At least Nissan is being positive in a time of crisis in our Island story.

Sadly, last year, the parent company of McCormick decided to close the Doncaster factory and move the manufacturing assets to Italy. A couple of years before, Massey Ferguson moved its UK facilities to France. I shall not even speak of the Rover debacle.

Whilst there is a rational free-trade-economics part of me which says that it does not really matter where my tractor or anything else is manufactured, there is another part of me that rebels against this doctrine. And it is not just the patriotic part of my soul that mourns the loss of our manufacturing base.

Every time that a UK based company is bought by foreign owners, the profits slip from the UK to abroad. Every time a company is stripped of its assets and the whole manufacture is transfered overseas, we lose profits, jobs and the benefit of turnover trickled down through smaller manufacturers locally. Furthermore, manufacture abroad is not a guarantee of quality or reliability. How many times do we buy household goods only to find that it has fallen to bits just after the guarantee has run out? China has a lot to answer for in this respect. We continue to buy shoddy goods on price and wind up paying more in the end and losing the prosperity of employing our own because of it. We pay many times over for our rampant consumerism that is fuelled by the disposal culture.

Whilst I too am pleased that Nissan have made this decision, I would like to know just how a Conservative government would encourage the UK manufaturing industry to flourish and stay here, without being protectionist. I suggest that it will take a lot more than "de-regulation" to shift the balance permanently in our favour.

"the decline in sterling against the Euro in recent months, making the UK more competitive on price than Euroland."

Can this not be interpreted to mean that a decline in sterling is a good in its own right and indicative of a strong economy? I know you qualify the statement with the words "on price", but I always took a declining currency as an indication of weakness in an economy and the decline itself as the currency market's attempt to acknowledge this weakness. The fact that it then goes some way to correct imbalances is a welcome by-product but still an indication of weakness.

Is the pound not in decline because of growing national debt, private debt, poor credit, poor regulation, high tax, poor education etc? And does this decline not simply reflect the world's acknowledgement that the pound and, therefore, the UK is not as valuable as we thought it was.

Not being an economist, I may have got my wires crossed, but the best way to do well in business is, as you suggest in your final paragraph, not by the veil of a declining currency, which also tends to import inflation, but the inherent competitiveness of our economy: low costs, good and limited regulation, excellent legal system and an educated and skilled workforce.

I would hate for people to start thinking it the solution to all our problems to continually run down our currency in the mistaken belief that it is a signal of economic virility rather than the manifestation of weakness it really is.

Reply: Yes, you are right that devaluation reflects weaknesses in the economy. However, it does mean our exports are cheaper.

BTW. Were the 717 amendments to the Housing and Regeneration Bill, a new record for our increasingly dysfunctional legislation drafting machinery?

The good bit yesterday was the Statute Law (Repeals) Bill. It may have repealed only 260 whole statutes and 68 partial statutes; but it is a start! Pity we only have one of these Bills every two and a half years on average.