Manufacturing sector suffers while Government focuses on banks
"Working closely with... moving as fast as we can ... holding a seminar next week ... urgently assessing ... continues to look very carefully..."
Are these the words of someone who is on top of the biggest challenge faced by the manufacturing sector since the Industrial Revolution - or the obfuscation of a man who simply doesn't know what to do?
An alternative interpretation is that Lord Mandelson and the government have given up caring for what they see as two lost causes: the automotive industry in the West Midlands, and Labour's electoral hopes for the region.
We sincerely hope this analysis is way off the mark and that the business secretary's somewhat underwhelming response to the West Midlands Auto Summit is but an understated precursor to a wave of action that will overwhelm the industry with its focus, urgency and vision.
For that is precisely what has been lacking so far in this sorry chapter in the history of a government without a cohesive industrial policy.
Energy and action there has been aplenty when it has come to BERR's response to the threat to the banking sector, but that has served only to show up the contrast to its approach to manufacturing.
And in a kind of joyful doublethink, government ministers happily discuss breaking the law to prevent a few bankers receiving their pensions, while at the same time hiding behind European bureaucracy as cover for their lack of similar courage when it comes to dealing with the manufacturing crisis.
Simultaneously, they pour billions in to prop up the very banks that now sit on the loan capital so desperately needed to get industry moving again.
Lord Mandelson today points to actions that he claims are a serious response to the crisis. But nothing substantive has yet been delivered, and industry representatives are still scratching around to find examples of auto industry suppliers and manufacturers who have actually received a penny of new cash.
As Professor David Bailey points out, the asset purchase facility trumpeted today by Lord Mandelson is still not available to the manufacturing or auto industry.
Why not? It was announced last year and was up and running two weeks ago. The Bank of England should be instructed immediately to use it to purchase bonds in - for example - Jaguar Land Rover.
This region is in the early stages of what will be a long and drawn-out recession. Only government intervention can help it weather the financial and social storm to come, and every day's delay extends exponentially the misery of its citizens.
Lord Mandelson has but little time left to ensure that his name does not become a byword for the industrial collapse of the West Midlands.
Older/Newer
« Tories only want what they can't have on regional government | Caroline Spelman's future is still uncertain »
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Manufacturing sector suffers while Government focuses on banks. TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.birminghampost.net/cgi-bin/mt421/mt-tb.cgi/112562
5 Comments
Leave a comment
News authors
Marc Reeves - Editor of The Birmingham Post
My postings |
My feed
Paul Dale - The Birmingham Post's public affairs editor
My postings |
My feed
Subscribe to receive updates by email
Jonathan Walker - The Birmingham Post's political editor
My postings |
My feed
Latest Birmingham Post Business blog
Birmingham Post staff and guest bloggers from Birmingham and the midlands inform and entertain on all business matters.
Latest Birmingham Post Lifestyle blog
Birmingham Post staff and guest bloggers from the midlands give you the lowdown on what's happening in your region and some musings on culture in the UK and beyond.
Latest Birmingham Post Sport blog
Birmingham Post staff and guest bloggers from Birmingham and the midlands inform and entertain on all sporting matters.
The letter was very articulate though it didn't say anything new... Too many words and not enough action - this could have been written by any labour spin doctor - Alistair Campbell isn't back too is he?
James Rock
Thisn letter reads as if it was written by a civil servant , it is typical waffle the auto industry and manufacturing is in near collapse but the government continues to support the finance sector, it is notalble that the 2 biggest offenders in the banking crisis are RBS and BofS 2 Scotish banks and where do the PM and Chancellor and other cabinet ministers come from SCOTAND so perhaps if JLR and LDV were based in Scotland they would get more support
too late for GKN driveline Walsall which supplies JLR with propshafts.
Your blog is very nice & informative. I always appreciate your work. Thanks to the sharing.
Mohammad Zohaib Khan from New Car Deals
The Birmingham Post, like Birmingham's politiicans, are so ignorant of their history that they go attacking the monkey who has diverted their attention from the organ-grinder with a few cheap baubles.
In 1926, the Federation of British Industry opposed Prime Minister Baldwin, leader of the "poverty is good" section of the Tory Party, and called for leaving the "gold standard". Fortunately, Neville Chamberlain, the best Prime Minister Britain ever had, did that and saved not only industry from annihilation, but Britain from occupation by immigrants from Germany in 1941. Chamberlain was of course opposed by the Labour Party led by the nose by Clement Attlee, but the pro-poverty Liberal Party. Both attacked the Tory Party for rearming even in the 1935 election.
In the last thirty-five years, Birmingham business leaders, tempted by easy money from the financiers, have handed all their power over to them, and have been left naked in the snow.
If they had lifted their snouts out of the trough, they would have seen how most of the rest of the country was suffering, and the danger coming.
Michael Moore,
grandson of C L Moore, Manufacturing Jeweller, Hylton Street.