If a bus company buys a bus made abroad the impact of the transaction on the UK economy and state finances is very different to a bus company buying a UK made product. The overseas product requires the UK to acquire the necessary foreign exchange, which means either borrowing in a foreign currency or selling UK assets to overseas buyers to balance the UK’s balance of payments. Buying a domestic bus imposes no strain on the balance of payments and means no demand for foreign currency.
Buses are often bought with public subsidy, as many bus services are supported by Councils. The situation is even clearer where the public sector directly buys vehicles from foreign makers rather than domestic product. If a Council buys a home produced vehicle the state will get the benefit of the tax on the employees who made it and on the profits of the firm selling it. If the state buys a foreign product there is no tax gain from taxing the producers. The more we make at home the higher employment is, so the lower benefits to the unemployed can be.
When you look at countries like France and Germany you see that despite EU procurement rules their governments tend to buy domestic product in areas like vehicles much more than the UK does. The UK government should start taking into account the wider costs and losses of revenue from sourcing from abroad, and within international rules should seek better outcomes for domestic supply as other countries do.
The UK government is puzzling over whether and how to stop the rash of foreign acquisitions of UK companies and assets. One way to slow that tide is to buy less from abroad. The days of UK governments offering UK assets to foreign buyers and calling it inward investment seem to be coming in for some criticism.
August 3, 2021
Letâs just get back to what we are best at and that is engineering and development, build more factories to produce our buses and vehicles and grow more of the food we need, itâs not rocket science
August 3, 2021
The moment that ordinary people have decent jobs with futures they have a reason to vote Labour and to join unions – to preserve those along with their pay and conditions. They also feel a sense of solidarity with those around the country with similar livelihoods.
Your idea is, for that reason, unthinkable to many of today’s Tories.
August 3, 2021
Political history disagrees with your very strange theory MiC
Are you really claiming better off people tend to vote Labour more and join trades unions more?
Therefore the reverse is that worse off people tend to vote Conservative more.
Who knew.
August 3, 2021
Then I’m pretty sure you never worked in a Leyland factory in the 70’s Martin – because if you had, you wouldn’t want to go back to it I can assure you. Solidarity? Yes, both the workforce and management were pretty “solid” in terms of being thick headed.
As for people with decent jobs voting for Labour – I’m at a loss why they would want to do that. Once upon a time, Labour might have represented the ‘working’ man but that is just sheer fantasy now.
August 3, 2021
+1 so true IANT
August 3, 2021
It is interesting to observe how you twist things to your world view. The fact is that it is people in crappy jobs that need union representation who need to vote Labour. If people have âdecent jobs with a futureâ, they vote Tory because they donât want to pay even more tax to fund Labourâs client state and even worse money wasting projects.
August 3, 2021
That is not what happens. My old dad used to say, the moment a worker gets two pairs of socks he votes Tory. It’s a class thing. Still present in this country.
August 3, 2021
You live in a fantasy world.
Trade union membership levels as reported by the unions listed or scheduled in Great Britain
reached their peak in 1979 (13.2 million) and declined sharply through the 1980s and early 1990s.
From 1996 onwards the rate of decline slowed significantly, with occasional years of slight growth
interspersed with the general annual reductions in membership. In 2018-19 unions reported
membership at 6.70 million, down 15.7% from the 1996 level of 7.94 million
Membership has been rising on the back of the growth in low wage employment fostered by immigration, but it fell dramatically under the improving living standards produced by the Thatcher era.
August 3, 2021
MiC
I think you missed out ……do not have…..
Just out of interest MiC, have you ever been in a Union, or taken part in Union Company negotiations, and been a regular at Local Branch meetings.
I have, and was also a Union shop Steward back in the 1970’s attempting to get some common-sense back into matters when Red Robbo and others like him were trying to destroy business, jobs and government policies with his Communist thoughts and actions.
Yes there is a place for Unions even today, but it is sensible for both business and the Unions to work together for their mutual benefit, after all a Company who does not make reasonable profit cannot possibly afford good pay and conditions for its employees.
August 3, 2021
Red Robbo, Alan. That brings back memories. I never understood why the firm didn’t make him up to manager and give him car and expense account. Would have stopped his shenanigans in its tracks.
August 3, 2021
get real Martin. We are all aware of examples of silver-spoon-in-mouth owners/ managers.
However, as soon as Unions are involved the workers abandon personal bargaining, relying on idiot ‘everybody out’ tactics which are usually crystal clear destructive.
Instead of reasonable Board participation in understanding how to ensure labour force is efficient and productive, union leaders take up a ‘us against them’ stance which leads to confrontation, customer dissatisfaction, childish disputes and a sliding slope downhill for the business.
A worker should never need a union, they should be employed on need and merit.
August 3, 2021
The way house-building planned for our fertile land is going, there won’t be enough space to grow more of the food we need.
So short-sighted.
August 3, 2021
Mary M – – When the plan is for the UK to have a population of over 180 million there will be only one outcome.
August 3, 2021
+1
I still have some cutlery which I bought in the 1960’s, they show no sign of tarnishing and apart from showing the expected wear from use, they are still in very good condition. They were made from Sheffield steel. Cutlery bought after this has not stood the passage of time nearly so well.
August 3, 2021
British-made goods are always better than goods made abroad. They do usually cost a bit more, unfortunately, but you get what you pay for. Some people seem to fetishise foreign goods, but as the VW ‘dieselgate’ scandal proved, their reputation just a con. ‘The grass is always greener’ mentality seems to blind the Britain-haters into believing that foreign goods are somehow embued with some special stardust. The truth is that British technology, engineering and craftsmanship is actually the best in the world.
August 3, 2021
âBritish-made goods are always better than goods made abroad.â
Marks & Spencer in the days of the St. Michael logo and â90% Made in Britainâ.
Then they let the accountants cut costs by buying abroad and the quality disappeared.
Then customers disappeared.
August 3, 2021
+1
August 3, 2021
It’s not only buses, All their vehicles should be made or at best assembled within the UK.
They are only there because we pay them their grants and subsidies.
There is a strong arguement for all their office furniture and furnishings.
All public financed bodies should be instructed to use UK products in all their operations. If charities receive funding or grants same conditions apply.
August 3, 2021
You are quite right.
If the UK government buys from abroad do they take into account the loss of tax and NI contributions that would have been made by using UK firms when they calculate the UK price versus the import?
Then there is the “multiplier” effect of money being spent in the UK.
The much derided “I’m backing Britain” of yesteryear should be applied today,
August 3, 2021
+1
The Wirral side of the Mersey had many factories and engineering companies, culminating in Cammell Lairds, the shipbuilders in Birkenhead. In its heyday it employed approx. 27,000 people. Most families had a relative who worked there, or knew someone that did. My Uncle was a draftsman and did his apprenticeship there as well. One of my brothers and a cousin started their working lives as engineer apprentices at Girlings. My Aunt was a charge hand at Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight and worked there for most of her working life. It is the only one of all the others that remains, but much reduced from the 2,500 it used to employ.
August 3, 2021
Cammell Laird where the ARK ROYAL was built . My uncle served on the ARK.
August 3, 2021
Quite right David and Turbo
August 3, 2021
Not to the extent that the taxpayer gets fleeced. There is a balance to be achieved. We should adjust all tenders to account for the increased costs purchasing from abroad brings (plus carbon offset of movement if we are to follow that dogma) and after adjustment buying at home brings the best value then this should happen but it must not be an open ended cheque book.
August 3, 2021
I agree with Narrow Shoulders, net costs should be compared.
August 6, 2021
“…the increased costs purchasing abroad brings…”, and the environmental costs, are proportional to distance covered, which the enthusiasts for “global Britain” might care to ponder. If you are going to purchase abroad, the closer to home you look the better.
Also one of the gains of trade is that foreign competition spurs domestic producers to up their game. So a local authority that chooses buses manufactured abroad can indirectly benefit our economy in the longer term (and passengers get better buses).
August 3, 2021
@turboterrier – assembly is still the back door to UK tax avoidance and contribution to the health and wealth of the Nation, while maintain the flow into the coffers elsewhere. Energy, the core to UK business survival is supported directly by the taxpayer, that tax is diverted to support their home countries own tax system.
