Skip to main content

MILLIBAND'S MANUFACTURING MISTAKE?

Ed Milliband, in a speech to the CBI yesterday, made the following statement:

"Despite all the talent in engineering and work in our universities, I fear Britain still suffers from an anti-manufacturing bias.

The way to support British businesses who want to lead in the industries of the future isn’t for government to do nothing. Government action can make a difference, and government inaction can make life harder".

As the new Labour leader is in his honeymoon period, but did anyone bother telling him that between 1997 and 2007, manufacturing as a proportion of national wealth reduced from 20.7 per cent of the UK economy to 12.7 per cent.

In Wales, it went from 27.6 per cent of the economy in 1997 to 17.6 per cent of the economy in 2007.

Is that what he meant by government action to support manufacturing?

It is also worth noting, and something that the Labour Party finds hard to deal with, that the contribution of manufacturing to the economy under John Major's administration stayed approximately the same across the UK and actually increased in Wales.

Comments

Jeff Jones said…
I don't normally read the Liverpool Daily Post but yesterday I was reviewing the papers for BBC radio. I came across the story of the £4.5 million from ERDF funding for a new stadium in Colwyn Bay. I might be wrong but this seems to be another classic example of what is wrong with the way European money has been used since Objective One status was granted in the 1990s. I can distinctly remember going to the first meetings and being told that there should no bids for leisure centres.The trouble with these projects is that it often easy to find the money to build them . The hard bit is the future business plan particularly when it comes to ongoing revenue funding and future maintenance. Have you seen the business plan for this scheme which doesn't seem to have had much publicity in the rest of Wales?
October 30, 2010 9:54 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE CRACHACH

Unlike me, do you consider yourself part of 'the establishment' here in Wales?  As thousands gather for the Eisteddfod in Mold this morning, they will, according to some social commentators, not be participating in the greatest cultural festivals of Europe. Instead, they will merely be bit-part players in one of the annual gatherings of the great and good of Wales.  Unkindly, this set of the movers and shakers in Welsh society is known as 'the crachach' , and constitute a social class all of their own, dominating the educational, cultural and media sectors of Wales and allegedly looking down upon any outsider with new ideas, reinforcing mediocrity and failing to see beyond the limits of their own narrow experience.  They are said to live in a comfort zone that awaits the expected invitation to the next glass of chilled chardonnay and canapés, forgetting that due to their lack of leadership and drive, Wales remains firmly rooted to the bottom of the UK prosperity league ...
30 comments
Read more

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CREATIVE CLASSES

One of my favourite academic books of the last two decades must be the “Rise of the Creative Classes” by Professor Richard Florida.  This was one of the first detailed studies of the growing group of individuals who use their creativity and mental labour to earn a living and not only included those in arts and entertainment, but also people working in science and technology as well as knowledge-based professions such as healthcare, law, business, and finance.  Fast forward to 2022 and Professor Florida has written an updated report on the creative classes although he and his team now identify a different type of individual who is taking full advantage of the growth in digital platforms, social media, and online marketplaces.  Such ‘creators’ are defined as those who use digital technology to make and publish unique creative content, whether in the form of video, film, art, music, design, text, games, or any other media that audiences can access and respond to.  They ...
Read more

GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MONITOR WALES 2022

How entrepreneurial is Wales? That is the question that the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) attempts to answer in its latest report which investigates those involved in early-stage entrepreneurship i.e. starting and managing a new business.  This year’s results show that the rate of total early-stage entrepreneurship (TEA) in Wales in 2021 was 10.3% as compared to 11.5% for the UK. This is significantly higher than the previous year (6.5%) and means that around 192,000 adults aged between 18 and 64 are involved in entrepreneurial activity in Wales.  Nearly three quarters are in the very early stages of starting a business and the rest involved in managing a new business aged between 4 and 42 months old.  This is an important finding as not only is the overall rate of entrepreneurial activity in Wales increasing but this is largely accounted for by those starting a business. In this respect, it is critical that the right support mechanisms are in place to ensu...
Read more