Brexit - merged threads

[12gauge82]

5 hours ago, Mice! said:

If the firms are small then there is no need for a uni to Tailor a degree to suit a limited number of candidates, i work in manufacturing, currently aerospace and over the years plenty of firms have folded and the work has gone abroad.

If these firms need a specific skill then as others have said its an apprenticeship that's needed, but by the sounds of it they want ready made programmers without any investment in training. This is obviously what the poles are targeting, its the same with engineering and cnc they know there is a skills shortage in this country and jobs are waiting.

we need to train up our own youngsters as we once did for the industrial needs.

Spot on.

This is another big benefit of Brexit, all these companies that have been buying in skills from abroad will now need to invest more in the UK by providing apprenticeships and training, making more well paid skilled jobs for the UKs young, much better than now where you've got youngsters with degrees coming out of their ears but work in Amazon on next to minimum wage as there's no jobs for them.

[JohnfromUK]

This higher education question has always interested me.  I got an (engineering) degree in 1978.  I can't recall anything I covered in my 3 year degree course ever having been of any real use ..... other than having the degree itself, which got me on the interview shortlist.

My view has always been that many university lecturers have never been in industry and don't know (and don't want to know) what training and skills industry needs in its intake.

I may have been through  my experience at a transition time because we were taught loads of complex mathematics (now thankfully long forgotten), but the reality when I went into industry was that 'rule of thumb', past experience were the real skills needed, and all of the complex maths was being done by (early then) computers.

Possibly overseas (EU) graduates have a more 'practical' rather then 'academic' type of education?  Possibly the UK is better now, but I'm not convinced by that.

[12gauge82]

5 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

This higher education question has always interested me.  I got an (engineering) degree in 1978.  I can't recall anything I covered in my 3 year degree course ever having been of any real use ..... other than having the degree itself, which got me on the interview shortlist.

My view has always been that many university lecturers have never been in industry and don't know (and don't want to know) what training and skills industry needs in its intake.

I may have been through  my experience at a transition time because we were taught loads of complex mathematics (now thankfully long forgotten), but the reality when I went into industry was that 'rule of thumb', past experience were the real skills needed, and all of the complex maths was being done by (early then) computers.

Possibly overseas (EU) graduates have a more 'practical' rather then 'academic' type of education?  Possibly the UK is better now, but I'm not convinced by that.

Agreed, when it comes to practical jobs, apprenticeships will always be better than university. Like I said in the post above, an on-going issue has been companies in the UK, don't want to invest in skills and training, I'm hopefull that brexit, while not being the whole answer, will help to balance This and created skilled jobs for our young.

[JohnfromUK]

4 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

has been companies in the UK, don't want to invest in skills and training

I'm not entirely in agreement on that; much of my working life (I'm retired now) was working for smaller UK companies.  They didn't do much formal training, but there was a lot of (very good) internal training and mentoring - which worked well for the individuals and the company.  That could be seen as not investing in training, but in reality you learned a lot of skills and techniques.

Towards the end of my career, I ended up working for a large American owned 'multinational' - through takeovers rather than choice.  They had a quite healthy training budget, but it soon emerged that they spent most of it on a dedicated training manager(!) and various expensive and rather impractical management training.  (I have a view that good managers are 'naturals' and you cannot 'train' someone to be a manager.)  They did however have an apprentice programme that did seem the best set up part of their training.

I rather think that Brexit won't change much in this area.

[12gauge82]

31 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

I'm not entirely in agreement on that; much of my working life (I'm retired now) was working for smaller UK companies.  They didn't do much formal training, but there was a lot of (very good) internal training and mentoring - which worked well for the individuals and the company.  That could be seen as not investing in training, but in reality you learned a lot of skills and techniques.

Towards the end of my career, I ended up working for a large American owned 'multinational' - through takeovers rather than choice.  They had a quite healthy training budget, but it soon emerged that they spent most of it on a dedicated training manager(!) and various expensive and rather impractical management training.  (I have a view that good managers are 'naturals' and you cannot 'train' someone to be a manager.)  They did however have an apprentice programme that did seem the best set up part of their training.