August 3, 2021
We are all well aware that these energy companies are mostly foreign and that all the subsidies and tax revenue ends up abroad. I’m sure Turbo knows this too.
August 3, 2021
Spot On
August 3, 2021
Itâs going to take 5,10,15,20 years for those in charge to wean them selves off taking orders from the EU.
Yes it is important to begin the changes needed.Who have we got who can start the process?
August 3, 2021
Parliament is sovereign.
In the limited, treaty-defined areas, by its assent, it turned proposals from the European Union – which had been passed by the then greater OUR Parliament there – into domestic law.
The relevant ministries then implemented those laws.
So no one was “taking orders” from the European Union, but simply working as ever under home law.
Many UK laws have provisions which say “ministers may make rules” within those laws – e.g. as to the layout of application forms – and Directives from the Commission served a parallel purpose. They were not and are not arbitrary powers in any way at all.
August 3, 2021
The bit you miss out is that under these treaties the EU was able to introduce further new rules, regulations and directives which they said were a requirement under a particular treaty.
These we were forced to implement and they were implemented without proper Parliamentary scrutiny.
August 3, 2021
Yes and no, as the same can be said of everything being decided by secondary legislation, which the Treaty of Rome specifically says is the responsibility of the member states.
So very likely, the primary legislation was influenced by the EU, but the actual implications of that legislation (i.e., regulations) the secondary legislation being the responsibility of the Executive, were implemented by executive decisions in the UK.
August 3, 2021
So yes then hef.
August 4, 2021
P2, apart from the fact that the chain of events is quite different from what you were originally inferring. But fine, you obviously know best.
August 4, 2021
I do know best hef, because what I said was correct.
I didn’t say member states couldn’t legislate for themselves.
I said that MiC missed out the way EU treaties we signed when members of the EU, pave the way for further new rules, regulations and directives when he said “no one was taking orders from the EU”
If you know of treaty based impositions of rules or regulations or directives eminating from the EU, being rejected by our supreme Parliament in contravention of the EU treaty we solemnly signed, then I would be interested to be educated by you.
August 6, 2021
P2, I am sorry but you still have not understood. The EU had been encouraging high speed train lines since the mid-1980s. The French had opened such a line between Paris-Nord and Coquelles (the entrance to the Channel Tunnel) in 1994.
It took the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act of 1996 to be voted by Parliament and some more months for a consortium of British companies to be set up to do the work on the new dedicated line and on the refurbishment of St Pancras (International). It then took another 10 years (during which there were no EU impositions of any kind) and multiple problems, particularly financial, for the HS1 to be finally completed and inaugurated on 14/11/2007.
So in a way you are right the UK Parliament did not reject anything âimposedâ by the EU, but it is only because there werenât any such regulations, rules or directives from the EU related to HS1 and all those that eventually sprang up must have been âcommon senseâ and had been the full responsibility of the UK consortium then of Eurostar.
August 3, 2021
The second part to today’s post Sir John must be:-
If entruapanuers and engineers knew there was and is an aggressive internal market al best slightly biased they would not end up selling out to anybody but expanding their range of equipment and the facilities and staff to produce them. When firmly entrenched within the UK then lok to the export markets.
I doubt if it is beyond reason to asume that local authorities and public services the world over have very similar basic equipment requirements.
Someone somewhere needs to supply them and if companies can create a niche market they will expand. It doesn’t always have to come from China and Korea.
August 3, 2021
But they do end up selling out. The reason a lot of the time is that the directors (not the ones who started a business, so just managers in reality) will have been given big share options as part of their remuneration and will sell if it makes them a big profit where millions of pounds are involved. They tend to put up no resistance and recommend an offer to the smaller shareholders. We have one such case on hand at present with a truly British company deeply embedded in the UK being bought out by fund managers.
August 3, 2021
Agree â In the UK we can make, manufacture and supply anything and everything that public bodies require, if and only if the tender for those items are procured by âUK Firstâ restrictions and not undercut by slave labour, patent infringement and poor quality
August 3, 2021
Indeed; taxpayers money must be spent at home wherever possible.
August 3, 2021
I am all in favour of buying more here in the U.K and the Public Sector procurement should be encouraged to do so. One of the reasons we have declined as a manufacturing nation is the Public Sector’s erstwhile obsession with complying with EU regulations so assiduously ( unlike their French & German counterparts) and buying abroad .If the domestic market is insufficient then it is hard for our native industries to survive/compete
I am entirely supportive of government efforts to encourage battery and hydrogen energy development. I want to see the government support the Rolls Royce mini-nuclear plant. I am hopeful that we can develop Lithium mining here .
I am angry and disappointed at the government’s weak acquiescence to green activists and not encouraging the opening of the Cumbrian coal mine to provide a domestic source of coke for the steel industry
August 3, 2021
+1 to that.
August 3, 2021
+1. Exactly. Why on earth should we import coal when it’s here already! If you believe the CO2 stuff, I don’t, it even increases that footprint in transportation. Foolish legacies.
August 3, 2021
Spot On with your last sentence
August 3, 2021
+1 to that from me as well David
August 3, 2021
Indeed but the UK likes to have an expensive energy policy and likes to export CO2 emissions and thus “pretend” over CO2. This exports many energy intensive industries. They also like very high taxes, restrictive and slow planning, a huge largely parasitic state sector, poor public services (like the NHS and Education) and complex employment laws and the likes thus rendering the UK rather uncompetitive.
August 3, 2021
If only we were self sufficient in food, energy and (far more) manufacturing- we wouldnât need to be competitive. Stuff globalisation, international trade and âGlobal Britainâ – Iâm up for âsplendid isolationâ.
August 3, 2021
A volte face over what caused the pandemic needs explaining
Why did scientists suddenly change their minds about the possibility of a leak from Wuhanâs Institute of Virology? Jeremy Farrar offers no good answers – Matt Ridley in the Spectator is surely right.
It is now almost certain now that it was a Wuhan lab leak and not the wet market. So why are western governments hiding this?
August 3, 2021
The consensus remains that such a leak is unlikely to be the source though not impossible.
Various reports have simply investigated that possibility.
The explanation is not binary – if the animal market were not the source then that does not mean that the lab was.
In any case, what practical difference does it make now?
August 3, 2021
Because we need to understand the truth to help to prevent a recurrence of course.
The lab leak is clearly for more likely. I am quite sure the US government knows this full well, but it has decided not to come clean. Matt Ridley is surely right on this.
August 3, 2021
Relatives of 130,000 dead in the UK, and hundreds of thousands severely affected by the virus, World and more importantly UK economy buggered. Isn’t the source rather important? In fact, if it was a Lab leak doesn’t that raise all sorts of questions about the intent in playing about with such Corona viruses? Seems like you want an enormous carpet to sweep the dust under.
August 3, 2021
The difference is, was it a simple natural accident or was it an avoidable incident.
If the latter then legally China is responsible for their negligence.
August 4, 2021
You could reasonably say that African countries, and those like China, which do not regulate and police the sale and consumption of wildlife safely are also responsible for a whole range of scourges from AIDS to SARS1, and that the UK is responsible for BSE.
Some countries have only just lifted their bans on UK beef.
August 4, 2021
No I wouldn’t say that MiC
I am interested to find out from China how the virus began and where from.
Maybe you could have a word with them for us.
August 4, 2021
MiC do you believe that if this leak came out of a British laboratory the world would be as relaxed about it as you are!?
We would be sued to high heaven.
We would be expected to make apologies as a Country.
Are you not at all concerned about the bio weaponisation of infectious diseases?
August 3, 2021
It’s very noticeable, well it is to me anyhow, that this tsunami of UK takeovers by US based companies and private equity funds has happened under this odious government since the American Socialist political establishment downed Trump with their sinister campaign of demonisation, denunciation and criminalisation.
US based, now politically controlled private companies have been given the green-light by Johnson to buy whatever they wish and no doubt we will see the progressive poison being rolled out throughout many of these companies that the US have swallowed
The agenda in both countries is coordinated, sinister and deeply troubling. The laughably titled Democrats hand in hand with the equally laughably titled Conservative government to bring under total control all areas of the economy and the private
I just wish John’s leaders and those in Washington would be more honest and open about the horrors of what they have in store for the clueless voted on both sides of the Atlantic who continue to support the two party State that is deliberately destroying democracy, civility, normality and liberty
TCW has a handle of what John’s party morphed into and no doubt Johnson’s aiders and abetters will be applying pressure on Kathy Gynell to rein in some of the more honest articles that expose the sheer deceit of the Tory party and that criminal organisation and their Marxist thugs in opposition
August 3, 2021
You appear to have – how can I put this – an epistemological problem.
