean in all my posts from hereon in to ensure the less aware, the less educated understand.The U.K. is suffering the consequences of her neo liberalism.
You complain about U.K. dropping its industrial base…,,which was ideologically driven by Thatcher…..and you say she is the answer
Do you know what day of the week it is?
Part of the reason we are in the state we’re in is because of her lurch to the right. She was an opportunist portrayed as an idealist
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Labour and Tories have had three decades to reverse any negative elements of her time in office.
How's that going ...
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Not on your Nelly
Well, first let’s get it in context, Britain are 12th in world manufacturing and that’s 9% of our GDP so it’s not like we don’t manufacture things.
Sadly our industry was irreparably damaged in the 70s and 80s. We weren’t very good at it, essentially.
We have a world class financial centre, the 2nd most competitive on planet earth. We are very, very good at services.
Essentially if we want a good industrial base (and there’s good reasons to want that), we have to be good at manufacturing. We need a cheap pound and weaker labour laws to encourage that really and nobody wants that here really. Why? The countries we compete with have cheap currencies and weak labour laws.
When you say a good industrial base, what sort of things are we looking at. I know we make some steel, for instance, but I think it is speciality stuff, rather than basic stuff. What other areas would count. We make quite a lot of cars. I have read that the lowest end manufacturing is really clothing. That's where developing economies often start. Presumably we're not talking about going back to making socks. As you can see, I'm just randomly throwing out ideas!
Rolls Royce, British Aerospace etc.
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- The manufacture of food remained the largest division and represented 20.8% of total manufacturers' sales in 2023.
A narrow view, not really correct.
If you want a strong manufacturing base you need:
1) excellent technical education and a highly skilled workforce
2) low trade barriers ( Brexit damaged that)
3) excellent infrastructure
4) strong public services
5) a good planning system
Low corporation tax, cheap pound, weak labour laws are just the wet dreams of right wing libertarians……all that achieves is making ordinary citizens worse off and the wealthy richer.
Ignoring developing countries to be fair, as we all know developing countries like Vietnam et al, who are growing their manufacturing rapidly and represent the bulk of competition, particularly for lower skilled manufacturing, have little if none at all of the above, with public services barely existing at all in western terms, let’s have a look at Japan, a comparable developed economy.
1. Education. UK tends to outrank but Japan is high, likely to offer better technical education given they have enormous exporters situs in Japan. Even so, far more Japanese students are being sent to study here than vice versa. Suffice to say, we already have a world class education system.
2. Trade barriers. We have 0% tariffs and already comply with EU regs having to all intents and purposes remained aligned. Too much to list for the respective tariffs on Japan and UK but you can call this a tie.
3. Japan has much better infrastructure
4. Japan has a private healthcare system, through mandated private insurance schemes which are regulated in terms of cost and coverage and some of the costs are met by the state.
Japanese gov spending is 45% of GDP.
Uk is about the same.
Tie
5) can’t comment.
Labour laws
Very much a tie
Currency
Japan has and had a much weaker currency. The yen has been persistently weak and it fuelled a huge amount of the growth they had in the 80s.
Corporation tax
Uk 25% v 23.8%. Comparable.
we are to all intents and purposes equivalent to Japan other than infrastructure, but we have a far stronger currency.
I’ve tried to make this relevant by picking Japan and not say, China, Vietnam, or India (because most of the manufacturing centres in the world have none of what you listed, they have very weak currencies and labour laws.
He's not the brightest.
False argument
U.K. does not have a world class education system for industrial skills, our further education and vocational training is a constraint on industry
80% of UK manufacturers can’t find skilled staff
80% of UK manufacturers can't find skilled staff — Economy
70 percent of service firms have the same problem.
www.ecnmy.org
How Bad Is It?
In 2021, an IET report revealed that the STEM sector had a shortfall of 173,000 workers.Put simply, the slow rate of new, suitably skilled workers joining the industry is not growing enough year-on-year to significantly address this shortfall.
Firstly we do not have 0% tariff trade deal with EU
Brexit created very significant non tariff barriers such as:
Rules of origin checks
Sanitary and phytosanitary controls
Transit documents
Customs declarations
You claim we are “to all intents and purposes aligned” is simply wrong.
The hard Brexit meant we are now in a separate regulatory regime so there is no legal alignment, hence the need for a hard customs border.
The U.K. has even left REACH, which causes a big headache for U.K. manufacturers.
3) infrastructure
Decaying infrastructure damaging growth prospects warn manufacturers
- Almost half of companies say lack of good infrastructure is a barrier to accessing labour and skills and over a third of companies say it is slowing down decarbonisation.
- More than two thirds of companies say an industrial strategy would lead to greater investment in labour and skills, and innovation.
- Priorities for investment are road, broadband and electricity networks but there is also strong support for nuclear and hydrogen plans.
