The first in a three part series compiled by one of our young English Radicals.

Many UK retailers are now discovering that clothing manufacture in the Far East no longer has the same attraction as it once did, due to rising labour charges and increased freight costs. The need to be reactive to the impatient and fast paced fashion industry is great, and the most suitable answer to the problem is to return to English and UK manufacturing. However this is not a simple solution, since retailers deserted English factories for low cost China, manufacturing went into decline, factories were left no option but to close, and universities and colleges put a greater emphasis on designing rather than learning how to technically construct garments. This has left England with a missing generation of skilled workers and artisans, and with the current employee base ageing considerably something has to be done.

This situation isn’t getting any better, it took another hit, when De Montefort University announced that they were axing their BSc Fashion Technology course, due to lack of government funding. This particular course has a 100% employment rate and is highly regarded, mainly due to the fact that their graduates are highly trained in a wide range of technical skills, which are greatly needed by many English retailers. Despite the fact that Ed Vaizey has been vocal about the importance of these skills and how he would like to see British manufacturing grow again, there doesn’t seem to be any action from the government. Which begs the question how supportive is the British government of the English manufacturing industry. And the answer is they’re not!

The Ministry of Defence had a very good opportunity to support the English manufacturers; instead they turned their back and gave to the multi million pound contract to produce camouflage gear to the Chinese. When questioned, the MoD spokesman stated ‘Our focus is on getting the Armed Forces the equipment they require, when they need it, at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. In the last two years British companies have won 87% of clothing contracts.’ In the act of saving a few pence per camouflage trousers, surely they are depriving a perfectly good English manufacturer who employs many tens if not hundreds of workers a contract, which could give their current employees stability, and also lead them to create more jobs, which overall is highly beneficial to the economy and in the long run to the taxpayers. Not only this many manufacturers, including Lee Dawson, managing director of military uniform specialist Samuel Brothers have argued that by having uniforms manufactured in China could expose the Armed Forces to potential dangers. Lee Dawson goes on to say ‘If we are sourcing from China and something goes wrong with Anglo-Chinese relationships, we have a problem, China could withdraw supply,’ leaving troops with a lack of basic clothing, not an ideal situation on the frontline!

A UK retailer Mulberry has recently enjoyed great success in the last few years, mainly due to the Roxanne and Alexa style of bags. These bags are highly sought after by celebrities and women alike, with demand so great, Mulberry can’t produce enough of them. As result it needs to open another factory and increase the capacity of their existing factory in Somerset by 30%. However Godfrey Davis, the Mulberry Chief Executive, has spoken with Drapers Magazine (a renowned Fashion Business journal), and said that he has been put off opening a new factory due to the impact of rising National Insurance (NI, up to 13.8% from 12.8%) rates on operating costs. Davis stated that ‘a constructive approach would be to give some sort of tax break to encourage [businesses] to relocate. An employer NI holiday for a number of years [would work] and UK plc would benefit because we would be creating more employment.’ Davis is presenting the British government with a constructive solution, instead of giving tax breaks or NI holidays to those who don’t manufacture here in England, give it to those who do make the effort to contribute to our economy and job market. The Government’s reaction so far has been, at the Start Britain conference, Chancellor George Osbourne stated ‘We are considering tax breaks for capital investment, which we will be looking at ([in more detail], particularly for various manufacturing businesses.’ If the British government doesn’t support Mulberry, then they may be forced to invest in their other production bases in Turkey or Spain, another wasted opportunity for English manufacturing.

This is a real opportunity for the British Government to invest in something positive, by channelling some of the money they are saving elsewhere, into giving more manufacturing contracts to English manufacturers, tax breaks and NI holidays which will allow manufacturers to grow and expand more easily, this will help to kick start English manufacturing. In the long run it will create more jobs, taking the unemployed off the dole and into more skilled jobs, contribute to the economy and overall make England a more lucrative country to manufacture in. We have the reputation of great design and highly quality manufacturing now all is left is to prove it!      