August 3, 2021
MiC
You appear to have – how can I put this (?) – an infantile leftism outlook.
August 3, 2021
The rash of foreign acquisition of UK assets, of property, of shares etc., is largely due to the fact that John’s brexit has crashed Sterling and made them very cheap.
But it keeps the housing bubble pumped up so that’s fine.
Reply Sterling similar level v dollar and yen as pre Brexit
August 3, 2021
For a couple of years after 2016 it was down markedly against the rouble, yuan, and rupee, and still is down against 2015 levels for the yen and USD.
Yes, “similar” is a relative term.
August 3, 2021
The purchase of UK assets by foreign companies and individuals has been going on for decades.
It didn’t start post 2016
August 3, 2021
exactly.
August 3, 2021
Almost true if one considers the immediate pre-referendum, but certainly not as they were in the period 2011-midâ16.
August 3, 2021
Started in the 80s hef
Although I accept it accelerated in later years.
PS
Don’t forget the similar investments overseas by UK companies and individuals.
August 3, 2021
Will you provide figures for the Foreign Outward Investment by UK companies and Foreign Inward Investment in the UK? âSimilar investments overseasâ is somewhat lazy and certainly not good enough if you want to put forward this argument.
August 3, 2021
Why dont you provide the figures hef?
You seem keen to disprove me.
Go on, I know you want to.
August 4, 2021
P2, I was just pointing out how often you go with âempty suitâ statements. Thatâs all.
As for me disproving me, just look at your daily comments and see how many are of the same kind. Hilarious.
August 4, 2021
This isn’t a University site of academic research as you require hef.
You are effectively demanding long essays with links to proof of every statement made.
But your “empty suit” complaint is something you never put to your pals on here that you often rush to support.
To repeat:-
MiC wrongly claimed that Brexit was the cause of foreign companies and individual purchasing UK assets.
I correctly pointed out that this process was going on for decades before 2016.
And that the UK also has substantial overseas assets.
PS
By “similar” I meant similar in process ie it isn’t a one way only process.
August 3, 2021
It’s got a lot more to do with an under valued FTSE and a flood of cheap money washing around.
August 3, 2021
Yes, they are also important factors.
I said “largely” not “entirely”.
August 3, 2021
More inane gibberish. Sterling has not collapsed. Itâs the same as before the great liberation.
August 3, 2021
The value of the pound is a complete red herring in the context of this debate. A lower pound is actually very helpful in terms of exports, so I would rather the pound was weaker than it is. As for foreign acquisitions of UK companies it is utterly irrelevant, since the real factor here is the government’s attitude. If the government just banned foreign asset strippers coming here and buying British companies then they wouldn’t be able to do so, regardless of the value of the pound. We are being betrayed by our government – as usual.
August 3, 2021
+1
August 3, 2021
It’s been going on for donkey’s years, more when we were in the EU than has happened since we’ve ‘been out’ with BRINO. Do get some ideas other than everything is to do with Brexit. You are totally myopic about it.
August 3, 2021
MiC, UK Business price to earnings ratio (P/E) is currently circa 13 to 1. Global average is circa 18 to one. UK businesses are cheap to buy. P/E was circa 16 to 1 at referendum time. The big hit to the Pound started at the 2015 General Election with the prospect of a Brexit referendum. The Pound dropped from $1.55 to $1.23 by the end of 2016.
Pound was around $1 30 years ago. Around $1.42 prior to a referendum on EU th3 City was sure Remain would win
August 3, 2021
If Scania and Mercedes Benz set up a Bus showroom in the UK, UK Bus operators would buy their Busses with Pounds Sterling. If UK Bus operators went to Sweden or Germany to buy them they would pay in Krona or Euro.
BUT, the bottom line is a transaction currency has to be chosen that both parties are happy with. If both companies are reluctant to hold Pounds Stirling in cash, securities or physical assets; fearing a reduced exchange value in the future, the trade price will attract a risk premium.
BUT BUT, the UK buying all those foreign Busses is keeping a lot of Swedes and Germans employed. It is in the interest of both those nations that the value of the Pound Sterling should not fall so far that UK Bus operators, can’t afford to keep buying their Busses anymore.
Hello Central Bankers! Buying up another countries currency; to raise its exchange value; to maintain the export volumes of its own currency area; is, another story.
August 3, 2021
Stterling has been a declining trash currency against the strong economies for as long as I can remember. If you can be bothered and wish to inform yourself, have a look at the Sterling/CHF (that’s Swiss Franc) exchange rate for the last 60 or 70 years.
August 3, 2021
Perhaps the Americans sense the end of the dollar as “the”reserve currency is coming and are swapping as many intrinsically worthless fiat dollars for hard assets before the intrinsically worthless becomes actually worthless.
Marco Polo travelling through the Mongol Empire in the 13th century encountered paper money for the first time in China and marvelled at what could be achieved with it in a gigantic imperial state like the Mongol Empire.Eventually-and perhaps inevitably- the fiat was abused,inflation became rife,the Mongols were ejected and China returned to the silver standard for hundreds of years.
August 3, 2021
Marco Polo from “How the Great Khan causes the bark of trees,made into something like paper,to pass for money all over his country”:
“With these pieces of paper….he(the Great Khan)causes all payments on his own account to be made;and he makes them to pass current universally over all his kingdoms and provinces and territories and whithersoever his power and sovereignty extends.And nobody,however important he may think himself,dares to refuse them on pain of death………..
In this way nearly all the valuables in the country come into the Khan’s possession.”
As John Mann,historian of the Mongol Empire pointed out – “Keynes before Keynes”!
Actually Polo wasn’t quite right, the Persian part of the Empire refused to accept paper for goods and the Great Khan was forced to back down in the face of potential insurrection.Think of Russia,today, leading the de-dollarisation charge!
August 3, 2021
Usual load of tosh from MiCie – acquisition of property and commerce has been going on for decades, a lot of it by EU companies and governments who found it so much easier to acquire UK assets rather than the other way round. There never was a level playing field
August 3, 2021
DOM, +1, Once again itâs both barrels and bang on target. May TCW continue to be Conservative and withstand whatever sinister pressures are exerted.
What kind of Alice in Wonderland world have we woken up in, with âleadershipâ such as Johnson, Biden, and Macron?
When will steps be taken to arrest the malign interference by Big Tech?
August 3, 2021
When you said ‘arrest’, I immediately thought of Andy and had to read it again.
August 3, 2021
That gave me a very late in the day laugh……thanks.
August 3, 2021
As with the railways yesterday. This isn’t a matter of simply adjusting, it is a complete strip down – the people of this nation are about to get desperately poor.
All this talk of two-day offices… only the very best will survive that sort of arrangement.
August 4, 2021
No Longer Anonymous, they are saying that working from home isn’t causing problems so how come probate is taking so long if all the probate lawyers are working from home productively and much more efficiently?
Why is everything so slow to get an answer or even someone to answer a phone if it is so efficient?
The public sector seem to have gone on this automated phone answering, to speak to a human you have to go through ten minutes of choices, wait in a queue with awful lift musac playing, with regular reminders to go online and fill in a form instead, then just as you’re getting closer you get cut off. Then when you fill in the online form at the end it says phone the office!
If you had actual money to spend on services you wouldn’t buy the current services the public sector are offering!
August 3, 2021
+1
I fully agree.
August 3, 2021
Much truth in this.
August 3, 2021
So Adam Smith and David Ricardo got it wrong? You want to overturn hundreds of years of research into the economics of international trade? Have you ever heard of comparative advantage? What has the Conservative party become, that an MP can praise the destruction of free trade?
Reply Not at all, but trade with China is not free trade but rigged trade with a long term price to the importer.
August 3, 2021
What has it become? Why, the brexit party, what else?
August 3, 2021
is that capital B……party, or a group having fun?
August 3, 2021
Surely, if foreign made goods are subsidised we gain from buying a cheaper product?
