As if to confirm all that the Resolution Foundation was saying yesterday on stagnant Britain, the FT has reported this morning that:
UK vehicle production collapsed in May to the lowest level since 1949 after US President Donald Trump's tariff war forced Aston Martin and other British carmakers to halt their shipments to the US.
They added:
Car and van production at British plants fell 33 per cent in May from a year earlier to 49,810 units, figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders released on Friday showed.
But it would be unfair to blame this all on Trump:
Output declined for the fifth consecutive month, marking the worst monthly performance in 76 years, excluding when vehicle factories were shut down during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020.
Without government action, there is no way out of this mess. Markets are failing. Only the government has the means to now put the people of the UK to work to build the future we could all have and deserve if only the obsession with the private ownership of any form of economic activity were dropped. Dogma is destroying this country. Only new ideas can save it.
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“Only the government ” – what government? There is none.
There is a small coterie in Downing Dump that is fixated on giving UK serfs regular punishment beatings but apart from rhetoric “growth & more growth” ….there is nothing.
Gov’ automatons owned by corporates & the rich delivering what this group wants (evidence?: the water & turd saga).
As for “Whitehall & downing dump” – I’d level it & build something fit for purpose, or move the whole lot to somewhere nice: e.g. Scunthorpe.
Come on Mike, don’t be so hard. Scunthorpe does nor deserve that! 🙂
Whole heartedly agreed.
No steer is floundering, a deep recession looms.
Immediate action? Raise personal allowances by £10k, order the BoE to reduce interest rates to 3% ( if Bailey demurs, sack him), stop paying interest on the banks regulatory deposits put £35bn into the NHS + schools immediately, stop the benefit cuts.
Of course this is not going to happen.
A weekend of panic strategy meetings run by genius Mc Sweeney and no steer how best to survive in the offing?
We cannot raise the personal allowance by £10k
And anyway, better beneits is vastly more effective in redistributing
“And anyway, better beneits is vastly more effective in redistributing”
Except it created moral hazard.. in some peoples minds they would sooner not work.
Politely, only a conceited and privileged idiot could write that.
You try living on beenfits and see what a life of comfort it provides.
Graham, I would be delighted to have a conversation with you about your remarks. I doubt you will accept my offer.
Raising the personal allowance to £15,000 would be a help.
A pensioner getting the full state pension will have just less than £12000 a year now. From next April it will probably be within the tax bracket if the triple lock stays.
I wonder how much it costs HMRC to work out all the bills for pensioners.
I agree, but better benefits help much more to alleviate real poverty. Everyone gets the PA increase whether they need it or not.
INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but politics largely un-tempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favours and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.
Thing is mass car ownership is unsustainable so vehicle production will have to drop off in the future. Extremely wasteful. Relying on ridiculous consumption like this is not possible and yet the whole system is underpinned by it.
I came here to say something similar. Yes the economy is in a real mess, but declining vehicle production (unless it’s for buses and coaches) is a green shoot… an early sign of a world moving towards a saner and more sustainable future. It certainly doesn’t need to be ‘fixed’ by re-upping production.
Accepted
Try existing in most of Devon and Cornwall without a car. No trains in winter because of winter storms. The government refuses to fund a more secure inland route saying the £1 billion cost is “uneconomic” , yet a 20 minute reduction in train times north of London costs £100+ billion, yet is abandoned. Every winter the costs of no trains runs to millions of lost revenue for Exeter, Torbay. Plymouth and Truro. As for buses, try getting a bus to and from a village to a local town for work when the only buses runs once a week. So for many in the provinces you idea that falling motor production is an insult.
Apologies for posting twice: new ideas.
There is no shortage of places like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7axnvInN57E
& they could be re-purposed for … the homeless, asylum-seekers etc etc. Let us liberate un-used “housing”.
& it just goes to show just how much money you can make from funding the gov & empire.
Mike,
I think you might have posted the wrong link. It goes to some American guy doing something with a Rolls Royce engine. For an hour and a half.