I rather think that Brexit won't change much in this area.

You may be right but I remain hopeful that it will help, I really do feel for the young of today.

[panoma1]

Over many years UK Industry has failed to finance training for employees, failed to finance modernisation, failed to provide investment in machinery, failed to finance/keep up with technology, employed cheap foreign labour In preference to more expensive UK labour (driven up by the cost of living!) enabling employers to make higher profits and consequently make more money for themselves and the shareholders.......the effect has been the running of businesses into the ground, where they have closed down or been snapped up cheaply by foreign interests........the cry from employers (fruit and veg farmers etc!) that they can't get UK workers because they don't want to work is BS......subsistence wages and high cost of living means few UK workers could afford to live or improve their lives on the wages offered.....but foreign labour can!........And EU free movement of people facilitated this....cheap labour more profit....screw the UK workers.........this couldn't be the reason why employers, members of the political classes and the government make up the majority of remainers could it? Leaving the EU could make the lives of ordinary UK citizens better........the "powers that be" ain't gonna accept this, because it will be at their expense, so Brexit will be designed to prevent it happening!

 

[ditchman]

all this "free movement of people "...is a load of tosh..............

when i was 17 (pre-EU)...i had 2 partime jobs...one on a vedgetable processing factory near Grimston nr kings lynn...and another on the local turkey farms  (lawrence mack ltd)

during the summer Lawrence mack brought over a 100 odd Portugese workers every year for 6-8 weeks which released us to do the harvest and later the baling and carting of the straw for the chooks....whilst the portugese lads and lasses did the egg collecting and mucking out and general duties......they were on the same rate as us and the same bonuses...then went home with a pocket full of money..............they didnt have any probs with so called free movement...andthat was before UK signed up.........

[TIGHTCHOKE]

21 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

Over many years UK Industry has failed to finance training for employees, failed to finance modernisation, failed to provide investment in machinery, failed to finance/keep up with technology, employed cheap foreign labour In preference to more expensive UK labour (driven up by the cost of living!) enabling employers to make higher profits and consequently make more money for themselves and the shareholders.......the effect has been the running of businesses into the ground, where they have closed down or been snapped up cheaply by foreign interests........the cry from employers (fruit and veg farmers etc!) that they can't get UK workers because they don't want to work is BS......subsistence wages and high cost of living means few UK workers could afford to live or improve their lives on the wages offered.....but foreign labour can!........And EU free movement of people facilitated this....cheap labour more profit....screw the UK workers.........this couldn't be the reason why employers, members of the political classes and the government make up the majority of remainers could it? Leaving the EU could make the lives of ordinary UK citizens better........the "powers that be" ain't gonna accept this, because it will be at their expense, so Brexit will be designed to prevent it happening!

 

That sums the situation up nicely.

[scotslad]

The biggest problem u have with appretices/training etc is modern life, everyone wants a decent wage from day 1 and no one wants to start at the bottom.

Plus the whole mobile phone/faceache thing with younger generstions, in 10-15 yrs tine their is going to be a massive shortage of real proper tradesmen, esp tradsemen that can work in older houses and not just put up new builds

 

I know quite a few small bosses and hardly any take on youngsters now to put throu appreticeships, esp in the building trade, too much hassle/paperwork while there training and if ur lucky and train a decent 1 its too easy for them to go subbing on big sites so as soon as they become a real asset to the company they leave.

Most small builders i know don't even bother with it now.

 

Brexit won't change that, if anything it will stop ur importds coming over to build on the cheap but all that weill do is push house/renovation prices up for everyone.