August 3, 2021
Consumer A may “gain” but their neighbour loses their job which means they can no longer afford consumer A’s goods/services and so eventually it bites consumer A in the ass.
August 3, 2021
Correct
August 3, 2021
We gain by losing jobs here? We gain by money going abroad. We gain from the tax and NI lost because no wages are paid here? We gain, environmentally, by goods travelling hale way round the planet? We gain by outsourcing production to countries with low environmental, poor wages and working conditions?
It seems like a lose-lose situation.
August 3, 2021
Correct – Look at Thailand and other countries in the Far East â If you want to sell your cars in Thailand you must have a manufacturing plant built and employed by Thais without any subsidy and the Thai government will own a silent 51% of itâŠ.and many big manufactures accept those conditionsâŠand make money
August 4, 2021
glen, so it can be done!
August 3, 2021
For that matter trade with the EU was not “free” trade either, German and French govrnements subsidised and patronised their industries and companies extensively.
August 3, 2021
Indeed Sir John, a rigged currency and low wages means we should apply tariffs to level the playing field. They also reverse engineer products and steel our technology. Their behaviour in human rights is appalling and their international behaviour concerning.
August 3, 2021
Hahaha – you still cling to economic theories from over 200 years ago?! No doubt you think we should still go around on horseback, and that sickness should be cured by bleeding! Ricardo’s theories applied at the time but have long since become outdated by globalisation. He himself, even then, recognised the limitations of his ideas, especially if capital mobility increased (as, of course, it has done). Ricardo naively believed that “most men of property [will be] satisfied with a low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations”. Do YOU believe that still applies, today?
Also, Ricardo’s theory only applies if BOTH parties stick to it. But the UK is faced by trade restrictions from every single other country in the world! There is not ONE country, not a single one, that does not discriminate against British exports. So if we are the only country in the world that plays by the rules of Ricardian free trade we will invitable be the LOSERS. We will be considered – rightly – as the world’s mugs, and treated as such. NO. We must defend our national interests, which means our national industries, employment and wealth.
August 4, 2021
Ricardo’s theory applies even if only one party sticks to it. You have literally misunderstood the central point of it
August 3, 2021
âThe UK government is puzzling over whether and how to stop the rash of foreign acquisitions of UK companies and assets. â
Itâs a bit late now. Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?
August 3, 2021
What about Free Trade and comparative advantages?
August 3, 2021
Cynic, should we just compare net costs taking all parameters into consideration. If a contractor doesn’t meet delivery deadlines then they should be identified and have points deducted when they apply for other contracts.
August 3, 2021
What about them?
Where would you say “free” trade is actually practised, what are the UK’s comparative advantages and who actually benefits?
August 3, 2021
You should Google the Bloomberg article “Free trade is no longer a no-brainer for economists”. Or the well-respected research paper “The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States”. This latter found that: “Rising imports cause higher unemployment, lower labor force participation, and reduced wages in local labor markets that house import-competing manufacturing industries. In our main specification, import competition explains one-quarter of the contemporaneous
aggregate decline in US manufacturing employment. Transfer benefits payments for unemployment, disability, retirement, and healthcare also rise sharply in more trade-exposed labor markets.” (Please excuse the spelling, but this was an American report!).
Put simply, Ricardo’s theories no longer apply. Ricardo lived in a world with very limited capital exports, with no unemployment or other benefits and assumed reciprocity in free trade. You are living in the past and need to wake up and see the modern world as it is today.
August 3, 2021
The thing about theories is, no one can be quite certain that they ever applied.
August 3, 2021
X-Tory, thanks for that.
August 3, 2021
In the telegraph yesterday by Nick Timothy:-
âNet-zero zealots donât heed the hardship their impatience will cause
Britain ploughs on with costly green policies while dozens of other countries break their promises.â
Some truth here but the ignorance of the Sheffield Politics Graduate (1st) is amazing. He says – âIt had not occurred to Miliband that the alternative to an electric bike is a simple bicycle, which after manufacture emits no carbonâ. Total drivel Nick a pedal bike is powered by extra food intake (its production, packaging, freezing, transport and cooking causes loads of CO2 especially a meat eating cyclist). Five people cycling 200 miles uses far more energy and produces more CO2 than sending them by car and wastes hours too. Plus they will not need a hot shower on arrival or hotel accommodation before they return. Please go and learn some basic energy science if you are going to pontificate on such subjects.
A good piece my Charles Moore today:- Tories risk creating a new cost of living crisis.
August 3, 2021
@Lifelogic:
Take a few bananas for your bicycle ride. Even though larger carbon footprint than apples you can calculate to be much “cheaper off” in carbon footprint than going by car.
IF ONLY . . . . you could have a cycling culture like the Dutch and like them, save 3% of your annual GDP on health benefits . . .
August 3, 2021
Holland is flat. The UK for the most part is hilly.
Not conductive to doing the weekly shop on a cycle.
August 3, 2021
Hi Peter.
If only we had a voting system like the Dutch then we would have been spared most of what has gone wrong here since WWII.
In flat parts of the country cycling is very popular, e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, and here in most of Cardiff.
August 3, 2021
give me strength — your nonsense knows no bounds.
August 3, 2021
Not true, five people in a car is far more efficient in CO2 terms and aerodynamic than five people cycling (on the average UK diet).
August 4, 2021
How many cars on the roan contain five people?
Come on.
August 4, 2021
@lifelogic:
Skewed comparisons are always possible.
Most cars only contain the driver, so compare one cyclist with one car driver.
August 3, 2021
I’m just waiting for all us Pensioners to catch the e-Scooter bug.
No tax, no insurance, no over 70’s eye test – indeed no need to have a driving licence at all. Once I’ve persuaded the wife she can hang on the back of it with me, I’ll build a trailer and wizz down to the Supermarket for our essentials. Skimming between pedestrians and completely oblivious to cars and cyclists we should be able to cut a good 20 minutes off our round trip and also save a fortune in petrol, car service and MOTs. Just have to find a place to stick our Blue Badge!
August 3, 2021
That’s the spirit.
August 3, 2021
Worrying that Nick Timothy is so lacking in a basic understand of science. He was after all a senior advisor to T May as PM (she certainly was in need of lots of advice)l He obviously even feels he is expert enough to write such an article for the Telegraph, illustrating (for all his readers to see) his fundamental misunderstandings of how cycling is fuelled (by extra food intake) and its large CO2 emissions. This without even bothering to run it past anyone with a suitable grasp of such things to correct it.
August 3, 2021
Are Energy Ministers, Lord Debden and his absurd Committee on Climate change equally deluded over the CO2 emissions of walking & cycling I wonder?
August 3, 2021
Timothy might have offered her advice but I would imagine the advice she actually took was that proferred by Goldman Sachs on their not infrequent visits to No10.
August 3, 2021
Five people cycling 200 miles might burn 60,000 calories (12,000 each). A car might use 20l of fuel, about 90,000 calories. So they burn less than they would in the car.
In addition, the average 2st overweight Brit could fuel the journey 9 times just on their own excess lard.
The 200 mile journey will take two days to cycle, unless you’re an athlete. I would take the car too.
August 3, 2021
Dave A
Cycling 200 Miles ?
I did West London to Brighton and back in a day when I was 15 years of age, but that was the furthest I ever cycled, not fit for much when I had finished, and carried nothing but a couple of water bottles and Mars bars.
Did it a couple of years later on a scooter, and further distances when touring, much easier !
Not many people would cycle the distance you suggest today, on todays roads, in todays traffic, and do anything productive at the end, even if it was in good weather, let alone rain or cold, or both.
Think I will stick to the car, train too expensive for one let alone a family !
August 3, 2021
Alan Jutson
“Think I will stick to the car ”
Not if Johnson has anything to do with it.
August 3, 2021
You ignore the fact that the energy used to grow, prepare, package, transport and cook the food is far, far more than the energy actually in the food. Far more than the energy to produce the same in petrol.
August 3, 2021
+1
August 3, 2021
But you are constantly harping on about a protectionist EU resulting in it being behind the rest of the world in terms of growth/development etc and thatâs what you get when you remove genuine competition.
Equally our balance of payments is underpinned by our invisible earnings so now as well as a protectionist U.K. are you now suggesting our companies cannot invest abroad? Just more Labour lite from allegedly a Tory government.
