Just a quick comment on a couple of John's points:


>I am deeply worried by the loss of manufacturing [...Big cut by KM...]
>The fact that Switzerland makes no cars is not excuse - the Swiss make the world's best 
>machine tools, the best high value steel, many high value manufactured products and about 50% 
>of their economy is in manufacturing believe it or not.

Well, yes, but according to ONS, in 2004 there were 1,646,750 passenger cars manufactured in the UK in 2004, of which 72% were exported. MG Rover's 6000 a year (is that the right number?) is a pretty small proportion of this. I'm not saying that the social and political consequences of the Rover collapse, or its effects on the local (Birmingham and West Midlands) economy aren't going to be devastating, but in terms of national loss of manufacturing capacity, I don't think the impact is actually going to be all that great

>Having to import trains, cars and even now civilian aircraft is not a good sign for the 
>future.  Some are made here but the essential research and manufacture of high-value 
>components like engines is often carried out elsewhere.  It is the loss of these design skills 
>which is critical.  

Indeed that's true but I think it's a mistake to confuse the ownership of such businesses with the location where they do their design work and so on. There are UK-based engine plants with foreign ownership. Foreign-owned car manufacturers do design wrok here, e.g. the huge Nissan design place at Cranfield near here, which (I believe) does the design work for most or all or Nissan's European production.

>With Lotus, TVR and other niche sports manufacturers also now in foreign hands, I fully expect 
>us to lose the number of F1 racing car facilities.

I don't think so. The great majority of F1 teams are based here in the UK, whatever the ownership, because it's a different niche that that occupied by niche sports car manufacturers.

Regards,

Kevin
---------------------------------
Kevin McConway
Senior Lecturer in Statistics
Department of Statistics
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK

Phone: +44-1908-653676
Fax:      +44-1908-655515
email:   [log in to unmask] 

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