Rebuilding Britain’s economy: the hunt for an 'industrial strategy'

One of the issues I think has to be the problem that there is a gap between very good innovative companies and the major corporates. We do very well with businesses in the software field, but they never grow to world scale - compare Autonomy and Google, for instance. When a good business gets to a certain size, it sells out to one of the American majors. What the government should certainly address in industrial policy is what support could be provided to get companies over that hump.

But I don't hold out much hope. After all look at the way sustainable technologies have been treated, with the rules on environmentally friendly energy installations changing on a yearly basis. Absolutely the first and most vital criterion for a development policy is to give businesses a stable long term policy environment within which they can plan. Without that, you're stuffed.

My own experience of Govts assisting with R&D is that they add so many layers of burocracy and checks that (a) that the govt decides the work is a good idea (b) it won't be misspent (c) it isn't being mis-spent and (d) it hasn't been mis-spent. There is so much burocracy that the benefits of additional funding are diluted, particularly when the time spent in preparing proposals (including unsuccessful ones) is included.

It's my belief that companies will generally have the best idea about which new research will bring in future profits, administators usually don't!! In my view, therefore, it is only necessary for the Govt to check that the money will be fairly spent on LONG TERM and TECHNICALLY RISKY RESEARCH-TYPE projects and that the company is also committing a set proportion OF ITS OWN CASH in the same project. This will hugely reduce the Govt staffing costs required and will greatly reduce valuable time wasted by all. Companies aren't always right in this, but they are more often right than burocrats, and they certainly think very carefully about spending THEIR OWN money!

'three decades of letting animal spirits run free'. I do not think that this statement was true under Labour. They have created so much red tape and increased tax on business so much. I think again Chris you should not make such incorrect statements!

"The belief that financial markets can be self-correcting has proved to be horribly wrong,’ said Vince Cable at a London conference " - a very misleading comment. Financial markets have not been ALLOWED to correct because politicians were afraid that it would inconveniently coincide with their re-election plans.

Politics is the problem; more misguided policies from politicians is the last thing we need. Slash the size of government, introduce a flat rate of tax with no deductibles and encourage everyone to use what skills they have and work and let's eliminate the state-begging-bowl culture.

Some good points above:

Governent should free manufacturing from the bureaurocracy of the so-called EU level playing field in trade;

reduce workers' rights to a sensible, only essential level;

have all those on benefits capable of working, doing something useful for the money, with disregard for left wing reference to slave labour;

introduce a curriculum in education to better serve the basic needs of industry and additional sources of further education in technical training;

reduce availability of pointless degrees on offer at university and encourage study in engineering;

encourage more employers to take on apprentices;

In 10 years time then we might begin to see some change in our social culture to our advantage, but it'll take a generation to change; not much if any hope in my lifetime!

I may have missed something, but the only thing governement should or can do is provide the appropriate environment for industry to develop itself.

Government cannot 'rebuild' anything........ especially when it comes to business...... be real...... what it can do is stop penalizing small business/companies for employing people with the Governments Employer NI Tax.

We live on an island.

Our government has a primary responsibility to look after the well being of all of the inhabitants (or citizens?) of this island.

We enjoy a relatively advanced society but seem to have lost sight of the underlying forces which brought us to this point. At the present our trade balances involve large net inflows of manufactured goods, food, and energy. In fact of almost everything we need to sustain our standard of living. We have reached the present stage by accepting ever greater levels of debt, and by selling almost everything we can. We have benefited from sales of technical skills to assist developments abroad, but have not maintained the source, our own manufacturing base. As a result the resource of technical skills is diminishing steadily as the 'industrial generation' moves into retirement. This model for the economy is unsustainable in the long term and the prospects for recovery are dim unless radical change is introduced.

While the city of London appears to produce lush returns these are often at the expense of other sectors of the economy and are in any case of limited sustainability in the new global electronic village.

