Sheep No More

By this coming weekend ALL Ford vehicle manufacturing in Britain will cease when the Transit factory in Southampton closes.  Stark is the contrast between today's sorry state of affairs and forty years ago when my own father worked for Ford as a junior manager and was proud to do so. Back then everything Ford sold in Britain was made in Britain and the company was a powerful force within our country both economically and socially. These days Ford manufacture their products wherever they can find the cheapest labour to exploit and then they sell them to British consumers and companies for the highest prices they've ever been able to. Never has the product range been more expensive to buy and never has the company been able to make so much money from what they clearly regard as being an undefended and vulnerable cash-cow of a country.

Politicians of other nations make the effort to defend their own best interests; here in contrast, our lot shrug their shoulders and declare 'free market forces must not be questioned' and they refuse to do so.

Bearing in mind how many hundreds of thousands if not millions of vehicles Ford sell in Britain each and every year, that many are the products of cheap labour, all are highly profitable for the company, that Britain's skilled workforce is on the scrapheap effectively, our benefits system cannot possible sustain so many non-productive claimants, the nation has been systematically stripped of its manufacturing skills and the economy is an outright basket case; is it not time to at least begin questioning the 'wisdom' of the political and economic system we live under? The recreation of a breed of politicians and businessmen capable of fighting Britain's corner, surely cannot be beyond our currently cowed wit can it? Surely not.