How stupid can Government get.

[Robert Jarvis]

Reidy, I understand how you feel but that was 20 years ago, should be thinking of the workers who are there now of whom probably most where still in school in 1987.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

Manufacturing was dead before labour got in, and the companies who were ruling the roost and asset stripping the industry have some rather dubious board members. I know for fact that Mayflower who asset strip engineering companies have/had a certain bloke called Major on the board, and not just as a figurehead name to get contracts, so the ones that finished the manufacturing off then got on the boards of the companies doing it and set about finishing the rest off.

If the BAE workers spend ther ample wages from over the years & redundancy wisely then they should have no trouble retraining, their futures are in their hands.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The customer in this case was the British Army, they wanted BAE's product. The treasury overruled the MOD and passed the contract abroad. So who is the customer??

We are handing out over a billion pounds to another country which we have to borrow and the british taxpayer has to pay back.

You are missing the point Bruce.

I'm not sure I am. It's always different when it's someone elses money. As Milton Friedman famously said.

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.

Think about it another way. When everyone here was spending their own money, how many went out and bought a Rover and how many bought a foreign brand car?

Lets face it, BAe haven't had a bad deal out of the government. If their bribing of a Saudi prince hadn't been brushed under the carpet goodness knows where they'd be. I mean Rolls Royce have flourished since privatisation and are now one of the leading companies in the world. BAe, sadly, have not.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

Reidy, I understand how you feel but that was 20 years ago, should be thinking of the workers who are there now of whom probably most where still in school in 1987.

I was in 1 of the last years of apprentices so they won't be, there haven't been any skilled workers trained up in the last 20 years, or not very many, so that won't be the case, it's an ageing workforce tbh and the unions have been warning that eventually there won't be anyone trained to do any of the skilled manufacturing jobs. I'm trying to think of the big engineering place over your way in colne, it's one of the only ones that still trains people, and they are foreign owned, but they rely on contracts from BAE for eurofighter etc.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

We also need to keep this in perspective. BAe employ around 100,000 people in the UK. So 'if', and it's a big if, redundancies were to occur as a result of this, it would be less than 1% of their total UK workforce.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I was in 1 of the last years of apprentices so they won't be, there haven't been any skilled workers trained up in the last 20 years, or not very many, so that won't be the case, it's an ageing workforce tbh and the unions have been warning that eventually there won't be anyone trained to do any of the skilled manufacturing jobs. I'm trying to think of the big engineering place over your way in colne, it's one of the only ones that still trains people, and they are foreign owned, but they rely on contracts from BAE for eurofighter etc.

Interestingly they had a feature on Germany in this weeks Economist and it is interesting how the apprenticeship is so big out there. The German education system still seems to favour class over ability, and they are also overlooking the severe demographic crunch hitting most of the developed world, but nevertheless they are (or were) the biggest exporter in the world so must be doing something right.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

Interestingly they had a feature on Germany in this weeks Economist and it is interesting how the apprenticeship is so big out there. The German education system still seems to favour class over ability, and they are also overlooking the severe demographic crunch hitting most of the developed world, but nevertheless they are (or were) the biggest exporter in the world so must be doing something right.

They have also had the rebuilding of East Germany though, so they have been able to keep on training people as they had their own projects going on and still have, the apprentices in this country have mostly been at colleges (modern apprenticeships I think they were called) but if there was no-one to employ them or no-one willing to pay enough then people start to do other things.

Of the people that were apprentices when I was, there aren't many doing engineering these days, as jobs went the market became saturated and anyone offering work soon realised that they could pay less, I've looked lately to see if it's worth going back into it but the wages are like a step back of 20 years, most jobs I wouldn't be getting much more than I was in the last year of my training.

When it hit's the fan for BAE though, it's usually the companies that get sub-contract work that get hit, BAE just turn off the tap, and again the BAE workers don't really care about them.

Gardner is the one in Colne, subbing work from BAE, I worked for 1 near Wrexham and the slightest twitch in the market and BAE stop the work supply, and couldn't care less if they go to the wall, whilst their workers still carry on doing overtime the lot, yet after this news they will be getting amicus to get it's members to chip in so that they can walk out for a day or 2, members who earn far less than they do.


There wasn't as much protest about the high speed trains being ordered from was it Italy ? when the available workforce here could have given us a whole new rail network without a penny going abroad.

You go over to these places though and they are full of British workers who've had to go there to find work, even in N.Z. we were doing work for places in Oldham and Rochdale, as there wasn't anywhere local to get the things made any more, nearly all brits on the other side of the world, making stuff to be sent back here and we were there because the places here where we would've made them had all shut down.

 

[TyphooToffee]

A lot of people don't like the Americans and/or the French, but I'll tell you what, they certainly look after their own. Something our own, self-serving politicians ought to think about sometimes!

 

[KelseyGrammer-Beast-SuitsBlue]

A lot of people don't like the Americans and/or the French, but I'll tell you what, they certainly look after their own. Something our own, self-serving politicians ought to think about sometimes!

Agreed, lump the Chinese in with them as well. No bleeding heart liberals dictating how respective countries should disable themselves.
Though today there were rumblings of a future government penalising anyone found carrying a knife, sounds great but could there be a flaw?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Protectionism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Suppose you can only lead the horse to water.

 

[davek]

Oh the irony. A Murdoch paper arguing for protectionism.

<guffaw>

 

[Robert Jarvis]

A lot of people don't like the Americans and/or the French, but I'll tell you what, they certainly look after their own. Something our own, self-serving politicians ought to think about sometimes!

Exactly but Bruce is missing this point. As I said I underrstand Reidy but he seems to be mired in the past on how he was treated which was not good but it was 20 years ago, we are talking about now. As for the talk oflosing manufacturing industries in the last 10 years 5 vehicle manufacturers have ceased in this country.

Bruce I am afriad you cannot see further than the end of your financial nose, in this lot I am talking and thinking of the human cost and how much I deplore what happened to Reidy being repeated. Think of the communities where those job losses will be felt. Look at Redcar and the effect Corus closing is having on that Town.

Whilst poliyically DaveK and I may not see eye to eye, I am certain he feels about the folk who will suffer.

PS Bruce your comments sound an awful lot like Mandelson's.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

What I'm saying about BAE workers is that they have been only too happy to take other folks jobs over the years, yet when it's coming at them it's a different matter and they expect a national outcry.
So it's not a case of being over 20 years ago at all, as Industry has steadily disappeared over the years I see BAE as having played a major part in that, by stopping the supply of work whenever they've felt a bit of a pinch, whereas their own workers have carried on working lots of overtime, giving no support at all to the network of suppliers.

 

[Robert Jarvis]

So Reidy you have a gripe about BAE and its workers but think of the people who are dependent on those keeping their jobs. As I said for me it is about the Human cost.

Think long term and the cost of losing those skills which cannot be replaced, how will that figure for the country and your children and theirs.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

So Reidy you have a gripe about BAE and its workers but think of the people who are dependent on those keeping their jobs. As I said for me it is about the Human cost.

Think long term and the cost of losing those skills which cannot be replaced, how will that figure for the country and your children and theirs.

They've done it to me twice mate, with no regard for me or my kids, so I have absolutely none for them, non whatsoever.
I agree that is sad for people to lose jobs and industry to all but vanish, but it's hard to feel sympathy for those that only too happily took my work, a bit like asking ex-miners to feel sorry for the Notts miners who carried on going down and have in the last years been clinging to their jobs.
What goes around comes around and all that, I am a Blue so therefore Bitter.