The mismanagement of our economy has generally allowed price to be the primary determinent of policy. This, while justifiable on a transaction by transaction basis, often involves catastrophic error if all the concurrent systemic effects are not considered. What is important is contribution. When we shut down the coal industry because we were reluctant to pay the miners, not only did we abandon 200 years of available energy resource, but we substituted imports for indigenous production thus damaging the balance of payments. Net cost to UK Ltd almost incalculable, but we were saved at the time by the rapid development of North Sea Oil (a 25 year resource now in decline).

The attack on the coal industry would have made more sense if we were able to engage the displaced labour force in manufacture of trade goods, but of course this was not possible. Many joined the ranks of the unemployed. We paid them to do nothing rather than pay a little more for them to hew coal.

A whole new vocabulary has been invented to justify the sytematic destruction of Britain's industrial economic engine. Talk of a 'post industrial society' (tell that to the chinese!) and other such delusional nonsense has been used to justify stripping away our manufacturing and technical strengths.

While politicians wring their hands over the need for jobs, this is not the heart of the problem. This is that we need to produce more by way of trade goods both for export and for substitution of imports. The important measure is not how many new jobs, but how much more net production can be achieved. If we worry about production of goods in Britain first then the jobs will follow.

More recent idiocy lies in the shutdowns affecting the steel industry around Redcar for example. The cost of steel produced in Britain may have been higher than the world market price, but the steel we have stopped producing we now import instead. Thus making another increase in our balance of payments deficit, displacing a skilled workforce, and further reducing the sustainability of our economic model. Clever!

The present policy of QE in which the Bank of England prints new money so as to acquire Treasury debt instruments has had no proven beneficial effect upon the 'real' econmomy but it has undoubtedly propped up financial institutions. Note that this process involves the cancellation of as much debt as it creates, substituting as it does perpetual coupon free instruments (new money) for dated coupon bearing instruments (gilt stock). It appears to be justified by a misapplication of monetary theory. In the meanwhile major long term infrastructure investment projects which hold the real possibility enhancing the economy are being starved and discontinued to save money! For example, the withdrawal of adequate support from the Thames Gateway project.

Do we need an industrial policy, yes of course we do. But we also need to address some of the other stupidities in the system. An archaic tax system which no-one fully understands. Our tax laws are a morass which feed a host of parasitic 'experts' to the disbenefit of the rest of the economy.

Corporation tax doesn't work, the headquarters of major companies are being moved to letterboxes in Switzerland so as to avoid it. Ridiculous. It should be abolished entirely, if it can be so easily avoided. The answer here is to tax the owners, (the shareholders) not the companies. Abolishing Corporation tax would improve the attractiveness of the UK for

international businesses, and, hopefully, could form one part of an industrial policy designed to increase UK production.

I do not believe that governments are capable of helping industry, they "helped" the banks who should have been left to market forces and been bankrupt, the only example of a rescue that worked was the Heath government of Rolls Royce by nationalisation and subsequent sale. It would help to have education geared to teaching the right subjects well and ceasing the likes of media studies altogether, this would also reduce the size and cost of our university education and create more genuine vocational degrees. We also need a work force which is not hampered by trade unions and a repealing of many of the labour party silly nanny state legislation such as requiring employers to safeguard jobs for women who are unable to work whilst having children and even sillier granting husband paid leave whilst their wives have children. A withdrawel from EU human rights court and the daft decisions that fail to protect society at large with the excuse that some dangerouse nut case should be protected instead.

No sensible government is on offer from either the Coalition or the Labour party so we are effectively disenfranchised.

We should never have joined the EU, it took our attention away from the true essence of trade of a sovereign state - making wanted things for barter - when we should have been considering this question already; membership simply accelerated an already, slow death; a bit like growing old!

We fought two wars to avoid becoming part of a greater German empire; what were we thinking!

dont forget giving tanker contracts to other countrys while our companys go to the wall it sounds like no one learnt from the rail ballsup

Keith

As regards education reforms a good start would be to offer free university education in the sciences. Arts students should have to pay for their courses, and that most definately includes economics!

There are some great opportunities out there for an innovative nation. New technologies and new solutions. I often wonder if there is a way of making a points system for universities. If a young person shows promise in an area that we NEED they get one crack at it on the tax payer. I don't know how we could stop another brain drain though.

