Labels: 2010 Election POSTED BY WAT TYLER AT 8:37 AM COMMENTS (3) Labels: 2010 ElectionSUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010
Only The Crumbliest Flakiest Thinking
Sunday 11 April 2010
Symbol of British potency
God, they're desperate. And giving their union backers a Cadbury Lawshows just how desperate.
Typically, the Law was announced by Newsnight's Trotskyite economics editor. It's supposedly aimed at making it much harder for foreigners to take over British companies, which apparently will stop Britain losing any more British jobs for British workers.
What drivel.
For one thing, British jobs can just as easily be exported by British companies to their own factories in Eastern Europe and Asia. Indeed, Cadbury was doing precisely that - 80% of its business and 85% of its employees were already outside the UK, as were 78% of its shareholders.
More fundamentally, changes in company control are part and parcel of the way our hugeley successful market economy works. And there is no serious evidence that Britain loses out from the process overall.
The Economist recently published a survey of this evidence. They noted that over the last decade, foreigners have spent $1,000 bn on buying British companies, compared to $750 bn going in the other direction. But foreigners have tended to buy bigger operations, so in terms of numbers of takeovers, we've actually done more than they have (6000 vs 5400):
These are big scary changes. But as the Economist points out, many of the feared foreign takeovers have actually proved immensely beneficial to Britain. The workers from Austin Rover's old clapped out Cowley plant must wake up every morning and give thanks to BMW for rescuing them: they now work in the booming Mini biz, with 80% of their 200,000+ annual production exported. And throughout our economy, we have gained from the rapid importation of best practice from leading global companies - stuff we'd have taken decades to learn otherwise.
Labour are now putting all that at risk, They're sending out yet another signal that profit-focused businesses are not welcome here.
The bottom line? It's increasingly clear that Labour no longer expect to win the election. What's happening now is a series of moves by factions inside their divided leadership to position themselves for the aftermath of defeat.
Which is fine, as long as they do indeed lose.
But WTF will happen if they win?
They've comprehensively lost the business support they once so assiduously cultivated, both here and abroad. A Labour win now would be greeted in the same way as business and the market greeted the Labour win in 1974. Sterling would tank. Gilts would tank. And this time, the equity market would also tank. We'd be facing that mountain of debt without even a shovel.
No. It really doesn't bear thinking about.
PS Oh go on then. Just for fun, here's Clarkson on what happens when governments prop up failing British companies, allowing them to put off difficult decisions:
SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2010A Day On The Doorsteps
Tyler is soaking his feet after a day out canvassing.
The good news is that judging from today's feedback, the polls are seriouslyunderestimating the Tory lead.
Yes, OK, it's an affluent Tory constituency down South, so Tyler can't present a national picture. But in 2005 the support in this same constituency didn't feel anything like as strong. And as we all now understand, the polls schmolls are subjected to such tortured statistical gymnastics before they appear in the headlines we should take them with a huge shovel of salt (it will be fascinating to see just how much egg has been spattered across those famous polling faces on 7 May).
Key doorstep issues?
Sleaze obviously came up, but that's not a problem for this Tory incumbent, who's as clean as a whistle and known to be so.
Fuel prices - absolutely beyond a joke. Tyler was able to hammer home the point that 65% of it is tax (eg see this blog).
Soft on crime - yes, that old favourite is still there.
And the pressing relevance of that issue is further underlined by this grim post from our old friend the Village Postmaster. Since suffering his own armed robbery he monitors all such attacks involving convenience stores, and on his count there have been:
A shocking commentary on Labour's failure to grip violent crime.
Posts
