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frequently.
you can't play politics with people's jobs
See: Margaret Thatcher, 1985
See every politician from <=2010...
Many of the big northern towns and cties are dependent on a small number of large companies, one of the reasons for Liverpools decline is after the docks declined there were about 6 or 7 large scale employers employing a disproportionate percentage of the workforce. With the advent of globalisation, it was especially vulnerable and declined harder and faster than anywhere else as the companies moved abroad. Manchester suffered less and it has always had a culture of entrepreneurship on the back of the textile industry and had/has a far higher number of small medium sized companies and so was able to absorb the decline better.
This is why the case of swindon is a misnomer IMO, if Honda left swindon it would be in big trouble, as would Sunderland (Nissan) and Derby (Toyota), having a community overly dependent on a single or small number of employers is precarious at best. More needs to be done to entice small and medium hi tec and knowledge based companies/industries up north and the workforce trained accordingly, as they are mostly in the SE and allong the M4 corridor. Great though a car factory is, at some point the company will restructure and its lights out...
aracer - I suppose the point is that in this fabulous 'big society' the cuts planned by the condems will be more painful for the poorer members of society. Hardly seems fair or right IMO.
Stumpy - you're welcome as long as you know how to correctly use a bidet.
Reports by independant economics advisory bodies such as London School of Economics have highlighted that the state of the economy whilst poor is actually not as bad as the government is portraying. The Tory government has an agenda (as would a Labour one) and either of them would "frame" the circumstances at the time to justify whatever they were doing.
Some of the cuts being made/proposed are arguably more extreme than are perhaps required, run the risk of causing further/longer recession and are perhaps only being made because the tories wanted to make them anyway.... and the existing debt gives them a justification for doing it.
Underpinning the Tory ethos is the idea of prvatised industry. Plenty of what is going to happen in the next few years (alternative schools) is privatisation - just under another name. Privatisation has it's pros (efficiency) and cons (too much emphasis on the £ sign). The main thing about it though is it's (largely) irreversible. Whatever the tories sell off to their wealthy buddies can never be bought back. I don't like the idea of anything to do with the education system being run by executive boards whose primary objective is profit. The idea that this is irreversible worries the hell out of me.
The Tory government has an agenda (as would a Labour one) and either of them would "frame" the circumstances at the time to justify whatever they were doing.
The tory agenda is to cut more than they need to. Cameron has also stated the cuts are permanent, so don't expect services to be restored after the current financial problems have been dealt with.
The main thing about it though is it's (largely) irreversible. Whatever the tories sell off to their wealthy buddies can never be bought back.
Well I'm sure that people will moan and grumble about it and then do nothing. Uk is not like France in that respect is it?
binners - Memberyou can't play politics with people's jobs
See: Margaret Thatcher, 1985
actually it's Neil Kinnock telling Derek Hatton, Eric Heffer and the rest where to get off
obviously prior to him jumping on the European gravy train with his wife
mogrim - Member
What's weird is that despite upteen years of Labour these areas are still so vulnerable, it's almost as if the last government didn't really know what it was doing!
Yes, isn't that strange.
What's weird is that despite upteen years of Labour these areas are still so vulnerable, it's almost as if the last government didn't really know what it was doing!
They knew exactly what they were doing. keeping their newly won middle class voters sweet.
The Experian report used a dodgy methodology to tell us what we already know.
All they did was throw data at a spreadsheet without taking into account the fact people often live and work in different places (there are obvious issues with the themes/datasets they picked too, but they are obvious). You might live in Harrogate (ranked 28th most resilient) but work in Bradford (279th most resilient), so if you lose your job, the resilience of Harrogate isn't going to mean much. Local authorities was a poor scale to chose in terms of meaningful results, but easy because that is the scale lots of data is available at. Function economic areas (e.g. distinct areas of economic activity) would have been a much better scale to use to provide meaningful results. Moreover, these results could then be used as a basis for action to help those areas most likely to suffer cope.
The BBC wasted its (our) money on this report imo.