One thing is for sure the ongoing creation of poverty is doing nothing to help. It wasn't until people had surplus income that things took of in the 60's. We have created a consumer generation who will buy anything but they are skint.

Yes elder one I agree De gaulle should have won. We are getting a Germanic Europe and not a European Germany.

If we leave aside concerns over past 'mistakes', there are some good suggestions in this thread so far.

In my opinion, governments cannot add value to the economy directly but they can build and environment which enables this to happen more reliably.

One aspect is to remove all the 'red tape' - much of which has been discussed ad nauseam and we await some real action (see Linkedin Thread initiated by government to elicit responses on red tape to be removed)..Mr. cable needs to be clear about this - think 'giving' time back to people who happen to ill whilst on holiday. As ever, politicians are very generous with other people's money.

I also suggest a national 'needs analysis' for education to supply what the country requires, not what looks like a good piece of political correctness along the lines of 'everyone can be a brain surgeon if they want'. What we need is a system that provides people in the population with a good basic shared education and then a more prepared and honed development of their better skills to fit into the wealth creating arm of the economy.

One of the most difficult things for people with power and influence is to do nothing. Ask a general when a conflict is on and they are waiting for information from the front! It appears to be a physical and psychological impossibility for politicians to 'do nothing'. Their involvement is not required in economy value added activities. Actually what we do need them to do is something - see the first paragraph.

We could adopt a more 'Chinese' approach and I do like the idea of everyone getting together to agree a way of fuelling the need for industrial economic progress. However, this is the UK (just still) and not China. Maybe we ought to look at what would be required to encourage repatriation of (manufacturing) work back to the UK. Bearing in mind the reason for it leaving in the first place, plus if we don't do something soon, as pointed out earlier in this thread, we won't have the local skill to run processes anymore.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, we spent an entire generation arguing and fighting amongst ourselves whilst effectively world war III was declared and fought in our absence. This was an economic war and still goes on today. After getting our 'corporate' act together for about 10-15 years, we have blown it yet again by losing the bigger picture and fighting over a decreasing pie - its just changed from cake (manufacturing) to pie (financial services) for the purposes of this item.

If we truly want to make things better and have something left to pass on to the next generation, we ought, for our own self respect if nothing else, start working together to achieve a common goal. Which is again?

(if in doubt see China Mission Statement).

We gave the order for 1100 carriages to Siemens and they have recently bought a UK company with promising tidal power technology. Water is over 700 times more dense than air and the tides flow predictably every day. I think that tidal power is the way to go - it makes me weep to see that the company now has foreign ownership. When times get hard, they will cut overseas employment to keep their own people in work - it's what we should be doing.

Tony Evans, I really think the national needs analysis is a must do! Great idea.

D G Stonebanks

I agree that we should promote our firms and buy from them. However, too many firms take this for granted in the public sector and are living off the profits from the labour spend spend spend machine.

We need to make UK busness be competitive. They need to win contracts from the rest of the world not rely on state aid?

I agree with Tony red tape is too much and needs to be reduced. The government needs to reduce corporation tax slowly, improve the education for school leavers (this will not mean spend more). They need to premote business investment not public spending (there is not such a thing as public invesment- it is spending)

And that crazily high property prices (industrial and residential) that suck much of the profit from productive activities into the hand of the property owners (and then the banks, through mortgages).

If companies have to hand over 20%,30%,40% of their pre rent pre tax profit to the property owners, they are handicapped from the start.

Some very interesting comments.

I note the blame game is alive.

Who is more to blame? The EU? The politicians? The banking and financial sector i.e. Mrs T's our people followed by Labour who let financial markets rip?

Just a further thought.

Maybe our parliamentary system is wrong? Produces inadequate politicians?

The parliamentary system allows inadequate people to become politicians. The lack of understanding of economics and business at certain times in our history is frightening. Recently, we had a Chancellor that has admitted in his own book that he knew nothing about economics, yet he was in charge of the financial system from 1997. Before that, we had the 1966 Prime Minister telling the British public that the pound in their pocket has not changed in value, after he had devalued the pound to try and correct a balance of payments deficit!