Foreign acquisition regularly identifies poor management, alternative strategies etc. Instead of going down a Buy British route for the sake of it or using subsidy to offset inefficiency, get Management to up their game, and then it will become a No Brainer because the best products will be home made.
You will of course find that across the EU be it employment, food, culture etc they are more proud of their regional everything than we are in the U.K.
And in other news, meeting with some friends yesterday, the conversation inevitably turned to Covid. Without exception the view was that no one knew what the rules now were and that the Governments approach to overseas travel lacked common sense and was two faced. How can you justify letting double jabbed people in from the EU without quarantine when UK citizens have to?
Borisâs assertion that foreign holidays are dangerous is risible rubbish and whatever Ministers and their advisers that thought that the suggested new traffic light system would be understood or accepted or indeed help the situation are not fit for purpose. That last part has been apparent since the pandemic started.
Fortunately it looks as if Boris has (been forced?) found some of the previously lacking sense. I hope that you will encourage him to continue.
August 3, 2021
Foreign acquisition of a UK company does not necessarily mean poor management, as you assert. It will often mean that good management receives an offer they cannot refuse. ARM is a good example. In my view company management that demonstrates good ideas and innovative technology is more likely to be the target of a foreign company than a failing business.
August 3, 2021
Foreign acquisition of British companies results from the foreign company having a large and protected home market, allowing them to grow into a big fish. They then want to keep it that way, by predating the smaller fish in their pond, especially those with valuable IP or useful niche markets, or valuable brands, etc. By arguing for freedom for the pike, you are dooming the trout to death.
Far from buying badly-run companies, foreign buyers want our BEST companies, with the greatest future prospects. They are not mugs – but we are to let them asset strip our country.
August 3, 2021
Perhaps your party should not have been quite so enthusiastic about closing down manufacturing and promoting the service sector, John.
Yes, people with good jobs in manufacturing did understandably tend to vote Labour, whereas white van man less so, but you now see the consequences of this doctrinaire crusade.
The egregious UK PPE famine was perhaps its most serious recent manifestation.
August 3, 2021
The PPE shortages were the result of incompetent pandemic planning by government. Clearly they should have organised things so that urgent things required like PPE could be made quickly and locally. Just as in war you need to be able to get access to ammunition, fuel, weapons. Let us hope the MoD is doing rather better procurement do not have a good record of competence.
Alas no famine of PPE graduates in Parliament or at the NHS – Sir Simon Stevens, Jeremy Hunt (Minister when the pandemic planning was âdoneâ) and Matt Handcock.
August 3, 2021
It was customers who closed down UK industries when they chose to buy products made abroad.
August 3, 2021
I have a suspicion that people driving white vans thought Emily Thornberry didn’t like them very much Martin.
August 3, 2021
Blair was a huge fan of globalisation. Lots of fools thought we could outsource that dirty manufacturing and make a living selling each other coffee and mowing lawns.
August 3, 2021
Well, he still is a fan of global agreements certainly, but that isn’t quite the same thing – even if posters here claim that it is.
August 3, 2021
MW
Blair was out to destroy this country, and near as damn succeeded.
August 4, 2021
That’s one of your stranger posts, Steve.
August 4, 2021
School academy, internal markets NHS, UK devolution, no win no fee, globalisation, europeanisation, open door migration, anti-british, pro-muslim, council out-sourcing etc etc
Blairs government attempted and partially succeed in social engineering the greatest culture change this countrys history
August 4, 2021
Compulsory competitive tendering for public bodies such as councils was introduced by Thatcher.
New Labour softened this to the extent that under some circumstances direct labour could be used even if it were not the cheapest, but in essence the system remains.
No Win No Fee is simply a market gimmick introduced by a sector, like BOGOF and the rest. It had nothing to do with any government or trading law.
The UK has never had “open door” migration under any government.
Laws against discrimination are not “pro” anything.
They are simply against the unpleasantness that you appear to crave on the other hand.
August 3, 2021
wild guesswork again, or did you poll voters in manufacturing (and ex-) constituences plus stopping white vanmen to ask about their intent? No? I thought not.
August 3, 2021
JR
“The UK government is puzzling over whether and how to stop the rash of foreign acquisitions of UK companies and assets. One way to slow that tide is to buy less from abroad.”
Even easier way – just make it illegal to sell UK assets to foreign entities. Just do it.
August 3, 2021
Great! Let’s stop buying abroad. More turnips and carrots, no lemons or avocados. Global Britain, is it John? Don’t remember “stop the world we want to get off” on the side of a bus, but Brexit’s true insular backward-looking colours are clear now
August 3, 2021
Lemons grow just fine in my vine house, the family only get through about 50 a year. The deluded expensive ânet zeroâ energy policy does not help encourage such local production though.
August 3, 2021
LL
“Lemons grow just fine in my vine house”
There’s about 650 of them in Westminster.
August 3, 2021
Ah yes – back to a choice of Hirondelle or Blue Nun at the offie.
Those were the days.
August 3, 2021
France and Germany’s public sector buy far more home produced products like buses trains lorries and cars than the UK does.
Which was what the article was actually about GF
August 4, 2021
Peter2
your arguments with Hef does not give you much credit
August 4, 2021
Hi bill
Thanks for yet another wonderful post.
I was actually replying to Grey Friar, but never mind.
August 3, 2021
The Soviets believed that science could solve any problem,even believing it should be possible to grow lemons in the Arctic.Perhaps we could get our neo-Stalinist scientific bureaucracy on the case!
August 3, 2021
Iceland grows pineapples.
They have almost limitless geothermal heating available.
August 3, 2021
Are you sure MiC
Wiki hasn’t got them in the top 100 nations in the world.
August 3, 2021
MiC
Very true, I’ve been there and seen it. Very impressive.
August 4, 2021
Not out in the open-the Soviets believed that they could engineer a variety that would grow anywhere!
August 4, 2021
What, all two hundred million of them?
Really?
I mean, really?
August 3, 2021
NO! NO! – Please don’t suggest no more avocados – how will we survive without!
August 3, 2021
‘The UK government is puzzling over whether and how to stop the rash of foreign acquisitions of UK companies and assets.’ You could have fooled me! I think that the government just doesn’t care and I’ve just started tracking ‘Meggitt’ – the next tale of woe – with a news alert.
It would be nice if I could throw a light-switch, light a hob, turn on a tap, and use an airport without having to enrich other countries. The answer: have NS&I set up a unit trust, and take in dividend-hungry cash, from Brits, to buy significant stakes (ca. 29%) in British infrastructure and utility companies.
BTW, I’m wondering if there’s something significant going on with our Balance of Trade. Post-Brexit/pandemic are we seeing an improvement?
August 3, 2021
Home made buses would be too expensive due to this governmentâs policies, turning our country into a warehouse economy.
August 3, 2021
You have overlooked the price of the bus and its long term running costs which could be cheaper if acquired abroad, though I go along with your basic argument. If it is reasonable price wise to buy in the UK do so because there are lots of fringe benefits as you point out.
Anything strategic should be home produced, power being a prime example, communications another. At the moment it would appear that purchases from the EU are reducing. How much is Covid related and how much resentment by the buying public at the appalling behaviour of the EU post Brexit is difficult to assess. As a generalisation I hope the UK does choose to be self sufficient, particularly from those organisations and. nations who would wish us harm. The EU and China come to mind.
August 3, 2021
And we now read a devastating critique of the HS2 project blowing away HMGs claim of economic and environmental benefit. It was of course always political. Once again politicians taking us for fools.
August 3, 2021
Nig1 – -Once again politicians taking us for fools. – -just like the repeated claim of – we are going to reduce immigration??
And as for buses John – why not have them built dirt cheap in Africa – then each bus can be driven here, full, and instead of risking their lives in the Channel, they can be allowed to come across on the ferries
August 3, 2021
Don’t forget the idea originally came from the EU. Our having left (?) should have put an end to it.
August 3, 2021
It was an EU TENS project. They just cant make a decision on own!
August 3, 2021
Indeed Britain destroyed her industrial base – built up since the industrial revolution – in 20 years during the Thatcher and Major eras. At that time “market forces” (read asset strippers such as Hanson, knighted by the Iron Lady) and “there is no alternative” were the slogans of the day. And with it went the export income in foreign currency, as the manufacturing tooling was sold off to India and the Chinese.