 

 

[Rewulf]

1 minute ago, panoma1 said:

Over many years UK Industry has failed to finance training for employees, failed to finance modernisation, failed to provide investment in machinery, failed to finance/keep up with technology, employed cheap foreign labour In preference to more expensive UK labour (driven up by the cost of living!) enabling employers to make higher profits and consequently make more money for themselves and the shareholders.......the effect has been the running of businesses into the ground, where they have closed down or been snapped up cheaply by foreign interests........the cry from employers (fruit and veg farmers etc!) that they can't get UK workers because they don't want to work is BS......subsistence wages and high cost of living means few UK workers could afford to live or improve their lives on the wages offered.....but foreign labour can!........And EU free movement of people facilitated this....cheap labour more profit....screw the UK workers.........this couldn't be the reason why employers, members of the political classes and the government make up the majority of remainers could it? Leaving the EU could make the lives of ordinary UK citizens better........the "powers that be" ain't gonna accept this, because it will be at their expense, so Brexit will be designed to prevent it happening!

 

+1

Youve got to ask yourself serious questions about how this country has been run in the last 30 years.
Where has our manufacturing industry gone?
The only Motor cars built in this country are foreign owned, our marques like Jaguar , Land Rover and many others sold off.
Steel industry, sold off, farming is a shadow of what it once was, fishing ? Well lets not go there...

You cant blame it all on the EU, but the EU has certainly not helped in any way shape or form, and in many cases, actively promoted the destruction of some industries, usually to the benefit of another EU  country.
And then people still say the EU has been good for us ?

When I first started in the motor trade some 35 years ago, Fords ,Vauxhalls and BMC cars were still made in this country, amongst many other famous marques, your Audis , Fiats BMW s and Peugeots made up very few of the cars used by ordinary Brits, in fact Japanese stuff was more predominant..and reliable !
Over the course of my working life I saw the British car manufacturing industry wound up and consigned to the bin of history, and replaced by ...Well you know whats driving around on the roads these days, and its mostly German and French, with a bit of Italian, Japanese or Korean, yes some are made here, and thats something.

What Im getting at, is that the EU helped to destroy that part of our industry, our economic strength, amongst many others, and in turn replaced it with their own, closer to home product.
You could say that German cars are better than British cars, but back in the 70s and 80s there really wasnt a lot in it.

If anything comes out of Brexit, I hope its a grass roots revival of our traditional industries.
Id like to see a British car marque revived and produced, using modern designs and technology, there is a vast untapped market out there for such a 'home grown' car, I have many customers who crave to 'buy British' but simply cant.

Its the same with Labour, we dont concentrate much on training people with practical skills, Joinery, engineering, and brickwork.
We seem to concentrate on the academic side of things, administration and legal.
We dont learn how to MAKE things, we just seem to teach people how to watch people make things, people we have to import in because we have none of our own ?
A nation of shopkeepers ?
Its not unusual to have a factory, or building site these days, with a British manager, and an Eastern European workforce struggling to understand what hes telling them.
Ultimately to save aggro, an Eastern European manager is employed who can speak to the workforce in their own language, and the Brit is made redundant, I suppose he could have learned, but thats simply not how companies work these days.

Brexit gives us the opportunity to start fresh, a chance to do things our way, not the EU way.
Our traditional strong manufacturing base was once the envy of the world, it could be again.
We could invest and build on our people and economy, the EU unable to breath down our necks and interfere.
This scares them, make no mistake about that.
Because we can make it work, weve done it before and can do it again.

[JRDS]

Maybe we need a Government that actually wants to support British workers and Apprentice schemes properly.. We need whole scale Political change in this country, virtually every aspect of society has been broken by the Liberal Elite.  Brexit is just the start of the process. 

[ditchman]

18 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

+1

Youve got to ask yourself serious questions about how this country has been run in the last 30 years.
Where has our manufacturing industry gone?
The only Motor cars built in this country are foreign owned, our marques like Jaguar , Land Rover and many others sold off.
Steel industry, sold off, farming is a shadow of what it once was, fishing ? Well lets not go there...

You cant blame it all on the EU, but the EU has certainly not helped in any way shape or form, and in many cases, actively promoted the destruction of some industries, usually to the benefit of another EU  country.
And then people still say the EU has been good for us ?

When I first started in the motor trade some 35 years ago, Fords ,Vauxhalls and BMC cars were still made in this country, amongst many other famous marques, your Audis , Fiats BMW s and Peugeots made up very few of the cars used by ordinary Brits, in fact Japanese stuff was more predominant..and reliable !
Over the course of my working life I saw the British car manufacturing industry wound up and consigned to the bin of history, and replaced by ...Well you know whats driving around on the roads these days, and its mostly German and French, with a bit of Italian, Japanese or Korean, yes some are made here, and thats something.