Worse still, we have a generally economic and financially illiterate mass of people in this country. They often elect the equally clueless political clowns. They deserve what they get; good and hard.

Strip back government to it's bare essentials and give people back their freedom, together with a flat rate tax with no tax breaks. Give people the incentive to work hard.

...and the answer is...BACK TO BASICS!

I agree with Pilgrim, Tony Evans & most of the others:

Just before Christmas, I wanted to buy a quality,nice winter jacket for a present, money was not a problem. At British Home stores they had about 20 different brands,ALL of them made in China, none of them worth wearing, so I went to M&S(another old British trade mark shop).From a distance you could see they were also Chineese. Most other clothing was also "made in China"...

Our fridge needed a new Thermostat. I found a compatible one on line. It had been made in... China! watches, lap tops,etc are made in China. Don't take me wrong, I respect and admire the Chineese for what they have achieved. I am only trying to point to OUR economic deficiency("rebuilding Britain's economy").

If the UK is not facturing hardly any products,no wonder there are no jobs for the million youngsters in Britain(and the Continent),now desperate to do any job! What can the UK export, if it does not produce? Govts. in any countries should create job opportunities for their people & ought to take factual steps, not just with words, but with actions.

In my view, retirement age should have stayed at 65 (or even less), but increasing pension contributions. If people retired early, this would vacate places down the ladder: it is the young/creative and energetic brains and fresh hands that move an industry (as the Indian and Brazilians are now doing).

Too much time (and money) is wasted on things like Afghanistan,Libya, Iraq,Iran,Syria,hacking/freedom of the press,televised interviews to no end.

Instead, there should be discussions on how to transform the UK economy, at every level.

Pulpos

This gradual transfer of jobs started a long time ago. I remember being able to buy a well made HiFi made in the UK. Along comes along a certain Alan Sugar in the late 70's who undercut the British suppliers by having the Amstrad HiFis made in South Korea. This guy was elevated to the Lords by Labour for being entrepeneurial and generous to their cause.

But, dont despair! Jobs may trickle back to this part of the world as China has seen wage rates rise 30% over the past year in some areas.

And James Dyson (now Sir) transfered production of his expensive vacuum cleaners to the far east to boost his profits

and we are not the only ones, Nokia dumped thousands of employees and moved manufacture to one of these countries. I think that countries who are running down the value of people are running down their own customers. The masses need surplus income.

Truffle Hunter,

It took hundreds of years, a civil war, the division of society by religeon and class to provide the energy behind the industrial revolution. The complex geology of Britain placed many of the materials required for the new industries within convenient proximity and thus facilitated the development. The new industries were generally led by the non-conformists who were denied the right to advance in the traditional professions, the Law, the Army and the Church. The old landowners and the established order played little part in the formation of the new industries.

You are right Truffle Hunter, if we allow a time lapse of centuries, and if mankind and countries still exist, a new economic equilibrium may move the balance of economic activity back again. But I think the all of us now will be dead long before that happens.

DGS: I think you are being a little unfair to Dyson. I think the choice was more simple. Stay in business by cutting manufacturing costs, or be driven out of the maket place and go bust. We cannot suceed in competition on labour cost with countries in which the cost of living is low, and social overheads are minimal. If we wish to live in an advanced society then the cost of labour is necessarily higher. One of the of the problems of manufacturing in Britain for the British market alone is that the market is not large enough in many areas to achieve good economies of scale. One of the drivers behind the formation of the common market was thus was to combine the trading area of several countries with an equilavalent level of social development within a common tariff barrier. This would permit the payment of sufficient wages across the width of the labour force. By the time we signed up to the EU it was becoming very apparent that the large internal market within the USA offered huge advantages of scale to US manufacturers for whom the international dimension could be regarded as a non-essential luxury. Round about the same time we were losing our tied trading relationships with what had been the British Empire, who had to take our goods wheter they wished to or not!

