Origin North West

After bad news in chocolate and steel manufacturing some good news in cars and nuclear engineering. Most of it with the help of government loans.

Nissan announced that their new electrically powered car, the Nissan Leaf, will be produced in Sunderland from 2013. Up to 50,000 cars a year will be made.  Nissan stated that the UK commitment to providing the infrastructure and education to operate these cars helped the decision.  The North East has agreed to fit 13,000 charging points and London 25,000. Also a novel leasing arrangement for batteries will ease the cost of ownership and another plus the batteries will be made in Sunderland as well.  Photographs of the car look quite smart with nothing to make it look different. Ironically the ‘green’ car will be produced next to the Juke urban off-roader which doesn’t sound quite as green.

Ford announced about £1.5bn investment in new efficient engine R&D and manufacturing in the UK.  A significant portion of the money will be loans from the UK Automotive Assistance Programme and the EU. Ford will test 15 electric vehicles as well as work on low carbon engines.  Ford produce 25% of their world supply of engines in the UK.

Sheffield Forgemasters received government loan support to make a 15,000 tonne forging press, making the company one of two companies in the world capable of making specific nuclear components. The government said the UK can produce 50% of the parts for a nuclear power station and the investment will take it to 70%. The government is also to support up to 1000 apprentice places a year in the nuclear industry.

It is a curious business the offering of loans to keep manufacturing in a country. Subsidising has long been illegal in the EU. However such large scale investment is often only possible with government assistance. Vice versa governments often say that infrastructure projects, for such as energy, cannot be afforded without industrial investment.  Does one balance the other out or is it just convenient to make the best of both worlds. No doubt a company has to get the best deal it can so an existing plant must count for something and make the loan required less than it would be from a place without a plant or who didn’t have other incentives to offer such as car power point infrastructure. We can only welcome this as good news.

A double nightmare event at the Raj Proot Restaurant in East Sussex when the restaurant owner stopped youths raiding his beer cellar and was then arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and had his DNA taken.

Nightmare 1: to be arrested for stopping thieves.

Nightmare 2: to have your fingerprints, photo and DNA sample taken for doing what should be your duty.

Apparently one of the youth’s said he’d been struck by the owner. Sounds a good thing to say knowing it could deflect your blame.  In a fight to escape you’d expect some interaction and it was reported in one paper their friends were kicking the locked front door while diners were cowering inside. Taking in the owner and doing a full police record on him seems wrong though. You’d think if you’d stopped thieves the police would be your friend and petty comment from the offenders would be brushed aside.

I’ve sometimes imagined I’d refuse to give my DNA sample but it’s Catch 22 as you are then arrested for not doing it and they are then entitled to take it. How long will the DNA record be kept. In Scotland it would be destroyed but in England it might be kept for years. Such an intrusion on your liberty.

There are those who use the phrase Broken Britain and until recently I’ve thought it a bit exaggerated. Yet in the last few weeks we’ve had a couple of deaths caused by youths terrorising disabled people in their homes over long periods of time and no-one responding to calls for help. Not to mention a Sikh killed by 4 youths in his shop and the burgled householder being put in prison.  It’s just come to mind that 3 of these events happened with different ethnic members of the public, if that’s at all relevant.

Another feature of these incidents appears to be the involvement, or lack of involvement of the police who I’ve always held in high regard. Yet they seem to be arresting innocent members of the public and ignoring calls for help.  Just what is going on? 

Something seems to be broken. Perhaps it’s  fundamental. The law is offering too much protection to the law breakers. Yet some would say that they are being harassed by the police because of their colour or dress.  To protect these cases it appears the whole of British law is losing the respect of the general population. Yet, if only it was that simple. Some talk of too much police paperwork although the government say they’re sorting that and so the story goes on. And on.

In Switzerland it’s illegal to keep a budgerigar alone in a cage and today there is a referendum on whether animals should have legal representation if they are mistreated.   I’m not keen on the latter but quite like the double budgie law and similar.  What better test for humanity and decency than how you treat those in a lesser position.

It makes me think of work. Our company would spend a fortune on management training but it didn’t change the standard where a manager would talk about anything on the phone while you sat twiddling your thumbs in his office, but as soon as his boss came in the phone was put down.  Then you’d listen while he roared with laughter at the slightest hint of a joke his boss made, while agreeing after what a fabulous chap he is even though neither of you were certain.  They weren’t all like that though, only around 80%.