What Im getting at, is that the EU helped to destroy that part of our industry, our economic strength, amongst many others, and in turn replaced it with their own, closer to home product.
You could say that German cars are better than British cars, but back in the 70s and 80s there really wasnt a lot in it.

If anything comes out of Brexit, I hope its a grass roots revival of our traditional industries.
Id like to see a British car marque revived and produced, using modern designs and technology, there is a vast untapped market out there for such a 'home grown' car, I have many customers who crave to 'buy British' but simply cant.

Its the same with Labour, we dont concentrate much on training people with practical skills, Joinery, engineering, and brickwork.
We seem to concentrate on the academic side of things, administration and legal.
We dont learn how to MAKE things, we just seem to teach people how to watch people make things, people we have to import in because we have none of our own ?
A nation of shopkeepers ?
Its not unusual to have a factory, or building site these days, with a British manager, and an Eastern European workforce struggling to understand what hes telling them.
Ultimately to save aggro, an Eastern European manager is employed who can speak to the workforce in their own language, and the Brit is made redundant, I suppose he could have learned, but thats simply not how companies work these days.

Brexit gives us the opportunity to start fresh, a chance to do things our way, not the EU way.
Our traditional strong manufacturing base was once the envy of the world, it could be again.
We could invest and build on our people and economy, the EU unable to breath down our necks and interfere.
This scares them, make no mistake about that.
Because we can make it work, weve done it before and can do it again.

Thats what happened at a big local wood processing yard just up the road from me............i was staggered...happened virtually overnight....i used to go there to get dust extracted shavings for the dogs....turned up a month later and they were ALL foreighn.............

just so not right.........

just on the side............i shot on an estate just before Thetford....we met at the stables where the workshop was and some of the stables were converted to small flats..............yup you've guessed it all the farm workers were european...........

Edited July 24, 2018 by ditchman

[pinfireman]

15 hours ago, oowee said:

The people are from Lodz, They have lots of 3d graphic skills. We would take them from uk but they don't have the skills. 

 

TRAIN THEM! It,s what we did for centuries! We trained our own people!

2 hours ago, 12gauge82 said:

Spot on.

This is another big benefit of Brexit, all these companies that have been buying in skills from abroad will now need to invest more in the UK by providing apprenticeships and training, making more well paid skilled jobs for the UKs young, much better than now where you've got youngsters with degrees coming out of their ears but work in Amazon on next to minimum wage as there's no jobs for them.

CORRECT!

1 hour ago, ditchman said:

all this "free movement of people "...is a load of tosh..............

when i was 17 (pre-EU)...i had 2 partime jobs...one on a vedgetable processing factory near Grimston nr kings lynn...and another on the local turkey farms  (lawrence mack ltd)

during the summer Lawrence mack brought over a 100 odd Portugese workers every year for 6-8 weeks which released us to do the harvest and later the baling and carting of the straw for the chooks....whilst the portugese lads and lasses did the egg collecting and mucking out and general duties......they were on the same rate as us and the same bonuses...then went home with a pocket full of money..............they didnt have any probs with so called free movement...andthat was before UK signed up.........

Spot on!

[Rewulf]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/993130/Brexit-news-Gisela-Stuart-brexit-video-Michel-Barnier-brexit-negotiation-BBC

 

More remainers misquoting JRM saying weve got to wait 50 years for the benefits of Brexit, no shame whatsoever.

[pinfireman]

55 minutes ago, scotslad said:

The biggest problem u have with appretices/training etc is modern life, everyone wants a decent wage from day 1 and no one wants to start at the bottom.

Plus the whole mobile phone/faceache thing with younger generstions, in 10-15 yrs tine their is going to be a massive shortage of real proper tradesmen, esp tradsemen that can work in older houses and not just put up new builds

 

I know quite a few small bosses and hardly any take on youngsters now to put throu appreticeships, esp in the building trade, too much hassle/paperwork while there training and if ur lucky and train a decent 1 its too easy for them to go subbing on big sites so as soon as they become a real asset to the company they leave.

