It’s not surprising. Ministers and others are very good at saying manufacturing is increasing. The question is what do THEY mean by manufacturing? A Britain based on assembling other countries’ prefab products is not what I call manufacturing – all that will ever do is put us in competition with low wage assembly economies. Vision is key. Alas, the current policy of “off the shelf, cheapest price” purchasing (e.g. in the defence sector) shows that politicians currently have no vision and thus we lose even more capability. Also, if we don’t buy what we make then it’s a sure thing that no-one else will either. Still, on the plus side, it’s interesting to see that Peugeot is in deep trouble which goes to show that even the French policy of “screw everyone else” is not foolproof.

While probably not possible in high investment areas such as defence, the key is not to go and list on the stock exchange. JCB and Triumph both are huge successes and they’re not publicly listed. You can guarantee that if they were, they’d have been asset stripped by now.