The government kept the car scrappage scheme in place and extended it to central heating boilers, claiming it as a big success. Yet looking at car sales in the last few months it appears the makers of Hyundai and Kia have done very well. You could say in a recession people will buy such cars, although it seems that a large discount paid for by the taxpayer will help.

All over Europe car sales are said to have benefited from scrappage schemes, although not many cars made in Britain seem to have benefited a lot. The Fiesta seems to sell well but it’s not British.  The Astra is British and seems to do well, but the Mini dropped out of the top 10.  Jaguar has improved sales as well although that’s more to do with the value of the pound. If you have a 10 year old car worth £2000 then you aren’t going to afford a £12,000 car unless you trade in your sons car and buy him a better banger.

Then you might say VAT, then 15%, transport and dealer costs are in the UK which is a fair amount and the scrapyard is getting business. Even so it seems an extravagent way to spend taxpayers money when a lot of the benefits are going overseas.

Then there is the boiler replacement scheme.  The cost of boilers is always a contentious issue. You can go into a DIY store and find one for a few hundred, yet if you contact a large company to install one it costs thousands and you might think the discount is lost in there somewhere.  Like many things related to house maintenance there isn’t a price list so you never know if the discount is being taken by the installer.

These schemes tax the imagination. It isn’t easy to come up with a quick hit to get a flat economy moving, but whether such broad brush schemes are the best way is open to question.

The Icelanders referendum came out strongly against paying the debt of their banks for the rest of their lives.  Maybe it’s not supporting your own side but I agree with them to a degree.

In most businesses a check is done on how financially stable a business partner is. It would seem obvious that a country of 300,000 cannot sustain a multi-billion pound business so how was it allowed. Why did government institutions invest heavily. You might think we employ highly qualified civil servants and financial experts who would have warned us about businesses who are way out on a limb, but we were all caught sleeping on the job in the euphoric boom of 2007.

On the basis that they were allowed to trade it seems there appears to be a shared liability.  Perhaps it isn’t logical because if it was a larger country we’d expect them to pay. On the other hand if it was a very large country we might be in the opposite situation of being forced to accept what they offer.  Perhaps we should think like that but, in this case I’d support offering generous terms with perhaps a non-financial price related to politics or future business, like guaranteed fish supplies.

The news today is interpreting Mrs Clintons visit to Argentina and the words she used as a tacit agreement that Argentina has a case in the Falkland Islands.

Someone commented that Texas, New Mexico and Alaska could be said to be disputed territories and at some stage maybe that will get stronger.  Others comment that troops could be pulled out of Afghanistan to make the Falklands secure.

Certainly makes you think. My own interpretation is that I’d support the Falklands more than a presence in Afghanistan.  It seems a clearer debate.  Which leads to thinking about our presence in Afghanistan.

The BBC announced some changes yesterday with a view to focussing more on quality programming and keeping the license fee stable.  Three headline changes are the closure of Radio 6, Asian Network and a reduction in the website.

The BBC is one of Britains premier institutions but there can be no doubt that it has expanded far too broadly for too long and somehow been allowed to get away with it.  My own opinion is that the license fee should be capped at £120 for the next 10 years. The excellence of the BBC should be unharmed by this as it’s cost increases are more related to excessive air time given to fringe programming and apparant over representation like teams from different channels at the same event.

With facilities like the iPlayer it should be possible to programme less time and enable it to be watched or heard when required.

At the moment Radio 6 is getting the most support against closure,  and I admit to never having heard it. From what I’ve read it is claimed new bands are given an opportunity on this station. Yet watching the Brits this year I didn’t hear any new bands – Kasabian, Robbie Williams and Liam Gallagher got the British headlines. It seems that whatever they do in the USA is producing better new acts. No British world talent has been found for a few years, Arctic Monkeys come to mind and Lilly Allen seems well known.

I will admit to being a fan of the BBC and fortunately as it is a charge on every household its charges are able to be kept down to what appears quite cheap when compared with other stations.  Although when I add it to my other subscriptions and the broadband, telephone and mobile charges my bills for communication become large.  Also there is a conundrum that if the BBC focusses on too much quality it might lose the justification for a compulsory charge as its appeal will be too limited.

Being interested in what some call the productive as well as high tech part of the economy it’s worrying that Astra Zeneca are cutting back on their research facilities and closing the Leicester site with the loss of 1,200 jobs.   The company state they are focussing on the Cheshire site for UK research.

I’ve read a few comments saying that a number of pharmaceutical companies are moving their facilities east, usually in smaller numbers than this.  This industry has been held as one of the UK’s torch bearers into the future but appears to be going the same way as the heavy industries.