We then compounded the error by selling off highly profitable strategic infrastructure industries on the cheap, losing their significant income – plus the tremendous dividend payments made to the new owners that distort the sterling forex markets and which impoverish us all.
However, I sense that the tide may be turning. The railways have been re-nationalised. The MoD has recently nationalised Sheffield Forgemasters to preserve a strategic defence asset. The re-nationalisation of the English water industry is Labour policy. If we had any sense, we would do the same to the electricity generation and distribution sectors.
The FT recently noted that ÂŁ975 billions has left the City for Frankfurt and Paris since Brexit, along with an estimated ÂŁ175 billions in financial services income. With the national debt now at ÂŁ2.2 trillion and Sunak at the limits of how much money can be printed – without the markets demanding higher interest rates – we are indeed in the shite. There is actually very little left to flog off to the foreigners. Even a modest rise in interest rates would be disastrous for the economy – and the Conservative party.
Reply UK industrial collapse was most severe under the 1970s Labour government and centred on the big decline in coal, shipbuilding and steel, all nationalised.
August 3, 2021
Hmm.
The Three Day Week was under Heath’s Conservatives, as I recall.
August 3, 2021
and who caused that Martin? Didn’t the unions flexing muscle have something to do with it?
August 4, 2021
Yes, jolly good it was too.
Why should people doing dangerous, unhealthy, but essential work have to settle for a pay increase which was less than what they had lost since the last adjustment through the prevailing very high inflation?
Why did the Tories have to stir up such unrest?
August 3, 2021
British industry suffered from lack of investment, poor management and a militant (and often frankly self-harming) unionised workforce that simple didn’t produce competitive products (e.g. ones that were good value and quality) – so foreign competitors had an open door. Margaret Thatcher had nothing to do with this decline – it was already rampant when she was elected, indeed it was probably the reason she was elected – people were fed up with the industrial unrest.
August 3, 2021
+1
Exactly
August 3, 2021
Sir John is correct about the industrial damage done in the 1970’s. The main cause was the great inflation of the 1970s, which began in late 1972 and didn’t really finish until the end of the 1980s.
The deep recession that followed wrecked many businesses and hurt countless individuals in the UK who lost thier savings – inflation hit 27% in 1975 and as high interest rates followed, the unions, anxious for their members to be able to put a loaf of bread on the table – or send their kids to school wearing a pair of shoes – became more militant and held the government to account. I remember my mother and father arguing about which bill they could afford to pay that month.
Three years after Thatcher came to power, in 1982 unemployment had reached 3 million for the first time since the early 1930’s. It is hard to imagine the effect this had on the nation – it represented 20% of the workforce in Ulster and 15% in many parts of Wales, Scotland and northern England. Thatcher did break the unions – but there are many who feel that the price paid was too high.
August 3, 2021
I get fed up hearing about large companies and insitutions who have big unions demanding higher wages for their staff when many of them already have better working conditions and pay than many of their counterparts without unions. It’s those that don’t have ridiculous wage rises every year that have to pay for these stupid demands by unions. They have done more to destroy industries than anything else. They don’t want to move with the times and make life harder for everyone.
August 3, 2021
FuS
Most Union reps at companies have their offices in HR these days. Bought off, basically.
August 3, 2021
@ reply – but the “disposal” of our computing, telecommunications and technology companies has occurred since then and continues
August 3, 2021
Sakara gold
“Indeed Britain destroyed her industrial base ”
More specifically:-
Wilson
Callahan
Heath
Major
Blair
……..and Johnson seems to be doing his bit to serve foreign interests too.
August 3, 2021
I’ve been saying that for years.
French steel for our Dreadnought subs is scandalous.
August 3, 2021
A national disgrace
August 3, 2021
It is indeed, particularly so as the government is reluctant to allow the coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria to go ahead. Which, I understand, would supply a top quality type of coke needed to make steel and employ up to 500 people. This government is definitely not working in the best interest of this country and its peoples.
August 3, 2021
Acquisition of British companies by private equity is a particular problem. They borrow the money, take a big slice themselves, then load all that debt onto the company hobbling it from the start and forcing cost cutting, low wages except for the senior management, low R&D spending (in the manufacturing sector), no innovation, lower product quality and so on – all to service the massive debt. And they have no shareholders to call them to account. Such takeovers – Morrisonâs will be next – need better regulation.
August 3, 2021
You mustn’t complain though, this is the SOP of our services supremo’s which seems to constitute the bulk of our “comparative advantage”
August 3, 2021
In other news the Pope is Catholic.
There should be a coefficient added to the cost of of all foreign purchases by government which equalises: red tape, energy costs (we penalise ourselves more), tax take, unemployment payments and the money multiplier effect. I am all for free trade and purchasing at the best value but value is not just price and we flagellate ourselves with regulation and ostentatious, meaningless climate mitigations much more than other countries.
August 3, 2021
@Narrow Shoulders – agreed, that is the norm for States that protect the interest of their taxpayer.
August 3, 2021
1+
August 3, 2021
UK manufacturing decline versus German manufacturing strength has its origins post WW2. In the UK high taxation was the killer blow. In Germany the key element of the Erhard reforms was the protection of business capital when the Reichsmark was abolished and replaced by the Deutsche Mark ((I think at 1:1) whereas private savings were converted at a much more unfavourable rate. Coupled with the abolition of rationing and controls – to the outrage of the US military – he claimed, rightly, “the only coupon people need is the
Deutsche Mark…and they will work hard to get them”. So long as private profit and returns on equity are treated as dirty words UK manufacturing will continue to decline and with it standards of living, supercharged by the Prime Lemming’s obsession with net zero.
August 3, 2021
Ultra Electronics? Meggitt? Could any of Sir Johnâs contribution today apply to them?
August 3, 2021
We should remember that religions can be used by the smartest for their own ends.
Who could possibly think of buying goods from abroad?
Think of the lethal hydrocarbons released into the atmosphere!
We should only buy goods from countries that use electric tankers or aircraft or lorries!
Don’t try to invoke patriotism, which many progressive folk deride.
Threaten offenders who would dare import goods with the court of public opinion, which surely would condemn them for killing Gaia…
August 3, 2021
Go to France, Germany or Italy youâll only ever see French police cars, German police cars and Italian police cars
It should be law that any procurement using public funds should have a âBuy UK Firstâ policy, the only exception are components and materials that arenât natural to the UK ie rubber
August 3, 2021
glen
“It should be law that any procurement using public funds should have a âBuy UK Firstâ policy ”
In some procureent areas it is, or still might be, I think. Certainly used to be the case.
The problem is so many strategically important businesses and technologies have been destroyed by successive traitor governments that didn’t want this country to be independent and strong.
We can’t even build a british engine….no foundries = no crankshafts etc.
Wilson started it, when he infamously declared manufacturing in this country was to be ended, in preference to service.
August 3, 2021
I purchase British If I can, all things being equal, but at the end of the day I purchase what suits me best, so if a product manufactured or produced abroad meets my criteria better than a British UK product, then that is what I purchase.
Certainly think we should promote British Uk goods much better than we do, and certainly food labelling should be much clearer, showing where it has been reared, grown, not just where it has been packaged.
August 3, 2021
I would also like to see on the label how the animal was slaughtered.
August 3, 2021
There should be only one set of UK standards of animal slaughter (appeasement of religion, culture or race should have nothing to do with our standards)
August 3, 2021
>The days of UK governments offering UK assets to foreign buyers and calling it inward investment seem to be coming in for some criticism.
I’m no economist, but the much touted ‘inward investment’ would seem to result in employees rather than owners bearing more of the tax burden and profits being exported.
August 3, 2021
To true, the tax position from a UK perspective is left out of the equation. That is insulting the UK taxpayer, as their taxes are used to fill the coffers foreign states. The UK taxpayer is contributing to the wealth, infrastructure, education and health of other nations while the UK’s goes lacking.
Sir John- my understanding is the countries you mention have to factor in the loss to the taxpayer for all foreign purchases.
Successive UK Governments have for to long played fast and loose with the UK taxpayers money – they just don’t appear to understand whose money it is or care about getting value from it.