Most small builders i know don't even bother with it now.

 

Brexit won't change that, if anything it will stop ur importds coming over to build on the cheap but all that weill do is push house/renovation prices up for everyone.

 

 

My wife is P A to the chief exec. of a large housebuilders, and I can assure you that they take on apprentices every year, as do their nearby rivals.  As for "free movement" it did not stop temporary migrant workers coming here pre- Brexit, and they will do again. The difference this time is that they will not have the "right" to come. The ones that come will fill a specific gap in the skills market. We do not need any more car wash "operatives",pizza delivery people,  etc etc.  In my area there are literally thousands from the Southern European countries, with no skills, at best only semi-literate, and virtually no English. Many of them do not work (but strangely have large families thay are supporting). Which part of the "skills" market are they filling?

40 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

+1

Youve got to ask yourself serious questions about how this country has been run in the last 30 years.
Where has our manufacturing industry gone?
The only Motor cars built in this country are foreign owned, our marques like Jaguar , Land Rover and many others sold off.
Steel industry, sold off, farming is a shadow of what it once was, fishing ? Well lets not go there...

You cant blame it all on the EU, but the EU has certainly not helped in any way shape or form, and in many cases, actively promoted the destruction of some industries, usually to the benefit of another EU  country.
And then people still say the EU has been good for us ?

When I first started in the motor trade some 35 years ago, Fords ,Vauxhalls and BMC cars were still made in this country, amongst many other famous marques, your Audis , Fiats BMW s and Peugeots made up very few of the cars used by ordinary Brits, in fact Japanese stuff was more predominant..and reliable !
Over the course of my working life I saw the British car manufacturing industry wound up and consigned to the bin of history, and replaced by ...Well you know whats driving around on the roads these days, and its mostly German and French, with a bit of Italian, Japanese or Korean, yes some are made here, and thats something.

What Im getting at, is that the EU helped to destroy that part of our industry, our economic strength, amongst many others, and in turn replaced it with their own, closer to home product.
You could say that German cars are better than British cars, but back in the 70s and 80s there really wasnt a lot in it.

If anything comes out of Brexit, I hope its a grass roots revival of our traditional industries.
Id like to see a British car marque revived and produced, using modern designs and technology, there is a vast untapped market out there for such a 'home grown' car, I have many customers who crave to 'buy British' but simply cant.

Its the same with Labour, we dont concentrate much on training people with practical skills, Joinery, engineering, and brickwork.
We seem to concentrate on the academic side of things, administration and legal.
We dont learn how to MAKE things, we just seem to teach people how to watch people make things, people we have to import in because we have none of our own ?
A nation of shopkeepers ?
Its not unusual to have a factory, or building site these days, with a British manager, and an Eastern European workforce struggling to understand what hes telling them.
Ultimately to save aggro, an Eastern European manager is employed who can speak to the workforce in their own language, and the Brit is made redundant, I suppose he could have learned, but thats simply not how companies work these days.

Brexit gives us the opportunity to start fresh, a chance to do things our way, not the EU way.
Our traditional strong manufacturing base was once the envy of the world, it could be again.
We could invest and build on our people and economy, the EU unable to breath down our necks and interfere.
This scares them, make no mistake about that.
Because we can make it work, weve done it before and can do it again.

Well said!

4 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/993130/Brexit-news-Gisela-Stuart-brexit-video-Michel-Barnier-brexit-negotiation-BBC

 

More remainers misquoting JRM saying weve got to wait 50 years for the benefits of Brexit, no shame whatsoever.

That,s what Remoaners do............it,s their nature! Obfuscating!