In part two: Retailers have to step up to the mark, and support English manufacturers.   
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WHAT LIES BEHIND THE CON-DEM WINDOW DRESSING
We have all been shopping and bought an item where the description is absolutely wonderful and the packaging leads to all sorts of high expectations. Yet when we return home and take the item out of the box we become disappointed, it’s not as wonderful as we first thought and very often some of the pieces are missing.

In a way politics is a little bit like going shopping. Each of the main parties has a shop window which they dress beautifully, their policies neatly packaged and presented and their tidily dressed well spoken salesmen doing their utmost to seem sincere and understanding. But, like the item which you have bought in the shop, when you return home and remove the packaging what you really have is something you neither expected, nor wanted, and because some of the items are missing it simply doesn’t work.

The present Con-Dem coalition is doing a wonderful job of window dressing their shop window. With the ‘Under new management sign’ neatly placed on the door of Number Ten they have set about refurbishing the store and rebranding the same products with different packaging. Shortly following the new management sign came one saying ‘Under refurbishment – sorry for any inconvenience’, as the Con-Dems announced massive cutbacks in their emergency budget. Finally the store opened for real, and the Con-Dems announce a superb deal on immigration and benefits, all neatly packaged and served by their smiling sales personnel.

So let’s have a look at these special offers from the Con-Dem superstore of politics. To begin with let us look at immigration, or to give it its real titles Economic Migration and Asylum.

Realistically the Con-Dem policies will do little to prevent England suffering further intolerable levels of economic migration and will do very little to prevent our country from remaining  the number one destination for asylum seekers. It is very true; the new Con-Dem policies may do something to prevent people from outside the EU from settling in England, but what worries people most is economic migration from other EU states. Will these new policies prevent thousands of Turkish economic migrants from coming to England? NO! What will happen when Albania eventually joins the EU, will it prevent Albanians from coming to England as economic migrants? NO! Will these new policies prevent the pressure such economic migration shall bring to our schools, housing and hospital services? NO!  Therefore when you take the Con-Dem immigration policy out of the packaging it is not only disappointing, some of the items are missing and it doesn’t really work!

Now let us open the benefits package. The Con-Dem proposal is to have a purge on the benefit system and to cut the number of claimants. On face value this may seem a good idea, as many of our coastal resorts have a ‘Costa del Dole’ image and there are many people which our benefit system has made into ‘the professional unemployed’ or those who seek to work the system rather than ever finding real work again. However these people are a small minority, and as we have stated are a product of the present system. But on viewing the Con-Dem proposals, our real fears are that it will be the genuine and most vulnerable claimants that will suffer most from the purge on benefits.

Unforunately the worst thing about the whole Con-Dem package of policies is that it will create further unemployment, thus forcing more people on to benefits. Investment in our schools and industry will be reduced. There will be little encouragement for English industries, and therefore fewer opportunities will be created. The Con-Dem ideal is a capitalist one for foreign companies to buy out and asset strip English companies or to keep them going using cheaper economic migrant labour. Therefore we are back to square one.

So if we unwrap the Con-Dem immigration and benefits proposals we can see we have something none of us really want, something which has some necessary components missing and something that will definitely not work. As a result of these policies over the coming years we will still  see high levels of economic migration from other EU countries, an influx of cheap overseas labour, further strains on our housing, schools, hospitals and social services, and more people being driven into benefits with some even turning to crime as a last resort.

As English Radicals we view things from a common sense angle rather than one driven by a capitalist or socialist ideology. We need to deal with ALL forms of economic migration from both inside and outside the EU. We see the EU superstate as something which is far too expensive in the form of our financial contribution and the social costs we have to pay as part of uncontrollable economic migration membership incurs.  We see the current costly benefit system as completely inadequate. It needs replacing with one which offers support for those that are vulnerable or genuinely unemployed but provides a real incentive to return to work. Therefore we believe the present benefit system needs scrapping and replacing with a National Income Scheme, which would provide funding to house, clothe and feed people and allow them to keep this funding when they found employment, thus providing a real incentive for returning to work. Lastly we need investment in the people of England to create businesses and thus create jobs.

