I'm curious - can anyone name a high quality industry product made by brits ?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

F1 is a good example, but that is a niche that still survives, anything on industrial scale - nothing, it's either crap or built somewhere else.

UK = services.

[BlackCat]

Most F1 teams are run from Britain, with an industry worth over a billion pounds/year IIRC.

WTF is wrong with the reading ability of poytubbies

RR cars and engines, F1 tech etc doesn't count - it must be made by ordinary blue collar types.

[MOBIUS]

Anything that makes BC bust a blood vessel has to be a good job well done...

British Industry!

[BlackCat]

I own very neatly designed speakers, a CD player, a preamp and a power amp all made in UK. Not sure of the colour of the collars of people assembling them.

Yeah, I know - they did the same back in the 80'ies, but I don't consider it as industry products - it's more like a handmade Rolls Royce. I mean, if you decide wether a capacitor is good or bad by listening instead of it's technical specifications, it's not an ordinary industrial product.

[BlackCat]

Anything that makes BC bust a blood vessel has to be a good job well done...

British Industry!

If you think that I can bust a blood vessel over british industry or for that matter lack of reading capability of polytubbies, then you really have reached a new depth of ineptness

Why don't you crawl back under your stone, all this fresh air can't be good for you

[Asher]

F1 is one of the most comically mismanaged "sports" in the world. Go figure the Brits brag about it.

[BlackCat]

No offense Ben Asher, please make a new thread about that

[Dinner]

F1 is a good example, but that is a niche that still survives, anything on industrial scale - nothing, it's either crap or built somewhere else.

UK = services.

You have to admit that it is funny to hear the President of France say Britain has no industry when Britain's industrial sector is larger then France's.

[C0ckney]

You have to admit that it is funny to hear the President of France say Britain has no industry when Britain's industrial sector is larger then France's.

but didn't you just say...oh yes

Manufacturing has been slaughtered in Britain just like in America while Germany and France have held up fairly well due to their national manufacturing policies.

[Dinner]

Yes, but the UK started from a much higher base then France. Thus it can drop more then France, even by a large amount, and yet still have higher absolute value then France's. What the UK doesn't have is national champions the way France does. Name the industry and France's industrial policy has been to build up a domestic champion in that industry while the UK hasn't had national champions since the 1970's and lost 2/3rds of its industrial sector from not having a national industrial policy (France has lost maybe 1/4-1/3rd). That's the policy I like and wish Thatcher had gone with in the 1980's.

Check my link from above as it verifies the numbers.

[notyoueither]

Is GM a 'champion' for the US, Oerdin?

[Dinner]

Sadly, the US also followed the policy of not having national champions and that is part of what brought us to this low passing of events. BTW the term "national champions" is a fairly old term in French business and industrial policy. It's kind of protectionist and interventionist, I suppose, but on the other side it also means France retains the necessary industries to be a major world power and industrial producer. People have called it guided competition or managed competition and Japan widely copied it in the post WW2 era; the goal is to have a national industrial policy and promote large domestically owned businesses specializing in certain critical fields.

I think this can be done and still retain the benefits of a largely free trade economy though it does require good policy decisions by those in charge.

[notyoueither]

What purpose do these champions serve?

[Dinner]

Many Americans thought we'd always be on top and so we never needed a real national industrial policy (since we assumed we'd always be the winners) but sadly the truth has hit us in the face and other nation's which do have national industrial policies to promote industrialization and national champions have kicked our asses. Like various Asian powers. Japan and South Korea followed this policy and now China is doing the same.

[Dinner]

What purpose do these champions serve?

1) It insures that the country retains vital skills and industries needed for war fighting as well as weathering trade shocks. As long as you have large domestic producers you are 1st world economic and industrial power.

2) Part of it is the prestige of having major companies easily identified as being from your country so you're not dependent upon others. It's validation that you're a major economic power.

3) Foreign owned operations in the country are all well and good (and they should be promoted) but domestically owned ones are more likely to continue to invest in the country rather then just move on to the next cheaper alternative so there is more employment stability. Also the profits stay in the country instead of being repatriated abroad to the corporate parent company.

4) It promotes local economic interests.

Edit: 5) It preserves and promotes domestic employment.