Nick Schon

[Harry Stottle]

It's usually best to ignore the "I'm not a racist, but..." posts. They're not bigoted, swivel-eyed loons, but...
Not that I'm having a go at bigoted, swivel-eyed loons - some of my best friends are bigoted, swivel-eyed loons.
You get the idea.


It's mad isn't it? It's like we're suffering from hyperactive attention deficit but-what-about-the-immigrants disorder.


Now my obligatory nonsense is out the way, let's look at the question.

Why is our manufacturing base related to our membership of the EU?
The Germans and the Chinese both manage to do very well in manufacturing - one within the EU and one without. Admittedly I'd rather be a German worker, than a Chinese one - but that's not my point.

Firstly, we need to ask whether keeping what's left of our manufacturing is a good thing. i.e. Is it intrinsically good? If employees could add more value outside of manufacturing, would that be somehow worse?

Or we could accept that it is good - it just is.
How will our leaving the EU affect our manufacturing base? It seems to me that our retreat from manufacturing predates Brexit.

We could look at why we lost our manufacturing base within the EU and Germany has thrived.

Possibly the lifelong emphasis on engineering training in Germany has something to do with it.
Possibly there something in the British culture that promotes advertising, media and financial occupations as somehow more worthy than engineering and manufacturing.
When did this slide start? Did Mrs. Thatcher's destruction of the unions have anything to do with it?

I don't know. I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

btiw2, here are my thoughts; I'm an engineer (a proper engineer, not a repair man "engineer") You are absolutely right about engineering training, but additionally there's the image and status difference that discourages young people to embark on an engineering career. In Germany an engineer enjoys the same status in society as lawyers, medical doctors, accountants etc. and it's an offence to call yourself an engineer if you're not accredited. It's quite different here, for years the three great engineering institutions Civil, Mechanical and Electrical have been trying to encourage young people with little or no help from governments
made up of mainly lawyers, at the same time anyone handy with a spanner can call himself an engineer.
It is with regret that we gave away our world leading nuclear industry, there was no nation to touch us for our skill in designing and building nuclear power stations, yet we let it slip away whilst paying homage to the daft anti nuclear lobby. Abandoning Dounreay under pressure from the anti-nuclear brigade was a big mistake.
Don't despair though, the UK is re-emerging as a leading engineering body, we have several great engineering consultancies that earn lots of fees from abroad and we are the leading country in motor sport design, also we're pretty handy with aircraft design, ship design, medical equipment design etc. Manufacturing such items is not presently our forte but it can be. There seems a reluctance to shout about our skills from the rooftops and I'd like to see a body set up to do that.
Sorry to mention Brexit, but that will be our big chance to re-establish ourselves in a world leading role if we have the will to do it.
Harry

 

[Deleted member 33931]

I wonder if Nick sees the future like this.

That's very funny.

You do realise you are almost certainly missing the intended 'rony?

Oh, you didn't...

 

[Deleted member 33931]

btiw2, here are my thoughts; I'm an engineer (a proper engineer, not a repair man "engineer") You are absolutely right about engineering training, but additionally there's the image and status difference that discourages young people to embark on an engineering career. In Germany an engineer enjoys the same status in society as lawyers, medical doctors, accountants etc. and it's an offence to call yourself an engineer if you're not accredited. It's quite different here, for years the three great engineering institutions Civil, Mechanical and Electrical have been trying to encourage young people with little or no help from governments
made up of mainly lawyers, at the same time anyone handy with a spanner can call himself an engineer.
It is with regret that we gave away our world leading nuclear industry, there was no nation to touch us for our skill in designing and building nuclear power stations, yet we let it slip away whilst paying homage to the daft anti nuclear lobby. Abandoning Dounreay under pressure from the anti-nuclear brigade was a big mistake.
Don't despair though, the UK is re-emerging as a leading engineering body, we have several great engineering consultancies that earn lots of fees from abroad and we are the leading country in motor sport design, also we're pretty handy with aircraft design, ship design, medical equipment design etc. Manufacturing such items is not presently our forte but it can be. There seems a reluctance to shout about our skills from the rooftops and I'd like to see a body set up to do that.
Sorry to mention Brexit, but that will be our big chance to re-establish ourselves in a world leading role if we have the will to do it.
Harry

It's a weird conundrum indeed. The Brits have a history as long as history itself of being amongst the very greatest of designers and engineers. And this hasn't changed - where do all (well, most of) the Formula 1 teams produce & manufacture their designs?

How we cannot translate this into 'everyday' engineering beats me.

I understand that some people think Brexit is the answer. They may 'think' this, but they 'think' lots of other stuff too. Which kinda spoils what they 'think'.