[TIGHTCHOKE]

6 minutes ago, pinfireman said:

My wife is P A to the chief exec. of a large housebuilders, and I can assure you that they take on apprentices every year, as do their nearby rivals.  As for "free movement" it did not stop temporary migrant workers coming here pre- Brexit, and they will do again. The difference this time is that they will not have the "right" to come. The ones that come will fill a specific gap in the skills market. We do not need any more car wash "operatives",pizza delivery people,  etc etc.  In my area there are literally thousands from the Southern European countries, with no skills, at best only semi-literate, and virtually no English. Many of them do not work (but strangely have large families thay are supporting). Which part of the "skills" market are they filling?

Well said!

That,s what Remoaners do............it,s their nature! Obfuscating!

They are all members of the "benefits Club!"

[Dave-G]

Lets not be forgetting that unions drove much of our industry away because their incessant wages rise strikes, work to rule, demarkation etc drove up UK costs to the point it was cheaper - and much easier to employ cheaper more willing and compliant workers.

[12gauge82]

2 hours ago, panoma1 said:

Over many years UK Industry has failed to finance training for employees, failed to finance modernisation, failed to provide investment in machinery, failed to finance/keep up with technology, employed cheap foreign labour In preference to more expensive UK labour (driven up by the cost of living!) enabling employers to make higher profits and consequently make more money for themselves and the shareholders.......the effect has been the running of businesses into the ground, where they have closed down or been snapped up cheaply by foreign interests........the cry from employers (fruit and veg farmers etc!) that they can't get UK workers because they don't want to work is BS......subsistence wages and high cost of living means few UK workers could afford to live or improve their lives on the wages offered.....but foreign labour can!........And EU free movement of people facilitated this....cheap labour more profit....screw the UK workers.........this couldn't be the reason why employers, members of the political classes and the government make up the majority of remainers could it? Leaving the EU could make the lives of ordinary UK citizens better........the "powers that be" ain't gonna accept this, because it will be at their expense, so Brexit will be designed to prevent it happening!

 

Spot on

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

+1

Youve got to ask yourself serious questions about how this country has been run in the last 30 years.
Where has our manufacturing industry gone?
The only Motor cars built in this country are foreign owned, our marques like Jaguar , Land Rover and many others sold off.
Steel industry, sold off, farming is a shadow of what it once was, fishing ? Well lets not go there...

You cant blame it all on the EU, but the EU has certainly not helped in any way shape or form, and in many cases, actively promoted the destruction of some industries, usually to the benefit of another EU  country.
And then people still say the EU has been good for us ?

When I first started in the motor trade some 35 years ago, Fords ,Vauxhalls and BMC cars were still made in this country, amongst many other famous marques, your Audis , Fiats BMW s and Peugeots made up very few of the cars used by ordinary Brits, in fact Japanese stuff was more predominant..and reliable !
Over the course of my working life I saw the British car manufacturing industry wound up and consigned to the bin of history, and replaced by ...Well you know whats driving around on the roads these days, and its mostly German and French, with a bit of Italian, Japanese or Korean, yes some are made here, and thats something.

What Im getting at, is that the EU helped to destroy that part of our industry, our economic strength, amongst many others, and in turn replaced it with their own, closer to home product.
You could say that German cars are better than British cars, but back in the 70s and 80s there really wasnt a lot in it.

If anything comes out of Brexit, I hope its a grass roots revival of our traditional industries.
Id like to see a British car marque revived and produced, using modern designs and technology, there is a vast untapped market out there for such a 'home grown' car, I have many customers who crave to 'buy British' but simply cant.

Its the same with Labour, we dont concentrate much on training people with practical skills, Joinery, engineering, and brickwork.
We seem to concentrate on the academic side of things, administration and legal.
We dont learn how to MAKE things, we just seem to teach people how to watch people make things, people we have to import in because we have none of our own ?
A nation of shopkeepers ?
Its not unusual to have a factory, or building site these days, with a British manager, and an Eastern European workforce struggling to understand what hes telling them.
Ultimately to save aggro, an Eastern European manager is employed who can speak to the workforce in their own language, and the Brit is made redundant, I suppose he could have learned, but thats simply not how companies work these days.

Brexit gives us the opportunity to start fresh, a chance to do things our way, not the EU way.
Our traditional strong manufacturing base was once the envy of the world, it could be again.
We could invest and build on our people and economy, the EU unable to breath down our necks and interfere.
This scares them, make no mistake about that.
Because we can make it work, weve done it before and can do it again.

