Drains
Yeah, nah.
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Why's that Archie? Your not going to tell us a service-based economy is a good thing, surely?
- Thread starter avandriver
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Why's that Archie? Your not going to tell us a service-based economy is a good thing, surely?
I'd think it a mistake to base any economy around any one skill set. What people do seem to have readily forgotten is that, whatever mistakes they may have made in the last few years, bankers (and I use that as a very general term) have generated a vast amount of money for the economy. Witness the longest period of sustained economic growth in history. Long enough for that muppet Brown to declare that 'boom and bust' is finished. 
Any-who. Perhaps this is not the place....
Any-who. Perhaps this is not the place....
zzr1200
Working at 650 ft on open steel work.
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ill bet there were statisticly no more accidents either.
All those skills now all but gone from the UK.
when i was a lad we were beat with canes, never did us any harm.. etc etc..
Have to agree, Zardoz.
The service sector will die soon, being as there'll be feck all to service...
Somebodies not done their homework! Maggie was trying to mop up after the previous shower of sh1t!, but caught all the flack. James Callaghan was the (Labour) PM before Maggie and the then Chancellor, Dennis Healey, had to go begging to the IMF for bail out funds!...because the previous Labour government, lead by the right honourable Harold Wilson, had left such a mess...with inflation running at 20 odd percent! Much the same as today's scenario really, and when Brown & his champagne cronies are finally ousted next year some other poor sucker will be left to pick up the pieces...and branded in history for high unemployment & inflation
weldequip
Me too, i can rant for pages on this subject. They are all responsible labour included. They did nothing to stop industry going bust at a horrific rate when they came to power but i will say it took 18 months to filter through .
All i can say on that note is: Before they were in power i had a thriving engineering business with a 6 month order book. Agreed manufacturing was depleted badly but it was on a even keel and there was work. Now in this area there isn't one industry left. They are all gone and the last remaining one went about 3 years ago (Holbourne automotive) That was the last remaining major one of having some 20 manufactures in the area.
I'm not suggesting any political party is better than any other as i despise them all. (i didn't but i do now) One thing sticks in my mind to this day a labour MP about 2 years after they came to power was doing a justification of the lack of industry. He was in regenerated wharf somewhere showing off the regenerated area, saying how we don't need manufacturing anymore
(yes he actually said that) and look how this area is thriving with the yuppie culture. I thought what a total idiot of the first degree.
The points they fail to see is the clothes they wear, the concrete he stands on the new apartment's he was showing off and even the pen in his pocket all come from manufacturing. Somewhere down the line that involves guys like me and you. Be it precision engineering, production or tooling, weld and fab or what ever, some where metals are involved to a very big degree. The point they miss is this: Manufacturing is still very much needed and done, Its just not done here! All this while they were actively encouraging companies like 'London machinery company' to export all of our equipment that had become redundant by the cargo ship loads at a time to third worlds like India. Wow that was a terrific own goal of monumental proportions.
I owe all the government's a dept of gratitude as i watched my customer base disappear before my eyes, all going bust one by one, taking the money owed with them.
That's the true cost of governments that don't care about manufacturing and im not alone. The sad thing is im only 41, A qualified toolmaker and a competent all round Engineer with a host of experience and knowledge in many engineering facets. The best prospect now is growing some spots and stacking shelves in a supermarket and acting very thick.
Best no one replies to this LOL
That was a fantastic link by the way, So sad its all gone.
Kind regards,
Scott ( ward eng)
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And while the demise of our skilled manufacturing base was being systematically dismantled by the two major political parties, our hard earned taxes for decades have been milked big time by the so called honorable ladies and gents for THEIR own ends.
I get a bad taste in my mouth when I hear on radio the ad about benefit cheats!!!
I get a bad taste in my mouth when I hear on radio the ad about benefit cheats!!!
Drains
Yeah, nah.
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Scott, I'm going to reply to your rant, but i'm not arguing..., viz, a couple of years ago the Fountainbridge Brewery in Edinburgh was closed by Scottish and Newcastle. A local councillor (I neither know nor care what party he was from), applauded the move, and said that "there was no place for industry in a city like Edinburgh". Pillock.
This is a city that used to produce 2million barrels of beer a year, had a number of functioning ship and boatyards, wads of papermills, a pile of coalmines, a massive transformer factory, a similarly large wire factory, a huge defence contracting industry and many, many more engineers and suppliers. Much of this existed pre 1980 and had gone post 1985. What didn't go then has gone in dribs and drabs since, for all sorts of reasons (competition, foreign buy-outs, consolidation, low order books, etc etc)
Of all those, only the defence bit still exists, and that must be a 10th of its former size.
But we have got the Royal Bank of Scotland, so that's OK then.