On the energy front not only are we buying the commodity in from abroad, we predominantly have foreign and foreign state owned(tax prayed to foreign exchequers, none to the UK) supplying it inside the UK. While all the time the UK taxpayer subsidies it. Therefore we are held hostage to the whims of foreign politicians and regimes. That is not a UK Government keeping us safe, that is the UK Government selling us out and ensure the UK stays hostage to others. Energy is the driving force behind the whole of the UK’s endeavors and the Government hasn’t secured it.
August 3, 2021
In two words. National security. The legacies don’t get it……yet!!!
August 3, 2021
You comments are 100% correct. It’s time Boris and his Cabinet started saying it too.
ColinD.
August 3, 2021
âWhen you look at countries like France and Germany you see that despite EU procurement rules their governments tend to buy domestic product in areas like vehicles much more than the UK does.â
Absolutely correct and just one example of the many non-tariff barriers which meant that the falsely named âSingle Marketâ was not working for us and consequently led to our ÂŁ100bn/YEAR trading deficit with the EU and the necessity of leaving the EU before we were completely bankrupted.
Unfortunately we do not appear to have a Government (or Opposition for that matter) who wants the UK to thrive and prosper and prefers instead to virtue signal to the World that we are prepared to unilaterally destroy our economy and social cohesion through massive immigration and the pursuit of technologically impossible zero carbon by 2050.
August 3, 2021
It is not just buses; I know a local haulage business, and a fuel oil merchant who both buy their vehicles in France, and the reason they buy them there rather than in the UK, is that that is where they can get the best deal on vehicles that meet their specifications. If there were satisfactory UK produced equivalents, I have no doubt that they would buy them in preference, but you cannot just say ‘Buy British’, if what Britain produces is not best for you.
Of course a great deal of the reason for the lack of British made equivalents lies in the way that we allowed the EU to strip us of our engineering capacity: before we joined the ‘Common market’ Leyland was a watchword for heavy vehicle quality, and there were other home produced competitors, but in the post EU world all this now has to be put back in place again.
Creating the conditions in which this is most likely to happen is what the Government should be concentrating on, rather than making it more difficult with Green rubbish, more regulation and higher taxes. The resulting heavy industry will go to where the manpower already exists, thereby achieving the ‘Levelling up’ agenda at the same time.
August 3, 2021
I do hope that John is not surprised, that delivering brexit, to those addicted to grievance and to imagined victimhood would not keep them quiet for very long.
August 3, 2021
MiC
Martin, you keep on about brexit, it hasn’t happened….we’re still waiting. Johnson gave BRINO instead.
August 4, 2021
Look – face facts.
You are never going to get the North Korea status that you seem to want, Steve.
Even this government are not quite that deranged.
August 3, 2021
Who’s buying British sovereign debt to finance this PM’s embrace of Marxist State political engineering? US investors? And in return Johnson invites a takeover frenzy of UK companies by US companies who now come under the control of the virus that’s controlling the US government
Never a trust a politician, a political party, organisation (BBC) or political animal who targets freedom of expression in the way we are seeing today in this country and elsewhere across the west. They have sinister intent. Without voice you are a slave to oppression
At some point the voter will wake up to the political evil that slithers its way into our lives.
August 3, 2021
The organisations which suppress freedom of expression daily for millions in the UK are private companies.
Few will allow their employees any public expression – in or out of work hours – of any point of view, which they consider might make any of their customers critical of their choice of worker.
This government do not seem to think that employment law needs any reform in that regard, however.
The public sector cannot do this, however, as it would be in breach of the Human Rights Act.
August 3, 2021
Which British car manufacturers do you all think we should buy vehicles from? Thisâll be good.
I canât wait to see police in their McLarenâs.
Reply Cars made in uk!
August 3, 2021
The Thames Valley Police station near my place appears to have BMW 3 Series Touring and Peugeot 308 Estate cars. As far as I know they are not made in the UK.
August 3, 2021
What Mrs Thatcher understood – which so many of her disciples donât – is that it benefits taxpayers when we can buy better and cheaper products from abroad without huge pointless Brexit barriers to trade.
I donât care if the train I travel in is made in DĂŒsseldorf or Derby. I care that it is safe, effective, hardy, reliable and that it was bought for the best possible price.
The reality is that whilst our country is good at services – weâre world leaders in a sectors like music, the arts, sport, architecture etc which were all shafted by the Brexitists – we are rubbish at mass manufacturering.
Youâd have thought the Brexitists would have bothered to learn about our economy before they torched it. But their extreme negligence comes as no surprise to those of us who see through their failed project.
Reply As Margaretâs Economic Adviser and head of Policy in the middle period I can assure you you misrepresent her.
August 3, 2021
There is no question any more that this problem needs to be raised frequently and with increasing emphasis as the mind-set to buy foreign products above our own is deeply embedded in our bureaucracy and government – they insanely think it is away of showing our friendship and goodwill towards foreign governments and people. The idea that it is detrimental to our national interest is an idea they cannot comprehend but they must be made to, and if they won’t change, they must be moved from where they work.
It is a matter of that much seriousness, as our manufacturing capacity and ownership is weak. If we were threatened with a shooting war we would not have the capacity to fight because we do not have the industrial capacity and control to make essential things. France lost a war against us way back because they were in that position in many respects and we were stronger. The boot is now on the other foot and we would be losers against whoever opposed us; they haven’t been following the policies we have. We are in an economic war and we are losing. We are effectively bankrupt and governments have prostituted us.
As for current consequences it seems that yet another one of our businesses, one which I believe ought to be regarded as strategic in defence is being eyed up by for takeover by what I would regard as US asset stripping spivs. The recent UK law enacted to protect us requires action by government but there is no sign of that so the smell of weakness is in the air.
The will to put us first and be courageous and firm about it is not yet evident.
August 3, 2021
Does JR delete accounts..so they donât work any moreâŠwithout warning.
Reply No, I simply do not post specified items
August 3, 2021
Reply to reply. Cuibono anything that does not fit the government narrative is not published.
August 4, 2021
No, that is untrue – my comments are generally published.
However, those which perhaps land a punch on the underlying theories – on which John’s ideas for government rely – may not be in my experience.
August 3, 2021
Spot on Sir John. Yes to more UK jobs, yes to more tax revenue, yes to reducing the balance of payments.
Why on earth do successive UK govts allow first rate companies to be bought up cheaply by foreign investors / companies. Yes market forces are at work but is it any wonder that the UK is seeing a decline in first rate companies based in the UK or bought out before they can mature into the next behemoth such as Amazon, etc.
Why does the UK govt not take a stake in companies it supports through the Innovation Fund. Its tax payers money so why not ? We are forever funding innovative companies. That’s good and very noble but all that happens is that the founders take our money, build up the business, sell it potentially to foreign bidders and retire to the Bahamas. The UK is applauded by the rest of the World but has not retained First Advantage or recovered its initial funding.
August 3, 2021
One thing is certain about foreign takeovers of British companies is that they are not taking place for our benefit, so why did the Tory Party lie that it represented inward investment? However, the problem of takeovers does not only apply to foreign asset acquisition, but it also relates to the construction of conglomerates by know-nothing accountants which set the stage for later disposals to the highest bidder as the creation of the conglomerates never created added value.
Foreign takeovers are broadly for the purpose of thieving Brands and IP or mortgaging the company for the simple purpose of asset stripping, both with the connivance of British banks. In both cases the future of the company and its stakeholders (including employees and the Exchequer) is dire.
I see that the country whose company, Vickers, invented the battle tank is now in the process of acquiring a foreign made tank at enormous expense which is not remotely battle-worthy. Foreign is not always best: who would have thought it?
Tories who whine about their failure to increase our very modest GDP per capita (despite failing to count many living and working here) need to examine their own snivelling ignorance about how other countries do better; is it because their businesses are allowed to grow and prosper without the attentions of Foreign Mergers and Acquisition departments or the predation of third rate accountants?
August 3, 2021
Dear Sir John, As a teenager travelling through Bavaria in 1965, one could not help noticing that all the shiny, new-looking police cars were BMW 501, a large luxury car of a seemingly obsolete pre-war design. I have no doubt that by backing the ailing local company, the state of Bavaria provided the cash flow to help it survive long enough to attract new investment and to develop the cars for which it is now famous.