Decaying infrastructure damaging growth prospects warn manufacturers | RSM UK
Following the latest blow to infrastructure investment axing HS2, a new report by leading audit, tax and consulting firm RSM UK and industry body Make UK shows that UK infrastructure has got worse in the last decade. This poor infrastructure is a barrier to labour and skills and is holding back...
www.rsmuk.com
Public services:
2.2 million people’s work impacted by being stuck on NHS waiting lists
2.2 million people’s work impacted by being stuck on NHS waiting lists
Around 2.2 million people are seeing their work impacted by being stuck on waiting lists for NHS treatment, including many going on long-term sick leave or reducing their hours, analysis by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.
www.libdems.org.uk
Cutting corporation tax is not a magic bullet for increasing investment
Article
Private sector investment in the UK has fallen to the lowest level among G7 countries – fixing it will not be easy
Cutting corporation tax is not a magic bullet for increasing investment | IPPR
Later this week the chancellor is expected to deliver on Liz Truss’s campaign promise to cut corporation tax. In March 2021 Rishi Sunak announced an increa
www.ippr.org
Improving our manufacturing base and our economy generally will not be achieved by a race to the bottom on corporation tax, worker protections, environmental,protections.
False argument
U.K. does not have a world class education system for industrial skills, our further education and vocational training is a constraint on industry
80% of UK manufacturers can’t find skilled staff
80% of UK manufacturers can't find skilled staff — Economy
70 percent of service firms have the same problem.www.ecnmy.org
How Bad Is It?
In 2021, an IET report revealed that the STEM sector had a shortfall of 173,000 workers.
Put simply, the slow rate of new, suitably skilled workers joining the industry is not growing enough year-on-year to significantly address this shortfall.
Firstly we do not have 0% tariff trade deal with EU
Brexit created very significant non tariff barriers such as:
Rules of origin checks
Sanitary and phytosanitary controls
Transit documents
Customs declarations
You claim we are “to all intents and purposes aligned” is simply wrong.
The hard Brexit meant we are now in a separate regulatory regime so there is no legal alignment, hence the need for a hard customs border.
The U.K. has even left REACH, which causes a big headache for U.K. manufacturers.
3) infrastructure
Decaying infrastructure damaging growth prospects warn manufacturers
- Almost half of companies say lack of good infrastructure is a barrier to accessing labour and skills and over a third of companies say it is slowing down decarbonisation.
- More than two thirds of companies say an industrial strategy would lead to greater investment in labour and skills, and innovation.
- Priorities for investment are road, broadband and electricity networks but there is also strong support for nuclear and hydrogen plans.
Decaying infrastructure damaging growth prospects warn manufacturers | RSM UK
Following the latest blow to infrastructure investment axing HS2, a new report by leading audit, tax and consulting firm RSM UK and industry body Make UK shows that UK infrastructure has got worse in the last decade. This poor infrastructure is a barrier to labour and skills and is holding back...www.rsmuk.com
Public services:
2.2 million people’s work impacted by being stuck on NHS waiting lists
2.2 million people’s work impacted by being stuck on NHS waiting lists
Around 2.2 million people are seeing their work impacted by being stuck on waiting lists for NHS treatment, including many going on long-term sick leave or reducing their hours, analysis by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.
Cutting corporation tax is not a magic bullet for increasing investment
Article
Private sector investment in the UK has fallen to the lowest level among G7 countries – fixing it will not be easy
Cutting corporation tax is not a magic bullet for increasing investment | IPPR
Later this week the chancellor is expected to deliver on Liz Truss’s campaign promise to cut corporation tax. In March 2021 Rishi Sunak announced an increawww.ippr.org
Improving our manufacturing base and our economy generally will not be achieved by a race to the bottom on corporation tax, worker protections, environmental,protections.
Posting anecdotal links and AI bullet points isn’t an argument, especially given that you’ve selected them over a range of time periods to make the argument you need.
There are no tariffs of uk goods to Europe.
The comparison is UK to Japan, or UK to whomever is competing with the UK. Anyone can find an article bemoaning operational difficulties for any country in the world. Try it.
Here’s a link to an article THIS year about Japan’s labour shortage issue
Can AI help solve Japan’s labour shortages?
Japan is seeing if artificial intelligence can tackle its increasing shortfall of workers.
www.bbc.com
You’ve also posted from the Lib Dems (lol),
We export three times the manufacturing good to Europe as Japan do, although our menufacturung exports to the ROW are dwarfed by theirs. If we have such impossibly barriers (which are the same as Japan, the textbook case for a manufacturing power house) then they evidently aren’t causing us too many issues.
I’m not sure where you’re going with the healthcare one - Japan has lower waiting lists, are you keen on their private model?
As for the article on corporation tax, it says “it’s not a magic bullet”. The implication being it’s accepted it helps but it’s not enough alone. Which largely supports the peer reviewed evidence I posted that you didn’t read.
I’m suspecting here you’re quite young given how you’ve tried to argue this so I’m dipping out at this stage, suffice to say trying to explain to people who don’t want to learn and are here to create arguments and division, who are evidently unqualified and post links to the Lib Dems website to support factual analysis is not a good use of my Monday.
Feel free to dissect and rebut, but that’s the last I’ll say as I don’t think you are willing to be convinced and I’ve not been convinced either.
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