ERA provides an alternative range of policies for creating a new, radical and independent England. When you remove the packaging from English Radical policies you will find something that is not disappointing, that has all the components in place and that definitely works. Therefore isn’t it time to take the faulty goods of the main parties back to their plush superstores and start to shop somewhere else. ERA is open all hours for business.


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TRUE TO FORM 06/30/2010
 
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In grotesque but sadly predictable fashion, Ian Duncan-Smith, the millionaire ex-Guards officer, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (square peg, round hole), is threatening to stop housing benefit to unemployed people who refuse to uproot themselves in order to find non-existent work elsewhere. In other words, a rehash of the classic “Get on your bikes” Tory dogma from the 80’s. While this proposal will no doubt propel many Daily Mail readers to erotic spasms of ecstasy, the English Radicals are curious to know - which part of the UK has labour shortages at the moment?

Or perhaps he has visions of sending them somewhere even further afield, such as Romania, or Hungary? After all, we’re in the EU now…….

Mr Duncan Smith, here are some facts from the real world for you to think about. 

For every new job vacancy that appears, the number of applicants is in double, sometimes treble, figures. 

Government plans to raise retirement ages for those already employed, will make a bad situation worse by preventing younger people from entering work.

Many newer jobs are currently filled by workers from the EU, mostly young men and women from eastern Europe, prepared to live in overcrowded, cramped conditions, working for long hours and low pay? Back to Victorian values, hurrah! 

Finally - there simply aren't enough jobs to go around in our crowded island.

Ironically, Tory policies from the Thatcher era were responsible for the demise of industrial areas that now have massive levels of unemployment: the “Free Market”, the beloved doctrine of global capitalism-loving Tories everywhere, dictated that foreign made goods made in sweatshop conditions, thus undercutting English goods, should be allowed to flood our markets and kill our home industries, whether it be coal or cloth, shoes or steel. The only solution they can dream up to compete with foreign manufacturers, is for English workers to gradually accept third world pay and conditions - hence this latest Tory plan, to make us compete feverishly for imaginary jobs.

And what was New Labour’s answer to the Tory demolition of British and English industry? Borrow money to create public sector non-jobs for the educated middle classes, whilst at the same time using the benefits system to create junkie-like dependency in the working class areas worst affected by industrial collapse, to ensure both groups' future support at the ballot box. Labour were in power for 13 years, yet their poorest seats are even poorer now, incredibly, than when they first took power! The economic mess we are currently in, can be traced back to both party’s short term “fudge” tactics, each one leaving a mess for the other one to clean up, but finding when they return to power much of the original mess is still there, plus some dodgy new carpet stains from the recently evicted tenants. 

It is not the job of government to spend taxpayer’s money hiring people to shuffle paper, or to make unwanted widgets, in order to make unemployment figures look better. The job of government is to protect its home industries - and therefore jobs - from unfair foreign competition, by heavy taxation on cheap, slave made imports, levelling the playing field for our higher waged workers to compete. It is the job of government to encourage foreign manufacturers to build factories here, not by bribery in the form of grants, but by allowing them to be classed as English companies while based here, to sidestep the heavy taxes we would otherwise impose. England is a huge market for any company – if they want to sell here, they should have to “make” here.

Only when your government has done ITS job, Mr Duncan-Smith - when you have created the framework for English industry to flourish, stemmed the tide of potentially unlimited EU economic immigration and allowed the elderly to retire at a reasonable age, will you be morally entitled to ask the unemployed to “get on their bikes” and fill the new jobs as they appear. Until then, the English Radicals suggest you live up to your reputation as the “quiet man” of politics.

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