Lex wrote:
The major problem seems to be that the various governments over the last 20odd years (especially Maggie, bless her) have made it very easy for foreign companies to take British firms over, and have got rid of most 'protectionist' practices in the name of 'enterprise'. 'Our Tone' seems to have been too busy being Dubbya's lackey to have done anything about it.
Maybe we should take a lead from our European counterparts & embrace the bits of the EU that work for us and basically ignore the rest.
Why blame the government? It's not the government's fault. Most of these companies are owned by private individual or shareholders. When the British government did interfere with business it was an absolute disaster.
Would you want to go back to the 1960s, when British companies produced shoddy goods that we had to buy because import duty was sky high on imported goods. Or the 1970s when the government pumped millions into loss-making businesses?
The big difference between Britain and Europe is that French people tend to buy French cars. Germans buy Germans cars and so on. British people stopped buying British cars when imports became affordable and you had to wait months to get your shoddy British car as the factories were so inefficient.
Then there's the matter of the foreign businesses keeping British people in jobs: Nissan, Honda, Ford, and so on.
There are many emerging nations that have a readily available cheap workforce against which British wages cannot compete. This company is closing down its manufacturing, but keeping its design in the UK. Something that is commonplace these days.
