All Gone!

What do all the following 'British' things have in common?
Car industry, shipbuilding, chocolate manufacture, textiles and suits, computers, locomotives, planes and the airline industry...


We have become a 'service industry' as a nation. Sounds good, but it means we are the 'skivvies' to other wealthier countries where these things are now manufactured. Oh, I can hear you say, 'what about the major car manufacturing in Britain then'? Ok, maybe their names will give you a clue to that answer... Honda, Toyota even the mighty Land Rover brand is not British now! We do have some, but very few, industries here which are in the categories above, but not enough to make a real difference to the economy. By the way, that includes Scotland!


What happened? How did we lose all these massive industries? I am no expert, but I seem to remember most of them being riddled with strikes, sometimes over very small things. Coming from a shipbuilding town, I remember well a two day strike over the price of a bacon roll! The canteen had increased the price without consulting the union! Now, we have a major strike by British Airways which will cripple and possibly paralyse the airline. The strike will last for 7 days over a 14 day period, and is over pay, and the number of cabin crew on long haul flights. It is worth noting that BA staff at all levels, are already paid more than their 'opposite numbers' on other airlines. Once again, we are in the throes of a strike which may well result in the loss of our national airline, British Airways. Most, if not all, of the lost industries were beset with strikes, and as a result the workforce lost their livelihood. Paradoxically, the unions lost the work of the very people they said they were trying to protect. If the Airline Industry finally ends in the UK, will the unions apologise? They never have in the past when other industries were lost. We seem to have bad DNA in the union officials minds which says that 'they' have too much money, and can always well afford more for their workers. That argument was also used for the other lost workforces. It has been well said that, 'the one thing we learn from history, is that we never learn from history'! I hope this strike can be averted, but let's be clear, it's not the unions who currently pay the high salaries of the BA staff.       


Now we have become a 'nation of shopkeepers' (Napoleon's quote, not mine). The jobs market needs doctors, nurses, teachers, maids, porters, hotel staff, policemen, bar staff, bankers, and now perhaps airline staff will be looking for employment. What do all these jobs have in common? None of them 'make' money for the economy. They 'take' money for their services. They do not in themselves generate wealth, and isn't that what makes a nation great and proud?


We are just starting to emerge from a major economic recession, caused by one of the service industries, and what a mess was made there. Banking is the UKs biggest industry now. We speculate on other people's money, and we even got that wrong, big time.


If only we had been able to stop the strike over the price of a bacon roll!