Pulpos puts his finger on a key part of our problem which lies in the paucity of political debate. Our politicians will do almost anything other than address the fundamentals of our economic system. In yesteryear there was continuous scrutiny of our balance of payments, it being a reasonable inference that we could not expect to import more than we sold indefinitely. However, since then we have found a more convenient way of assessing our progress. We report on the growth our our GDP which we measure not by what we produce, but by what we consume. Hence the enthusiasm for encouraging consumption.

We need to rethink our economic model. are we seeking to engineer the benefit of all mankind, or should our politicians remain more focussed on the intersets of the people of Britain? These are not same thing at all.

Pilgrim "DGS: I think you are being a little unfair to Dyson. I think the choice was more simple. Stay in business by cutting manufacturing costs, or be driven out of the market place and go bust. We cannot succeed in competition on labour cost with countries in which the cost of living is low, and social overheads are minimal. If we wish to live in an advanced society then the cost of labour is necessarily higher. One of the of the problems of manufacturing in Britain for the British market alone is that the market is not large enough in many areas to achieve good economies of scale."

I don't accept that. Dyson's products have been protected by patents which they strongly protect. Their vacuum cleaners are significantly more expensive than the competition - and they still are although some of their patents have expired.

Germany can produce goods for the world market - why can't Britain? And I can answer that - Germany is the only country benefiting from the common currency giving them a lower exchange rate than they would enjoy if the EU breaks up (soon, I hope).

Nissan, BMW, and Jaguar/Land Rover can produce goods here that sell abroad - how can they do it while Dyson can't?

Pilgrim

We are focused on GB, however unfortunately on the 1%, which some might want to stretch to 10%.

That is our real problem.

Putting matters in context.

Please read BBC News UK-Charities 'could face cuts of up to 5.5b'

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17249026.

Should we also be looking at a 'Big Society' strategy?

@anonymous3, You mean the 'fake charities'? Charities mainly funded by the state are not charities but extension to the welfare state.

Interesting about Camerons "Pay through the nose for it and then do it yourself" strategy is that many of the volunteers that are holding the NHS together are people, often ladies, that retired at 60 or at least early. This is reflected across many volunteer run services that we take for granted. Many of the needs of our frail elderly are provided, not by the state, but by the already over stretched voluntary people who are now under threat from another of Camerons ideas to keep everyone at work till they finally retire wrecked so we can keep young families on the dole.

Germany is successful because they have a joined up long term strategy for manufacturing and commerce. Despite what the British complain about EU regulation, Trade Unions and Red Tape.

They Believe In:

1. Continuous Improvement

2. Invest for the Long Term

3. Research and Development

4. Valued Work Force at all Levels

5. Nurture and train people for their positions an future ones

6. All Stake Holders Contribute

7. Finance Availability

8. Fair Rewards at All Levels

The UK does little of the above, have poorly trained managers backed by short term dogmatic governments with no long term strategy. How many times in the past have we read it’s cheaper to manufacture it abroad? We now have a very limited skills base, no industry to speak of which traditionally absorbed many of the school leavers of the past and provided a good skills base. Instead we have high unemployment particularly the young. Guess what we are now complaining about the high social costs. All this achieved with the gift of North Sea Gas & Oil, gross incompetence.

The Tories answer, tinker around with more trade union reform and make it easier to sack people. The successful companies don’t need it they know how to manage their business, value their people and surprise, surprise most are foreign companies managing what was once British. Siemens, BMW (Mini), TATA Steel , Jaguar and Landrover. The list goes on.

The UK needs an industrial strategy which crosses parties, incorporates all aspects of industry from R&D, Training and Development, Tax Incentives, Planning Approvals, Finance Availability. The strategy must include all the stake holders then we can move forward, will we ever achieve this?

There seems to be a large measure of agreement as to how Britain has lost its way but not much idea as to how we may find it again.

However it is to be achieved there will need to be effective communication with the public to explain both the nature of the problems and the steps to be taken both individually and nationally to mitigate or resolve them.

