The Brits are looking for someone to blame
By Parson Thru
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The Brits are looking for someone to blame. The first place to look is usually France or Germany, but "Europe" will do – any foreigner, for that matter.
But who remembers terms like “The Sick Man of Europe”, or “The British Disease”? No? Look them up.
The majority population of Britain had one of the greatest opportunities any nation has ever had in 1945 with the landslide Labour victory of the Atlee government. The government that brought the Welfare State – a term that wasn’t always tarnished the way it is now. It brought hope and relief from misery for tens of millions. But it was squandered.
Strikes and deadlock between unions, management and successive Labour and Conservative governments are the stuff of legend and helped to lay British industry low. But it wasn’t all the fault of the unions. My home city was heavily industrialised once – it’s where I started my working life in 1978. “Keep your nose clean and don’t rock the boat” I was warned, “and you’ll have a job for life.”
The old hands knew every trick in the book – all the hiding places, how to fiddle time-sheets or sneak out through the fence. Every major company, private and public was the same to a lesser or greater degree. The stories were legion. Clock-in for a night shift and get your head down. Skip-off on the afternoon shift and be drinking with your mates in the pub. It was less easy to pull-off strokes like that on day shifts, but there were myriad ways to avoid the foreman. You had to do something pretty stupid to get the sack, though some did.
Those were pretty good times from the postwar years until around 1980. Blame Thatcher? Yes, to some extent, but Britain had had it by the time she was elected. Don’t let anyone kid you it hadn’t.
Tory reforms took the subsidies away from loss-making enterprises, cut the power of the unions and sold-off the worn-out monolithic industries. They were bad days – dreadful days. But remember those phrases: “The Sick Man of Europe”; “The British Disease”. Who is without blame?
I’d always been proud of the great industries and, yes, great products. I have been gutted as one by one they closed and were bulldozed to the ground. My home city, York, is an industrial wasteground now. But who is really to blame? A generation of working people? Weak and ineffectual management? Governments?
All of those. But what of the owners? The nationalised industries were sold-off. Many went to management buy-outs. Why? Because the wealth of the country wasn’t interested in investing in British industry, products and jobs. In many cases, foreign competitors – many based in those chronic European economies – bought them and closed them down to reduce over-capacity. British ownership could have actually competed aggressively for market share, but the wealthy chose not to take on the challenge.
And successful private British companies? Plenty of those. In recent years, many, such as my old firm Rowntree’s, were bought, again, by foreign competitors. British wealth never raised a finger to buy those companies up. In competitive global markets, survival of British jobs seems more likely if the company actually has its headquarters and its history in Britain.
I’ve watched foreign owners – often American – pick factories up, lock, stock and barrel, and move them abroad. Many went to eastern Europe after those countries joined the EU. Who’s to blame for that? The Poles? Hardly. The European Commission? Not really. The American owners? Maybe, but they’re seeking opportunities, having no historical stake in the firms. What about all that British wealth, invested through the institutions of the City of London, that turned its back on British industry, British jobs and British well-being?
So people come to Britain from European countries looking for work. True. What work are they doing? Well, either work where the indigenous workforce can’t supply the skills, or unpleasant low-paid jobs, often seasonal, that the indigenous workforce won’t do. Can we blame them for that? And if they don’t find work? Well, there are things you can do about that. I work in Spain these days. The Spanish state gave me three months to find work and prove that I wasn’t a burden on the state, or I wouldn’t be issued with an EU citizen’s certificate that permits me to work here. Have you asked your MP about that one yet?
So if the Brits are looking for someone to blame, are they looking in the right place? No use looking in the biggest-selling newspapers. They’re owned by or in the pay of those folks who refused to invest in British jobs and industry. People who are sitting pretty – somewhere in London or among that international elite of tax-dodgers. The only thing any of them are really interested in is The City of London – playing old colonial games of power and wealth. They’ve been playing those games for a very long time. They know how to make you feel proud. Flag-waving, pomp and circumstance – Britain is known the world-over for it (“It’s what we do best!”). Yep.
The military has been run down to nothing, but they maintain just sufficient ceremonial soldiery not to look silly in The Mall. Nobody puts on ceremonial like the Brits. Tourists come from all over to see it. No one else really does it anymore, you see. I wonder why?
It’s all enough to keep you up at night – especially when you notice who the main characters are behind Brexit. Yep, you’ve guessed it. I wonder what they’ve got in store next?
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Interesting and challenging
Interesting and challenging piece! If this is really true, which it may well be, and we have sold our livelihoods away, what will become of us? Very well expressed!
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