(Damn - I was doing soooo well...)

 

[Isitreally]

That's very funny.

You do realise you are almost certainly missing the intended 'rony?

Oh, you didn't...

I fully understood the Irony that was intended, but in the world we live in today (Gender Neutral??), that Irony is becoming reality.

 

[Deleted member 33931]

Uh-huh, is it really?

 

[Deleted member 164349]

btiw2, here are my thoughts; I'm an engineer (a proper engineer, not a repair man "engineer") You are absolutely right about engineering training, but additionally there's the image and status difference that discourages young people to embark on an engineering career. In Germany an engineer enjoys the same status in society as lawyers, medical doctors, accountants etc. and it's an offence to call yourself an engineer if you're not accredited. It's quite different here, for years the three great engineering institutions Civil, Mechanical and Electrical have been trying to encourage young people with little or no help from governments
made up of mainly lawyers, at the same time anyone handy with a spanner can call himself an engineer.
It is with regret that we gave away our world leading nuclear industry, there was no nation to touch us for our skill in designing and building nuclear power stations, yet we let it slip away whilst paying homage to the daft anti nuclear lobby. Abandoning Dounreay under pressure from the anti-nuclear brigade was a big mistake.
Don't despair though, the UK is re-emerging as a leading engineering body, we have several great engineering consultancies that earn lots of fees from abroad and we are the leading country in motor sport design, also we're pretty handy with aircraft design, ship design, medical equipment design etc. Manufacturing such items is not presently our forte but it can be. There seems a reluctance to shout about our skills from the rooftops and I'd like to see a body set up to do that.
Sorry to mention Brexit, but that will be our big chance to re-establish ourselves in a world leading role if we have the will to do it.
Harry

Do you know, I could nearly agree with you. But for the disagree bits.

Now brexit being the chance to re establish ourself. If it had been planned, and worked up to, with industry and formation getting into place, then quite possibly after the obvious initial downturn it could have been done.

But with no planning, no industry, no development, no infrastructure its a bit of a tall ask dont you think.

Especially when you consider gas and electricity come under the heading of manufacturing !

 

[Deleted member 164349]

I think some of the difference, and the resulting jealousy shown by the usuals, is Germanys attitude to life overall.,

They understand the importance of paying people well enough to live properly on. Not just how much they are paid, but standard of living.

Consequently they have pride in their jobs because they can live, not survive. They understand the difference between value and cheapest.

We have the mentality that a minimum wage, or a living wage is ok. The downside being that our workforce cannot afford to buy anything quality, or afford tradesmen ( tell me that you dont charge less now a days than you should, just to get the work), and we are in a deeper and deeper vicious circle. We want the cheap imports that brexit will give us because we can trade with other countries easier, forgetting that brexit is causing the imports to increase, and thus worsening the cycle. All our workers can afford is the cheapest and we are constantlybtrying to provide cheaper, not sort out the issue, the ability to afford the best value.

We need to break the cycle, by allowing people to improve their standard of living (as opposed to just higher wages), and understand that the job can provide properly for them. Pretty unlikely under the Tories, with or without brexit.

But unfortunately we have just consigned ourselves to more misery by leaving the trading platform we had.

We are jealous, and in awe of Germany, and so we should be.

 

[longboat]

Of course not - how convenient.

Isn't it time that the bantering stopped - both in and out of the HoC?

Compare Davis with Starmer.

Davis talks, not to the MPs, but to his core Brexit supporters in the country - like Trump targets his lot at his press conferences and rallies. What's his latest glib posturing? That the EU is trying to extort money from the UK? That 'we never said it was going to be easy'?

I'm sure his core supporters 'Hurrayed' at all that. (Honest, now - you did, didn't you?)

Meanwhile, all the other negotiations - such as those over research & science cooperation - will seemingly be 'easy'; all the UK has to do is to negotiate an equivalent. Which will be better!

Peasy.

EU travelling to the UK? Let's go back to demanding passports. Of course the EU wouldn't ask the same of us - 'cos we are spesh.

It's hardly convenient. I would say it's rather inconvenient, (for you) as it means you don't have anything to back up your spurious claim.
Does your 'banter ban' proposal extend to society as a whole, or are you talking only about those with any kind of political clout?
Sound a bit dull either way.

Yeah, let's compare two politicians.
One can say what he likes and will ultimately be judged on what he says because he's in a position to carry out the things he says. If he doesn't do what he says he's going to do, woe betide the man.

The other can say what he likes.

You may want to have a rethink over your passport point.
Just sayin.

 

[longboat]

It's tricky to formulate the question that matches our "feelings" about UK manufacturing, let alone find answers, isn't it?