This is a city that used to produce 2million barrels of beer a year, had a number of functioning ship and boatyards, wads of papermills, a pile of coalmines, a massive transformer factory, a similarly large wire factory, a huge defence contracting industry and many, many more engineers and suppliers. Much of this existed pre 1980 and had gone post 1985. What didn't go then has gone in dribs and drabs since, for all sorts of reasons (competition, foreign buy-outs, consolidation, low order books, etc etc)
Of all those, only the defence bit still exists, and that must be a 10th of its former size.
But we have got the Royal Bank of Scotland, so that's OK then.
Well we've got the new 'green' technologies...wind turbines. Big feckers them if you've ever stood under one. All built in.... Holland!
weldequip
That sort of reminds me about the London eye, quoted by British firms at no higher cost and they gave the contract to build it to a European country. Funny watching the MP's trying to justify it.......... nothing like looking after your own.
Kind regards,
Scott (ward eng)
Shug
Member
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Well we've got the new 'green' technologies...wind turbines. Big feckers them if you've ever stood under one. All built in.... Holland!
weldequip
They did build some in Nigg (up near invergordon, an oil services area and former defense town during war courtesy of the deep dock)
Few industries up there building wave power generation stuff now.
On another depressing note, dads neighbour works for a shipping company currently overseeing a new cargo ship build.
They build the hulls in china cos its cheap, and fit them out in norway cos the chinese can't do a good enough job on them.
The ships last about 4 or 5 years due to the poor quality hulls, where they are stripped and sent back to china for recycling. Apparently its cheaper than paying proper money to have them built properly to last in the first place.
Those are great pictures, I agree with many points raised so far and of course we have to embrace new technologies and skills but what happens when all the electrical/electronic devices in the world decide to go pop (i know its unlikely all at once but you never know) and we end up in a therotical bygone age how will the human race survive, there are certain cultures that are described as third world etc that still use predominatly (sp?)manual skills and they are the ones that will become the superpowers if it ever happens.
Ok rant over,many apologies to all if ive offended anyone and can i claim expenses for it?
Joe
Ok rant over,many apologies to all if ive offended anyone and can i claim expenses for it?
Joe
wyn
Member
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Well it is for the cheif exec...he's just honourably agreed to cut his pension payout, after much public outcry, to just £350k a year...how's he goin to manage on that?!
weldequip
I'm sure he's only done that to get back on the CEO gravy train like Hornby
rory1
Member
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i love the pics, we have some pretty big machines in work, anything too big gets taken to a heavy machining firm next door ( A dry dock) which have machines as big as in the pics but no where near as many. i didnt realize how many machines you could get in one shed!!
zardoz
Old school Socialist
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Much the same as today's scenario really, and when Brown & his champagne cronies are finally ousted next year some other poor sucker will be left to pick up the pieces...and branded in history for high unemployment & inflation
weldequip
Im not trying to argue politics and parties, here is not the place. Where is?! All i am stating here is the fact that Ted Heath let the Oil companies pay not a single penny of tax till their entire outlay had been recouped, which was calculated to be somewhere in 1980. Tony Benn wanted to tax these super rich oil companies and put the money into re building british industry.
Anything else is party politics and all moot now anyway. Unlike the skills of that type of british workforce which have now almost gone
matt1978
www.lorch.eu
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Im not trying to argue politics and parties, here is not the place. Where is?! All i am stating here is the fact that Ted Heath let the Oil companies pay not a single penny of tax till their entire outlay had been recouped, which was calculated to be somewhere in 1980. Tony Benn wanted to tax these super rich oil companies and put the money into re building british industry.
Anything else is party politics and all moot now anyway. Unlike the skills of that type of british workforce which have now almost gone
You must of saw the same programme as me on BBC 4, building of the first North sea oil rigs etc.
At the time Tony Benn did introduce a nationalised company, which automatically owned half of the North sea oil reserves..........trouble was they still required billions of pounds of further investment to get the oil to the shore.......the oil companys such as BP had already invested billions (at the time they had the largest bank loan in history) for building the fortess oil rigs and hadnt no where near covered any of the investment costs.
Then they have the electricity shortages, suez crisis, 3 day week etc so none of the big oil companys were prepared to invest more money, without a garrantee of getting it back, thats when the tories stepped in.
Also, worth mentioning, the labour goverment wanted the money from the oil so they could afford all of the pay increases that the other nationlised industries were demanding (bin men etc) not neccesrilly to re-invest in manufacturing.
I think each party played there part in destroying UK manufacturing, none of them have clean hands
However, I still believe that it could come back to some degree if thats what was decided by the goverment........Netherlands have a huge (in comparison) manufacturing base, ships etc, and its full of british welders/fabricators. We still have the skills, we just need the factories!
