Hmm:
Britain should be a workshop, not a casino
Making real products is far superior to having a lust for quick returns. It recognises the crucial link between effort and reward.
Manufacturing output is higher than it was in 1990, higher than 1980, twice what it was in 1960 and three times what it was in the 40s.
What decline of manufacturing are you talking about and how many bloody things do you want to make that you can drop on your foot?
Hard work is good work and the more backbreaking the toil the better the workforce. Obviously.
Britain being a casino was only a problem when the Government decided the players couldn’t be allowed to lose.
He means, I suspect, that not enough people are employed in manufacturing; after all, it isn’t the output we want but the jobs.
So Tim, get busy digging that hole. And Gareth, you fill it in again.
I’ll supervise, and have the limousine and the dacha.
And don’t confuse “assembly” with traditional maufacturing.
Output is “three times what it was in the fourties”
Is this some theoretical evaluation. After all back then they were making weapons of war quite busily.
( but not wellington boots as I remember)
These idiots only want a certain kind of manufacturing, one which conjures up pictures of a Soviet factory belching out black smoke as it churns out pig iron or some other heavy industrial product, with a heavily unionised workforce which can wield political power without the bother of an election.
Point out that Britain is very good at manufacturing weapons and all of a sudden they’re not so keen. Wrong kind of manufacturing, you see.
“Manufacturing output is higher than it was in 1990, higher than 1980, twice what it was in 1960 and three times what it was in the 40s.”
Really? According to ONS (code identifier CKYY), the volume of output in Q3 2009 was actually lower than in 1990, and only 48% higher than in 1960, and nearer to twice (rather than 3x) 1949’s level.
Tim adds: I’m leaving out the collapse in the past couple of years: trying to look at trend rather than the effect of the recent recession. Naughty of me I know…..