We see empty factories, meet people made redundant from industries that have disappeared.
We see manufacturers that no longer exist (although we also ignore new ones that spring up).

I begged the question that UK manufacturing is in decline. It's a smaller part of our GDP, is that the same thing as decline? Is no/low growth the same thing as decline? [1] It's importance is declining relative to other industries - should we care?

Is it export currency we care about? Is it people employed in industry? Is it just export manufacturing, or domestic too?

I think people must be part of the goal, but I don't know how.
If you told me that manufacturing value had increased and all the manufacturing is done by robots. The ex-workers now work for minimum wage in call centres (until we work out how to send the jobs to India) then that doesn't feel like a good thing.
But if you told me that we can increase the number of people working in those industries or we could achieve the same thing using fewer people and more robots, then that seems like a waste of labour too.

So perhaps it's about people having useful skills - skills that add value.
But the service industries requires useful skills. Why's manufacturing special?

I think part of it is that advertising, film-making, music, banking seem a bit... poncy (I thought about using the words "ephemeral" or "intangible" here, but dismissed them as too poncy).

I don't know that this has to do with Brexit though. It's just observations about the special place manufacturing has in the nation's psyche.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/manufacturingandproductionindustry

Manufacturing is a part of our heritage, and as you say the feelings that surround it's decline are still etched into the minds of generations before my own. Or possibly even my generation, to a sence.
The 'pesky kids' couldn't give a toss i imagine, the good for nothing, don't know their born's would rather sit in a nice comfortable office wearing their trendy clothes, guzzling down shiny cans of 'monster' and playing on their phones whilst dealing with trivial easily solved problems that customers bother them with day in day out.
Give me an oil stained boiler suit, deafening noise and the instruction to feed a steel sheet into a press, hit a button, take the sheet out, and repeat....repeat...repeat.
All day long.
On second thoughts, maybe I'd opt for the first pretty much unskilled option, instead.

I was however surprised that the UK was in the top 10 manufacturing nations when I stumbled across the date several weeks ago, I didn't even think we'd make the top 20.

 

[longboat]

That's very funny.

You do realise you are almost certainly missing the intended 'rony?

Oh, you didn't...

Couldn't you explain the intended 'rony', I missed it?

 

[longboat]

I think some of the difference, and the resulting jealousy shown by the usuals, is Germanys attitude to life overall.,

They understand the importance of paying people well enough to live properly on. Not just how much they are paid, but standard of living.

Consequently they have pride in their jobs because they can live, not survive. They understand the difference between value and cheapest.

We have the mentality that a minimum wage, or a living wage is ok. The downside being that our workforce cannot afford to buy anything quality, or afford tradesmen ( tell me that you dont charge less now a days than you should, just to get the work), and we are in a deeper and deeper vicious circle. We want the cheap imports that brexit will give us because we can trade with other countries easier, forgetting that brexit is causing the imports to increase, and thus worsening the cycle. All our workers can afford is the cheapest and we are constantlybtrying to provide cheaper, not sort out the issue, the ability to afford the best value.

We need to break the cycle, by allowing people to improve their standard of living (as opposed to just higher wages), and understand that the job can provide properly for them. Pretty unlikely under the Tories, with or without brexit.

But unfortunately we have just consigned ourselves to more misery by leaving the trading platform we had.

We are jealous, and in awe of Germany, and so we should be.

I really can't be bothered to go into any of 'that', but I can offer a sound trinket of advice towards someone in "your shoes".

Get packing and leave before the brexit drawbridge is raised.

 

[Deleted member 164349]

I really can't be bothered to go into any of 'that', but I can offer a sound trinket of advice towards someone in "your shoes".

Get packing and leave before the brexit drawbridge is raised.

Why are you so scared of Germany? Do you not think they have got a lot more right than we have?

I guess you have never been there?

And do you really think brexit is going to be brexit as you wanted ? You obviously want visas and stiff checks before travelling to europe!

 

[joinerjohn1]

You obviously want visas and stiff checks before travelling to europe!

Quite the opposite Jack, we want visas and better checks on non indigenous people coming here from Europe (and further afield)

 

[joinerjohn1]

I think some of the difference, and the resulting jealousy shown by the usuals, is Germanys attitude to life overall.,

I'm not jealous of some Teutonic faced person who puts their beach towel on the hotel sun lounger at half six in the morning, then doesn't use the sun lounger until well after lunchtime. Personally I think that shows their arrogance and ignorance. Arrogance, I can safely say I hate in any person. At least ignorance can be excused.

 

[Broon]

I get the feeling we are just going round in circles here.