If you want a more indepth read about the issues at the heart of this matter check out [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economic-Geography-UK-Neil-Coe/dp/1849200904 ]this book.[/url] I don't have a chapter in it, but it's still pretty good 😉
There are lots of posts on this thread about government action, but very little about the real forces which shape uneven economic development - huge companies and globalisation
All they did was throw data at a spreadsheet without taking into account the fact people often live and work in different places
Ah. The southern end of Mansfield is practically a dormitory town for people who work, shop and dine in Nottingham. Mansfield's still a shithole though 😆
if Honda left swindon it would be in big trouble, as would Sunderland (Nissan) and Derby (Toyota), having a community overly dependent on a single or small number of employers is precarious at best.
Malvern would also be in big trouble if their largest (at least it used to be, may have now been overtaken by the council following recent downsizing) employer left. It's not just car manufacturing this issue applies to, but also hi tec and knowledge based companies!
More needs to be done to entice small and medium hi tec and knowledge based companies/industries up north and the workforce trained accordingly
I'm still not sure I understand the reason why hi tec knowledge based companies feel the need to be based in the M4 corridor - surely you could get the work done cheaper elsewhere as you could pay people less given the lower cost of living (people might also happily accept a lower income for living somewhere nicer - obviously not something that necessarily applies to Manchester!)? The trouble though with training the workforce appropriately is you can't necessarily train somebody who's working on a car production line to do something useful for these companies.
I suppose the point is that in this fabulous 'big society' the cuts planned by the condems will be more painful for the poorer members of society. Hardly seems fair or right IMO.
Life isn't fair. Everything is always more painful for the poorer members of society. Not saying they shouldn't try and help people out in these more vulnerable communities, but they have been doing that for decades already. The trouble being that the only way to prevent poorer communities feleing the pain of cuts is to make no cuts at all - is that seriously what you're suggesting should be the case?
I'm still not sure I understand the reason why hi tec knowledge based companies feel the need to be based in the M4 corridor - surely you could get the work done cheaper elsewhere as you could pay people less given the lower cost of living (people might also happily accept a lower income for living somewhere nicer - obviously not something that necessarily applies to Manchester!)? The trouble though with training the workforce appropriately is you can't necessarily train somebody who's working on a car production line to do something useful for these companies.
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster ]Here you go.[/url]
More needs to be done to entice small and medium hi tec and knowledge based companies/industries up north and the workforce trained accordingly
That has been the policy of governments all over the world for two decades.
The trouble being that the only way to prevent poorer communities feleing the pain of cuts is to make no cuts at all - is that seriously what you're suggesting should be the case?
It should only happen when there are the jobs to support to these communities. Benefits handed out by social security were only meant to be a solution to a short term problem such as unemployment, instead it has become a long term solution to assist people living in areas where industry has been decimated and the high price of housing has stranded those people where the jobs aren't.
Not saying they shouldn't try and help people out in these more vulnerable communities
[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/30/fairness-inequality-free-market-growth ]There's a reason why the Tory approach is one which is unlikely to assist in developing a fairer society.[/url]
One is so glad one lives in Surrey 😆
Joking aside, one day there will be (or should be!) something called environment tax (I thought about this a long time ago) - that means we will make things again and we will be able to compete on price because environment tax will make things from China too expensive. Higher prices but lots of employment, maybe lower tax due to less people unemployed/more people employed and spending?
How about the citizen's wage too? Give everyone £80 (or ?) per week, get rid of most of the dole office/benefit staff and all the people who police the benefit system(saving £loads) they will be needed in our wonderful new manufacturing industry for all the lovely things we will make here.
Too radical I know
Crikey! Is there any point in having a North/South divide if we're not going to police it?
The time has come for us all to accept that The North is a failed state. Much like Somalia, but without the lovely sunshine.
The infinite monkey theorem would have us believe that a monkey hitting keys at random, on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time, will eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare.
However, if you take that same monkey and let him vote Labour for an infinite amount of time, eventually he'll develop a chip on both shoulders. Unfortunately, he won't be able to read and write his own name, much less Shakespeare.