The news that the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port has been saved and will have new investment is very good news for the NW economy and Britain in securing thousands of jobs.
It confirms that in spite of those who say British workers are lazy they are able to compete with the best in the world.
BUT the question has to be asked why has so much of our industry been sold abroad? and why is our motor industry foreign owned?
The workers are the same so the cause of our industrial demise must rest with management.
In the bad old days of British Leyland the management let trouble causers such as "Red Robbo" rule the factories and sabotage the factory's future. In this they were assisted by Left wingers such as Tony Benn and Michael Foot.
But it was the management's fault that this was allowed to happen.
They did not manage.
They should have sacked the destructive militants, closed the factory and taken on those prepared to work. But they gave in continuously.
The management were to blame, as much of the success of the motor industry recently has been due to better management.
But that is not the whole story.
Our management did not invest. The factories were allowed to decay giving the preditory capitalists of the City of London and foreign countries to buy them cheaply and move production abroad.
For years the City has made its vast and unearned profits by feeding parasite like on the corpse of British industry, feathering its own nest when, if they had any interest in Britain they would have invested in new technology and innovation, not short term profit but long term growth.
German, French factory owners would not have allowed their major industries to be taken over by foreign busnesses.
It is ironic that many of the most successful firms in the country are now in foreign ownership, new management, same workers, and not under the malign influence of the City of London which has done more to damage our industries than anything else.
And they say they support the country financially.
Yes in the same way a con man gives a gullible pensioner a small amount of cash for his savings, making him feel temporarily better off but in actual fact robbed of the bulk of his assets.
For once we can thank the foreign owners of these industries for their faith in British workers and be glad they are not in hock to the short sighted leeches of the City.
Anyhow, CONGRATULATIONS TO ELLESMERE PORT, and thanks to GM for that expression of faith.