The BBC is probably the most influential information service in Britain. With the BBC news, (WS or other) the present tendency is to provide a very modest component of factual data, supported by scant research, and little or no objective analysis. This is accompanied by a flood of largely uninformed speculation and subjective opinion. The BBC may be independent of government but it has a very significant role in forming British opinion, and is influential outside Britain as well. The recent reporting on Syria for example has been heavily biased against the present regime which in fact probably enjoys rather more support in Syria than the Conservative Party does in Britain. Positive values of the present regime about which we hear nothing include , a secular administration with religeous tolerance covering a broad spectrum of faiths, opposition to the islamic extremism encouraged by Saudi Arabia and by A l Qaeda, and equality of rights for women. This has been supplemented by a National referendum in which more than half of the entire population has voted in favour of a new constitution introducing multiparty democracy in 2014. All these positive characteristics are now at risk.

Russia and China, our old bogeymen are pilloried in programme after programme for opposing the draft UN resolution on Syria. Never mentioned is the fact that India, Brazil, and South Africa all declined to support it and abstained. One could go on, there is much more that can be said in this area. However, the effect of the BBC and others 'managing' the information provided to the public, on a subject about which the public otherwise knows very little, clearly has a major political impact. It creates a situation in which the BBC not only reports on situations but, by selective management of information, also influences and distorts the political process and Britain's response. Now we elect our members of parliament, we do not vote for the BBC. But in many ways, with the power of modern media, it is the influence of the BBC which can control the country. This is Orwellian territory!

Other information sources are contaminated by obvious sources of bias. It is not long since that a Times editorial stated "we are all 'Friends of Israel'" (yes its another Murdoch paper)! And yes, there are Israeli interests at play in Syria. So where can one look for information?

So there are problems with the adequacy and objectivity of communication which need to be addressed.

While it is good to know that the Cabinet are considering the issues of industrial policy the primary political interest there may lie in just 'kicking the can down the road'. The British electorate don't really understand what is going on, but it will take a brave politician to tell them.

We have been through an era in which unquestioning adherance has been given to dogma. Britain came through the post war years with trade controlled by all kinds of tariff restriction, both explicit and covert. Tariffs affected all kinds of goods, but they were essential to protect and maintain sectors of manufacturing. Yes we have cheaper clothes now that they are all made in the far east, but we have dismantled the 'rag trade' in Britain almost entirely. Our automobile industry was heavily protected and in the early 1970s there were hardly any foreign made cars on our roads. The French throttled the supply of VCRs into France by requiring that all electronic imports from the far East were processed through a single understaffed customs office in Poitiers! The reasons for tariff barriers for developed economies are similar to those for fiscal harmonization in the Euro area. The reason is that it is systemically impossible to maintain industries in areas with advanced societies because the cost of labour must always be higher than that available in societies which provide less for their citizens.

Abolition of tariffs is good for world trade, and in time may cause a levelling of opportunity and wealth as beween different countries. This is why it is necessary to ask the question whether policy should be for the good of the 1%, the 10%, of Britain, or for universal international benefit. Each answer entails a different set of decisions.

It is to be hoped that the objectives of policy for our government are for the interests of all Britons without regard to social and economic status. However, if appearance is a guide, policy meanders between universal international benefit, and the protection of the interests of the 1% with little imbetween.

Anyhow, SMS analysis is hard to flaw, but the problem is to see how effective corrective policies can be formulated, communicated and implemented.

Well argued Pilgrim. The selective news reporting by the BBC is why I have more faith in RT - Russian TV. When I see and hear the BBC's biased claptrap I switch over to RT to try and get some sort of overall balance. The BBC have become more like the Radio Moscow broadcasts of the 1960's.

Western Civilisation: Decline – or Fall?

This is John Mauldin's latest email on the world's economy.

You can subscribe (free) at http://www.johnmauldin.com/

I'm going to get controversial, but I'll risk that anyway. I suspect that the feelings that many of the working class feel as tho they are being treated unfairly comes from our history, and it doesn't take much effort by a few to get the high turnout needed to cause real trouble.

Was it because of our monarchy system? The king/queen of the day would be generous to those who could raise armies to fight for the monarch. The soldiers did the fighting while the rich collected 1000 acres here or 1000 acres there. The offspring of both classes are still lumbered with the results. The rich are now land owning lords and ladies. Their children go to the top private schools where they study Shakespeare and then become politicians (and they are still promoting this on our TV today), while the offspring of the soldiers have been to war several times in the last century and their children lack the drive and ambition necessary to make a success of their lives.

