BAE in Plaudit shocker!!

[emitex]

As seen on the BBC website -here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3741979.stm)

[soddim]

The best thing to happen to BWoS in years! Now they have to compete in the real world without their cosy little relationship with an MOD that was told to buy British. Maybe now they will also be banned from employing senior military officers straight from jobs where procurement decisions are made.

I doubt after all these years of protectionism they can exist in the commercial world in competition with the likes of THALES or Boeing so it would be just as well if the latter took them over.

The taxpayer could have got more bang for his buck many years ago if we had been allowed to buy the best products on the market.

[smartman]

I don't come from anywhere remotely near soddim's camp, but ----

Paul Beaver seems to want the cake and eat it when he says, firstly, that ownership is not the problem - and then goes on to argue that we have good people and make good things, and should not simply become metal bashers. Don't we have too many examples of selling off our silverware, only to become polishers?

Whether you are a fan or not, Dick Evans is not all wrong when he quotes JSF as an example of things to come (RR aside). We may have UK people maintaining their skills in some airframe and avionic aspects of that programme, but not nearly enough to make a difference. And there'll be no prizes for guessing where the real brainy stuff will always be done.

So IMHO, in the absence of some imaginary benelovent buyer or an almost certainly unaffordable or perhaps politically unacceptable sea change shift in HMG policy, 'metal-bashing' is probably our inevitable destiny.

[smartman]

Sorry - did I kill this thread, or am I just a boring fart ----

[soddim]

No, you're not a boring old fart but I think this thread is dying because most people have resigned themselves to mediocrity in our manufacturing industry - or what's left of it.

Perhaps if we get ourselves out of the EU and regain some national pride we might see more interest and performance out of Britain.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Soddim

Concur 100%

[pr00ne]

Soddim,

What!

“get ourselves out of the EU”

Do you actually know what that would do to our economy and industry? It would devastate it and isolate this country totally and leave us as a marginalised and irrelevant backwater in an increasingly global economy.

We have the 4th largest economy on the planet so I hardly think your reference to mediocrity in manufacturing industry-what’s left of it is appropriate, but if we left the EU boy would it be!

Without international partnerships and foreign owned multi-national enterprises this country would be in a sorry state. We are dominated by a desire for short term shareholder value in this country at Director and Boardroom level, hence GKN selling their stake in AgustaWestland, BAES looking to sell out to a larger US partner, Racal being sold to Thales and TRWLucas selling out to Goodrich.

If we were not in the EU then not one of these companies would have any reason to actually be in the UK any more, the fact that we have not adopted the Euro has already put similar investment in jeopardy, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have all stated that they would look to invest on the continent if we persist in staying out of the Eurozone.

It is already a challenge to retain investment in this offshore island of the largest trading block in the world, by pulling out of the EU we would make it nigh on impossible.

[ZH875]

If we were not in the EU then not one of these companies would have any reason to actually be in the UK any more, the fact that we have not adopted the Euro has already put similar investment in jeopardy, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have all stated that they would look to invest on the continent if we persist in staying out of the Eurozone.Is this why Toyota has just announced further massive investment with many more jobs at their Burnaston factory in Derby (that's in Britain) and still outside the monopoly money zone.

[pr00ne]

ZH875, (are you a spotter?)

Yes, and their announcement of this investment was couched with veiled threats that it may be the last if the UK remains outside the Eurozone.

If the UK were to pull out of the EU how long do you think Toyota would remain at Burnaston?

[soddim]

Proone

You seem to assume that the EU trades with us advantageously - in fact we buy much more from them than they from us and they would want to continue to trade with us even if we left the EU. You also seem to assume that the EU is our only trade option but, in fact, we sell much more to USA and could do better joining a trading block across the pond.

We may well be the 4th largest economy but it is not true to say that we have the 4th or even the tenth largest manufacturing industry. Our manufacturing industry has been dying at an unprecedented pace and we are now mainly a service industry economy.

As for continued EU membership it is clear that we are not going to accept a federal EU government and therefore we will have less and less influence. We already suffer greatly from stupid EU legislation that we seem to obey to the letter whilst others cheat. How long after political integration of the other EU countries could we hope to maintain any kind of trading relationship that was to our advantage?

Far from being dependant on the EU we are being dragged down and, increasingly, sidelined. Time for other arrangements I think.

[pr00ne]

Soddim,

We do not trade more with the US than the EU, the EU is our single largest trading partner.
NAFTA is putting up trading blocks and barriers to the import of non NAFTA goods. The EU has the power to negotiate these tariffs, the UK outside the EU would just be an irrelevence.

Don't equate manufacturing industry to wealth, assembly is only a small part of the value of any product, increasing competition in labour rates is moving manufacturing away from all first world nations, not just the UK.

The EU is now 25 nations strong, that is the single largest barrier to a federal Europe. Some French and German politicians may still dream of this but they had their chance before 74 and blew it.

[soddim]

So why not join NAFTA?

If we always do what we are doing now we will always get what we have now - increasing mediocrity.

[pr00ne]

Soddim,

Because, and you may have noticed this, NAFTA stands for NORTH AMERICAN Free Trade Area, and we are an offshore island of EUROPE!
The US and it's NAFTA partners would not remotely contemplate our membership, this was pointed out in no uncertain terms in the Thatcher days when some of her more extreme supporters mooted the idea.

This 'little Englander, hate johnny foreigner' zenophobic paranoia is absolute nonsense.

[soddim]

But Proone, you obviously don't understand. The leading nations in the EU are our old enemies not our old friends. Our friends live across the pond and what you claim was true in Thatchers days is largely irrelevant.

This thread was about BWoS so to stay on-thread let's consider what they have gained and continue to gain from EU membership. The French, for example, would not join in with the Eurofighter because they preferred to build Rafael in direct competition. The Germans later decided that they could not afford their contracted buy and seem to have done their level best to delay the project ever since. Admittedly Airbus has been a good earner but that is not down to the EU. Why if the EU is such a good thing for UK is BWoS now committed to dealing and manufacturing across the pond and seeking trading relationships with Boeing and Lockheed?

Trading relationships are now more about political alliances and common viewpoints than geographical proximity. This is a global business era and we need to broaden our horizons.

This 'little Englander, hate johnny foreigner' zenophobic paranoia is absolute nonsense.

That sentence does logical argument and discussion no service but it does say something about your ability to debate without denegrating the opposition.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

No, you're not a boring old fart but I think this thread is dying because most people have resigned themselves to mediocrity in our manufacturing industry - or what's left of it.

True.

........and regain some national pride we might see more interest and performance out of Britain.

True.

We are dominated by a desire for short term shareholder value in this country at Director and Boardroom level, hence GKN selling their stake in AgustaWestland, BAES looking to sell out to a larger US partner, Racal being sold to Thales and TRWLucas selling out to Goodrich.

True.

:mad: :{ :{ :{

[The Gorilla]

Pr00ne

Not French are we by any chance?????


:ok:

[Vage Rot]

I think we should go back to pounds, shillings and pence - my Grandad says everything was brill back then!!

Mind you, outside bog, no Sky Sport, ration books and no internet - bugger! Vive da eurothingymabobby.

Lets get in - we've already signed up to the constitution - its only different bloody beer tokens for Chr1st sake.!!

In or out - the economy is doomed - houses are now unaffordable even for those of us with good incomes!! I'm off to R&D for a nice big Tri-wall box!