Although John it comes across pretty bad that you hate a country and all its people due to how they behave on holiday. People don't tend to be there usual selves on holiday the Brits are a prime example we love to let our hair down abroad. Doesn't mean we are all a bunch of alcoholics who just cause trouble as some papers have shown.

I reckon you should maybe give them a second chance I'm sure there not all that bad.

Now a wee bit of a topic change here but what is everyone's thoughts on the whole only electric by 2040?

My take is we are just not there in battery technology to allow this right now (maybe we will be by 2040) as far as I'm aware your saying it is 100-200 miles max per journey that is just undo able as the amount of stops to recharge and what about service stations they will be worse than ever.

that just my thoughts right now there needs to be vast improvements and fast. This is perhaps something that could bring back British engineering and manufacturing and put it in the eyes of the world again.

 

[Deleted member 33931]

Quite the opposite Jack, we want visas and better checks on non indigenous people coming here from Europe (and further afield)

Please write to Davis so he can throw that in to his next meeting. One-way visa checks...

 

[Deleted member 33931]

I get the feeling we are just going round in circles here.

Although John it comes across pretty bad that you hate a country and all its people due to how they behave on holiday. People don't tend to be there usual selves on holiday the Brits are a prime example we love to let our hair down abroad. Doesn't mean we are all a bunch of alcoholics who just cause trouble as some papers have shown.

I reckon you should maybe give them a second chance I'm sure there not all that bad.

Now a wee bit of a topic change here but what is everyone's thoughts on the whole only electric by 2040?

My take is we are just not there in battery technology to allow this right now (maybe we will be by 2040) as far as I'm aware your saying it is 100-200 miles max per journey that is just undo able as the amount of stops to recharge and what about service stations they will be worse than ever.

that just my thoughts right now there needs to be vast improvements and fast. This is perhaps something that could bring back British engineering and manufacturing and put it in the eyes of the world again.

I'm pretty sure that JJ is only joking by suggesting that sun-lounger-bagging is a trait of all Germans. Pretty sure. Mind you, he reckons all Muslims are terr.... oh behave, you.


That was indeed a brave move by May's gov, being - I think - the first country to announce a date for all-leccy cars? And I heartily approve.

Of course the technology required for this doesn't exist today and - without major advances in many areas - it would be devastating to the environment; imagine all that extra energy demand!

But the way such advancements work is by a mix of legislation (eg - it's going to have to happen) and financial incentives.

Around a decade ago the gov gave very generous incentives to people to have PV panels installed on their homes. This was a pretty divisive decision by them, basically split between those who had the spare cash to take advantage and those who did not. And I get that - it was, on the surface, an unfair grant; it benefited those who already had.

However, what has it caused to happen? Well, the tech involved in these panels has improved vastly, with current PV panels being hugely more powerful/smaller and much much cheaper. This would NOT have happened without this financial incentive. It also provided good employment for tens of thousands of folk.

Ditto with wind farms - people aren't going to spend £illions on these unless they are incentivised. The result now - a mere decade later - is that we regularly have half the country's leccy generated by 'renewables' (tho' I think that 'stat includes nuclear?).

So, what will the legislation on leccy cars do? It will drive the advancement of technology with almost certain vast improvements in battery technology; look forward to high capacity batteries that can be fully charged in minutes.

This, of course, has to be backed with increased use of renewable energy sources, because the added requirement for leccy would otherwise lead to much greater carbon emissions, which some people think that's a bad thing.

It's all good, I reckon, and very necessary.

Jag has announced they'll have leccy models within a couple of years? Sigh - I wish they were still British...

I bet that British engineers will be deeply involved in these advancements, tho'.

 

[Deleted member 33931]

Get packing and leave before the brexit drawbridge is raised.

I fear you didn't even get the (un)intended 'rony in that little snippet.

 

[Deleted member 164349]

Quite the opposite Jack, we want visas and better checks on non indigenous people coming here from Europe (and further afield)

Brilliant .

 

[Deleted member 164349]

I'm not jealous of some Teutonic faced person who puts their beach towel on the hotel sun lounger at half six in the morning, then doesn't use the sun lounger until well after lunchtime. Personally I think that shows their arrogance and ignorance. Arrogance, I can safely say I hate in any person. At least ignorance can be excused.

I dont know anybody that has been to Germany (any part), that doesnt like it, and the people.

I know far more that have never been and hate it and the people.

I wonder which category you are in? No I dont,I can guess.

As a whole the Gernans are way more polite, friendly, welcoming, and sensible to eat and drink with than, yes us Brits. Sad really, but true.

A night out in any village, town or city is far less likely to see drunks, fights, lewd behaviour and other crime. More disciplined and thoughtful probably.