Again, spot on

2 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

Lets not be forgetting that unions drove much of our industry away because their incessant wages rise strikes, work to rule, demarkation etc drove up UK costs to the point it was cheaper - and much easier to employ cheaper more willing and compliant workers.

Maybe true in the past but most unions outside of the railways ect have no teeth at all and haven't done for years.

[KFC]

The British disease is "take as much as possible out whilst putting minimal in".

Government in this country never asks " what do we need?" it's always "what's the minimum we can get away with?"

Successive governments have failed year on year to invest in infrastructure, preferring 'service' industries. Now billions gets wasted on tendering and re-tendering contracts and franchises for privatisation and paying double the amount of interest for PFI contracts to keep debt off the political books.

Ironically, much of our infrastructure is now nationalised by foreign governments.

Schools have, for years, been solely based on academic achievement. When I went to Secondary School it was the last year of the College of Perceptors qualification which non-academic kids, like myself, could have taken. It included lots of manual skills.

As it was I left school without any qualifications. I did ok though.

Going around the world it's obvious that this country is years behind the rest of the world, especially IT and public transport.

I don't think leaving the EU is ever going to fix the basket case of GB Ltd.

[Rewulf]

6 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

Lets not be forgetting that unions drove much of our industry away because their incessant wages rise strikes, work to rule, demarkation etc drove up UK costs to the point it was cheaper - and much easier to employ cheaper more willing and compliant workers.

The unions with their bolshevik bull at a gate tactics, actually cost many many people their jobs in the end.

I believe people are a bit more savvy these days, and can see when someones political motives are getting put before the workers interests.
There was a time, I remember it well , when the unions and their left wing political counterparts held real power in the UK.
Those days are no more.
You can say it was this or that , that finished that power , but ultimately it was the simple fact that they were not that beneficial to keeping people in employment.

As an aside Arthur Scargill (yes hes still alive !) hangs on to his socialist roots with his own political group, and still collects his NUM benefits and pensions, whilst enjoying his £600,000 house in Yorkshire and his £2,000,000 flat he bought using Thatchers right to buy discount of 50 % , for which he is being investigated for.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3806872/Former-NUM-leader-Arthur-Scargill-investigated-purchasing-2million-property-half-value.html

[JohnfromUK]

22 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

Lets not be forgetting that unions drove much of our industry away because their incessant wages rise strikes, work to rule, demarkation etc drove up UK costs to the point it was cheaper - and much easier to employ cheaper more willing and compliant workers.

+1

The combination of the Unions and the Labour government finished off much of British Industry

[Rewulf]

9 minutes ago, KFC said:

 

I don't think leaving the EU is ever going to fix the basket case of GB Ltd.

I dont think staying in is either, at least this way we have a chance.

[12gauge82]

Well, the latest treachery from Theresa the appeaser is another blow to the 17.4 million, she's u turned on ending EU court supremacy if we strike a deal after it was written into law only the other day, lets hope we get a no deal and a clean/hard Brexit, although I think it's clear it's not going to happen with May at the helm, she's petrified of leaving without a deal and I beleive she has no intention of doing so and never did, the EU probably know this to and the "deal" we get will be like a **** sandwich without the bread.

[walshie]

6 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

Well, the latest treachery from Theresa the appeaser is another blow to the 17.4 million, she's u turned on ending EU court supremacy if we strike a deal after it was written into law only the other day, lets hope we get a no deal and a clean/hard Brexit, although I think it's clear it's not going to happen with May at the helm, she's petrified of leaving without a deal and I beleive she has no intention of doing so and never did, the EU probably know this to and the "deal" we get will be like a **** sandwich without the bread.

She won't be at the helm much longer. She's had a go and proved herself utterly incapable. Time for someone else to have a go.

 

[12gauge82]

6 minutes ago, walshie said:

She won't be at the helm much longer. She's had a go and proved herself utterly incapable. Time for someone else to have a go.

 

Fingers crossed mate.