August 3, 2021
This is the fundamental problem with the UK. Nobody in power actually cares. The concept of ‘backing the home team’ never takes precedence over personal preference, even if it’s taxpayers’ money that’s being spent. When representing a major UK manufacturer in Japan I once wrote to Mrs Thatcher to ask why the chief constables were allowed to buy BMWs and Volvos when there were perfectly suitable Rovers, Jaguars and Range Rovers available from BL, a taxpayer subsidised manufacturer. No reply of course. No other country that made its own vehicles would be so stupid.
I could give you a list as long as my arm of great British manufacturers that have been sold off to foreign ownership often for peanuts while our politicians ( mostly arts graduates with no knowledge of, or interest in, engineering or technology ) stood idly by. Michael Heseltine once proclaimed that the Japanese building a factory in Wales, where British manufacturing had disappeared, was ‘a vote of confidence in British workers’. It was in fact a defeat and humiliation for our country. In Tokyo my Japanese business friends couldn’t believe how carelessly we let our great intellectual assets, our accumulated experience over decades, our patents, brands, factories, product distribution and market share pass into the hands of our competitors. Did we have a death wish?
It’s a bit late to be bemoaning our shamefully diminished manufacturing capability now, but at least if enough people want to change things we are not without creativity or energy to rebuild. It just takes that quality that seems to be utterly lacking in Westminster – strong and determined leadership.
August 5, 2021
This s still happening RH , particularly with key digital tech companies.
August 3, 2021
Sir JR
this is all very well with buying in -country when it makes sense. However, if the busses we peoduce for example are more expensive and of a lower quality, we are just supporting uncompetitive domestic production and getting a lower quality product.
Nationalistic sales and purchase campaigns make sense only, when the domestic produced products are competitive or of better or just as good quality.
August 4, 2021
bill brown you reveal yourself and your motives in your posts. British manufacturers are not ‘uncompetitive’, they also do not produce ‘lower quality products’.
August 5, 2021
a-tracy
this isyour conclusion this is actually not what I wrote
August 3, 2021
At the margin let the public sector buy British if it can, but the focus should always be on the best products and servies for taxpayers for the money. If all govts took the view we only buy domestically the whole world (Inc the UK) gets a bad deal and resources are hugely misallocated.
The problem with the approach is where does it stop? Every decision to buy anything from a non-domestic source is then criticised and soon we find ourselves back where we were in the 70s when the PM tries to wind up the window of his limo and it falls out (Callaghan in a British Leyland car).
We see the same issue with takeovers. Sometimes, exceptionally, there is a case to block foreign takeovers on national security grounds. But currently there are calls to block the owners of any company from selling to anyone defined as ‘foreign’. There are even calls at the moment to protect a poorly run supermarket chain from takeover!
It’s great that project fear has turned out to be such nonsense. But the jury is still out on Brexit. Too much protectionism, picking winners, subsidies for companies which wouldn’t otherwise survive, anti-business regulation etc, and we’ll end up like a non-EU version of France. With that model you’re better off in the EU as you can try at least to foist the same foolish policies on competitors. Watch out Conservative MPs.
August 3, 2021
Hahaha – “If all govts took the view we only buy domestically …..” But that’s EXACTLY what all other governments around the world do. You need to open your eyes to the real world, and stop living in a little fantasy land where foreign governments are all decent chaps who treat us completely fairly and play by the rules. They aren’t and they don’t. And we must repond in kind or we are fighting with both arms tied behind our back.
You are also living in the past when you suggest that buying British-made goods will lead to a reduction in quality. The problem in the 70s (the era you hark back to) was socialism – not patriotic purchasing. Socialism led to strong, aggressive trade unions and weak management, exacerbated by high levels of taxation, which disincentived industrial investment. Those problems are, fortunately, now behind us (unless Sunak starts increasing taxes again!), and British-made goods are not just as good as foreign-made ones, but better.
As for Morrisons (which you allude to), it is NOT “poorly run”. It is a very good supermarket with vertical integration that favours British farming. The company trying to buy will do so by borrowing money which they will then need to repay by breaking up and selling off Morrisons’ assets. There is a word for this: asset-stripping. That does NOT do the UK any good at all.
August 3, 2021
X- Tory.
I give you +1 and agree with your sentiment, except for this –
“…Morrisonst is NOT âpoorly runâ. It is a very good supermarket ”
That has certainly not been my eperience.
August 3, 2021
âAllâ govts most certainly do not do that. Socialism was indeed the main problem in the 7os. But the industries which are now competitive in the U.K. are those which have been exposed to international competition not ones which govts over the years have subsidised and tried to protect. Pretty much the same elsewhere.
Itâs up to the owners of Morrisons what they do with their shares, I cannot think why anyone believes the govt should determine who they can and canât sell to.
August 3, 2021
An excellent post, Sir John, with which I have just two reservations. The first is the suggestion that government procurement favouring UK companies should be constrained by “international rules”. NO. The whole point of Brexit was to affirm our national sovereignty and independence. We will NOT be told what to do by foreign governments. There are NO “international rules” that should stop a British government buying British products from a British manufacturer! The very notion is absurd and idiotic.
My second quibble is that you are far too moderate and mild in your criticism of foreign acquisitions of UK companies. The government calls this ‘investment’, but the truth is that it is ASSET STRIPPING. If a British company, employing Brtish workers, paying taxes to the British government and paying dividends to UK investors, is bought by a foreign company, this does NOT benefit the UK. Jobs are lost, less tax is paid, dividends go abroad and so do all the profits. There is therefore LESS money in the UK after such an acquisition, and we are ALL poorer.
Genuine foreign investment is ONLY when a foreign company comes to the UK to build NEW manufacturing plants and INCREASE the pool of employment and taxes. Why is the government too stupid to see this? Or do they realise it very well but are just traitors who have no interest in the best interests of the UK. The government doesn’t even intervene when national security is at stake – as the purchase of Meggitt by US asset strippers demonstrates. Why do backbench Tories not sign an EDM condemning Kwasi Kwarteng? This is the only language Boris understands.
August 3, 2021
+100%
August 3, 2021
Sir John,
I wholeheartedly agree that public procurement should be from within the United Kingdom. Especially when awarding a contract to produce something as symbolic as a UK passport.
August 3, 2021
Just to reinforce my comment about genuine (good) foreign investment, versus asset-stripping, a good example is the huge expansion in Britain’s film studios. There has been a flood of investment from US companies, culminating in the announcement yesterday by Hollywood’s Sunset Studios of an investment of over ÂŁ700 million in new studios in Hertfordshire.
This marvellous growth in our film production sector was made possible by favourable tax benefits. Which proves that cutting taxes leads to more investment, more growth and more wealth. Sir John: Can you please remind the Chancellor of this before he destroys our comparative advantage by increasing corporation tax and driving both domestic and foreign investors away?
Reply I do regularly through this site.
August 4, 2021
Not just Hertfordshire. There is the new Blackhall Studios development already under weigh in Shinfield, part of John’s constituency. This large site is not far from Shinfield Studios where The Witcher series is made.
August 3, 2021
‘calling it inward investment seem to be coming in for some criticism’.
and rightly so. Twas it ever thus – but nobody in Government, in Local Authority, indeed in common buying responsibility seems to have a happorth of support for ‘Buying British’.
Shame on them.
August 3, 2021
I wander what John really thinks about the destruction his odious party working with the Socialist-Marxist Octopus here and in the US is causing to our nation, our freedoms and our identity.
I genuinely cannot wait for his memoirs. I enjoyed Alan Clark’s Diaries immensely. John’s I suspect could be equally as riveting if he decides to drop the party-line bollux and tells it warts and all
August 3, 2021
Just for fun, do the Socialist-Marxist Octopus includes the people discussed in the 30/07/2021 item in the FT âInside Boris Johnsonâs money networkâ?
Isnât it something when it is the Financial Times (aka the UK Communist Party) that publishes such an item?
Dom, really, can you look at yourself in the mirror without bursting laughing?
August 3, 2021
I really cannot understand why we keep selling everything off and buy from the abroads…..It seems obvious that reliance on others gives them power over us.This short term thinking is not the right approach to building and sustainable growth.
August 3, 2021
The point about free trade is that it must be free. Selling our infrastructure to foreign companies largely controlled, subsidised and dictated to by the government of the country where they reside is not even UFT (unilateral free trade): it is a form of foreign occupation.