Carryfast:
Rjan:
[…]It’s not the job of unions and union leaders to make the decisions to close down of keep open the mining industry.Scargill had already gone way over and above the call of duty by blowing Thatcher’s plans wide open.That was more than enough it then became a matter for government and democratic control over that government.Which just leaves the question how and why should the vote in non mining areas have the larger say in that as opposed to the vote in the specific areas affected.While it’s obvious that Thatcher’s rabble couldn’t overrule any other matter concerning the mining industry either by that same logic.
The basic reason the vote in non-mining areas has a say, is because mining was related to non-mining areas in various ways - mining was, if you like, an export industry and relied on foreign investment (if “export” and “foreign” in this context relates to other constituencies). You say Scargill blew the plans wide open, but in fact his own members weren’t persuaded that the plans were true, or that they would be affected by them.
As for Ford.Firstly it effectively gave away its massive standing in the domestic mid range premium sector,in the form of what had previously been the Zephyr/Zodiac and then Granada and even Cortina ranges to the Germans.Both in the form of the Cologne Granada and Cortina Mk IV and BMW and Mercedes ranges.That range obviously included everything from the 1.5-2.0 litre class to the 3.0 6 cylinder and,what should have been,beyond classes.That was effectively the deliberate end of Ford UK to the benefit of the Krauts.All put in place under traitor Europhile Callaghan’s administration.
But Ford was a private company and started to expanding on the continent in the 60s. And you can’t blame the Labour government for everything - they did take a variety of steps to support British Leyland in the 1970s.
And I’m struggling to read between the lines to understand the logic of what you’re saying went wrong or should have been done differently. Yes, the German car industry benefitted from better industrial relations in the 70s (and better rationalisation), but so did many other countries.
And of course some of the longer-term trends had emerged in the late 50s and the 60s, which is why the WIlson government (and even the Macmillan government) had started to pour money into industry, and had also started to try and get a grip of incompetent British management.
And it was the Thatcher government that did far more damage to British manufacturing. We stumbled in the 70s, but it went into freefall in the 80s - it was a lost decade for manufacturing.
The Eastern and Southern countries of Europe have actually been bigger beneficiaries over the long-term (probably because they’re lower-wage), and more broadly outside Europe the US car industry has been virtually destroyed (considering where it was) whereas Japan has done outstandingly well. That’s why I can’t understand why your focus is on the UK vs Germany relationship as the prism through which all evils are perceived, and I especially can’t understand why you look to the US as an economic model, whose workers haven’t seen a pay rise in 50 years even though the US economy has grown massively!
No.Trade with any other country doesn’t mean them having a say in the sovereignty of that country whether immigration policy or economic policy.As I said it just takes the type of balls which brought Ford of Daghenham here and if the Americans didn’t like the idea of the NHS as part of that tough then they zb off and we replace the shortfall with Rover Triumph.Which is more or less the regime which our car industry among others worked happily under.Until 1973 when it all went to hell in a handcart in the form of the deliberate transfer of UK wealth creation to bleedin Europe through Heath’s and Callaghan’s treachery finished off by Thatcher.The common link being that,like you,they were all clearly more interested in looking after the interests of Europe and European workers than with looking after our own.
It wasn’t “balls” that brought Ford here. And for myself, it’s not “European workers rather than our own” that I care about, it’s that I see the dividing line as class. Our economy has not suffered since the 1970s - the economy as a whole has become considerably richer, but in that context it is only the rich who have become considerably richer, and the reason why British workers are badly off is because bosses have become massively better off. If you wonder why I’d rather attack the bosses than European workers then, the answer should be obvious from that general statement of my outlook. It’s the same in America - the American worker is not badly off because of the Chinese worker, they are badly off because the American rich and the Chinese rich are laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of the American working class.
The rich are united in their agenda to attack the working class of the developed world. The difference between different nations is that, for the Chinese rich, they really are doing better for their entire society - their workers’ wages are rising significantly every year and their society is developing and modernising - whereas our rich (the American rich and the European rich) are doing well for themselves only.