Why are our union leaders intent on destroying the very jobs they should be supporting? Bob Crow has now achieved salaries approaching £50,000/year for driving an underground train, and he still wants more to work over the Olympics. That is why Boris Johnson will introduce driverless trains when he thinks he can get away with it.

The managers of our car manufacturers in the past may not have been the best, but they weren't helped by the workforce who dropped tools for another strike fairly regularly.

DGS

The subversives working for the BBC have a lot to answer for with all their spiteful negative one-sided "news spin". The BBC has now been successfully populated with those people that enjoy wearing the "victim badge" and pandering to the supposedly aggrieved from centuries past. Control of the media is now in the hands of unelected subversives. How democratic is that?

Incidentally, before the Labour Party introduced the "comprehensive" education in 1966, Shakespeare was taught in the secondary modern school that I attended. Since that time , of course, the standard of education has declined.However, the works of the Bard take pride of place in my study/library.

The overall impression I get is that political representatives of the aggrieved have an incurable propensity to inflict damage upon the very people they supposedly represent.

I too was an 11+ failure and yes, I remember Shakespeare from school. However, I thought it was a load of rubbish then and still do. How is Shakespeare going to help rebuild British industry?

My bookcase is filled with books on house building - I organised the building of two houses and built a bungalow pretty much on my own. It took two years - and programming - Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, Web design, and Javascript.

You can see some of my work on www.stonebanks.co.uk

"Since that time , of course, the standard of education has declined" - has it? My daughters have successful careers and their children are progressing well at 'bog-standard' comprehensives. As an 11+ failure, I support the equal opportunities for all that comprehensives offer. I don't object to private education, where parents choose to pay more for their children's education, but I believe that the state should try to be fair to all of our youngsters.

Congratulations DGS on navigating your way to success from the dear old secondary modern.

Secondary modern schools should have received more investment to enable the many students with excellent practical skills to develop. Had this been done we might have fewer "cowboy" builders inflicting themselves on the general populace.

Apart from my Shakespeare, I have other more earthy tomes on accounting principles, revenue law, psychology of finance , and the old university texts on economics, Fortran, Cobol programming etc etc. The secondary modern school didn't stop people going to university, provided they worked hard, achieved good GCE's and got a transfer to the local grammar school.

I am glad to see that not all the output from the comprehensive system is substandard.

Don't think we should confuse the Uk's version of comprehensive education with equal opportunity for all, or with the notion that education standards have fallen with the inability of anyone interested to obtain a decent set of exam results (as opposed to an education). Mind you, obtaining an education for those who want is also available in plenty of places too.

There will be a massive pool of youngsters for totally non skilled jobs.

Reading and listening today to the debate on the thorny problem of the thousands of exclusions from schools due to disruptive behaviour, it seems to me we will have to gainfully employ these kids in something, otherwise they will in turn pass their bad points on to their children and the whole mess continues with us tax payers having to pay for it

There will be a massive pool of youngsters for totally non skilled jobs.

Reading and listening today to the debate on the thorny problem of the thousands of exclusions from schools due to disruptive behaviour, it seems to me we will have to gainfully employ these kids in something, otherwise they will in turn pass their bad points on to their children and the whole mess continues with us tax payers having to pay for it

There will be a massive pool of youngsters for totally non skilled jobs.

Reading and listening today to the debate on the thorny problem of the thousands of exclusions from schools due to disruptive behaviour, it seems to me we will have to gainfully employ these kids in something, otherwise they will in turn pass their bad points on to their children and the whole mess continues with us tax payers having to pay for it

There will be a massive pool of youngsters for totally non skilled jobs.

Reading and listening today to the debate on the thorny problem of the thousands of exclusions from schools due to disruptive behaviour, it seems to me we will have to gainfully employ these kids in something, otherwise they will in turn pass their bad points on to their children and the whole mess continues with us tax payers having to pay for it