Me cherry picking stats? That is hilarious.

One measure is a measure of actual output. On that measure we rank 9th. Behind Germany, France and Italy. Fact.

The other is a measure of revenue not output and not "value add" as you put it but "gross value add" which you clearly still do not understand. It is NOT a measure of output.

What is funny though is even with the latter statistic you are clinging to the fact we are slightly ahead of France in something that doesn't measure output.

If I built widgets and sold them for £100K and paid myself £20K and my costs were £10K but you built widgets and sold them for £100K but paid yourself £25K with costs of £10K I would have the better gross value add figures. We would however have the same manufacturing output. If you built a couple of different different things instead of widgets and built more of them in value added terms (not gross value added terms) than I did with my widgets you would have a greater manufacturing base than me. The fact I may still end up ahead in gross value added terms would not alter the fact your had a bigger manufacturing industry to me.

This is what lies behind the figures whereby we are behind the French in terms of output but ahead on net revenue. Just. In the other cases we are behind Germany and Italy on both measures which you seemingly want to ignore



Given who owns large chunks of our manufacturing industry compares to who owns the French, German and Italian industries no it isn't.

The bottom line is out manufacturing output has fallen since the 70's from 5th to 9th and contrary to popular belief it isn't just in comparison to emerging economies such as China but against comparable European ones.

Any chance you could provide some links to where all these figures come from that you quote

Because people vote labour because their parents did and not for what their policies are - therefore everything non labour is evil.

Because they get confused between real facts and quotes from spitting image - here's a clue, Spitting image was a fictional satirical comedy, not a documentary.

Because they choose to ignore the 6 months prior to the 1979 election where the country was at the mercy of the unions to the extent that you wen't to bed not knowing if there's be water the next day, or gas/electricity to heat homes in the winter ...or worse unions holding Callaghan to ransom to the extend that bodies didn't get buried
. And remember there was no striking on principal ...it was just greedy s after more of our taxes.

Applies to all political parties.

Which is what the problem is with football supporter style politics.

oops, sorry.

they're from DaveO's new bible.

rlhttp://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05809.pdfrl

really? are you reading the right data. from the link YOU provided?

UK France

1970 5th 7th

1980 7th 5th

1990 6th 7th

2000 5th 7th

2010 9th 8th

because, what that looks like to me, y'know, your figures, is that the hit the fan in the 70's, the tories to improve our lot only for labour to balls it up. so, when people spout on about how thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry, are they just misinformed or just outright liars.

We ignore it because it never happened

You obviously weren´t working in the 1979 then!

Are you saying then that the Callaghan Government were being positive with their 18% inflation?

Feel free to highlight the water shortages, gas shortages and power cuts that happened in 1979.

Apart from January, when I had responsibility for flying pickets during the lorry drivers' strike, I worked the whole year. How was school for you?

In the 1960´s and 1970´s successive governments were pouring huge subsidies into these any loss making state run industries. They might just as well have gone into Trafalgar Square and burnt the tax payers money for all the good it did. Civil servants and politicians were/are just not able enough to run industry in a competitve market place.



You could not describe the privatisation of state industries after 1979 as selling the family silver.....they were all bankrupt.

Now if you are talking about selling off the family gold....we should give a mention to Gordon no more boom and bust Brown and Ed Balls up

Didn't Labour preside over the 13 years before 2010?

Now if you are going to talk of who ruined the British car industry then look no further than Red Robbo and his militant union chums

As I asked way up the thread, name one private manufacturing company that MRS THATCHER closed down? Name any remotely viable manufacturing entity SHE closed down? I'd be interested.

Bit of a daft question - might as well extend it to any government from any era, governments don't close private businesses down at all, private businesses are nothing to do with governments unless they are running an illegal operation, governments do however close publicly owned businesses down, they run them down through under investment and poor management appointments and when they sell them on its often at a marked down price to get rid and attract buyers, which in the long term hardly ever benefits the public purse.

Like other have pointed out there were obvious basket cases in the 70s like BL and BT and likewise there are cases like East Coast who have proved that public ownership means better service and more profits simply by applying proper management techniques - you don't have to have civil servants running public companies.