A very British industry

Although geographically quite close to were I live and being fairly near one of my many cycling routes, its been many years since I visited Shepperton Studios.

In this country there is a often dismal tendency for many to constantly bemoan “we don’t make anything anymore” (not true) and that “services” are somehow not as vital to the economy as digging coal out the ground

This is nonsense of course and as I alluded to before, the forecasted collapse in British industry following Brexit from the somewhat smug and patronising likes of Osbourne and Clegg, simply didn’t happen

And nowhere is this more apparent in film making. The production of entertainment for the likes of Netflix in the UK has boomed dramatically and surely way beyond anyones expectations. Manufacturing comes in many forms and its of no lesser value because its “entertainment” rather than an electric vehicle. Arguably it perhaps adds more value with greater margins and greater insistence on specialist skills

This isn’t confined to Shepperton of course as anyone driving down the M4 would have noticed, there is a huge facility being developed at Shinfield. This is investment that is right up there with the much desired Car plants

But coming back to Shepperton. Passing by the studios yesterday, I was staggered at the sheer size and modernity of the facility. These are famous studios and are set to become the world second largest.

Isn’t that rather good news?

Like it or not, with streaming entertainment being as much part of Christmas as carols services or turkey and sprouts, this iso course, a very upbeat festive message

Have a good one

Happy Xmas. Except for…

The directors of Wilko. This is a story thats going to run and run.

At the end of the interrogation by MPs, this was the perfect summary

“We’ve heard about a £60m warehouse modernisation that went wrong, a £40m loss on financial derivatives, a process of restructuring rents that didn’t go through.

“And despite those problems, we can’t, you can’t, explain why dividends went up

I have referred to this story before as I have the saga of Philip Green and on a smaller level, the alleged Ponzi which was Diamond Manufacturers. I do not wish a happy xmas to any go those people but what I do believe is this…

Philip Green is barely sighted now and rightly despised. For such an egomaniac, thats going to hurt. The Wilko board are very uncomfortable under scrutiny and Ponzi schemes attract the attention of the law.

My wish for xmas is to for these people to be hounded and shunned for their remaining days. Cash will not compensate for their lives being made a misery and thats how it should be. You may not be able to convict and they may try to convince themselves that hiding on a yacht brings happiness, but it most certainly does not

On that merry note, a very happy xmas to you all!

Just how bad has Brexit proved to be?

Not too much according to this article from a well regarded economist from a surprising source

And he is right. The reality is that for the vast majority of the working population, Brexit hasn’t changed their lives one jot and frankly this was always going to be the case. The point was well made by Paul Krugman that even though he was against the concept of Brexit, the anticipated decline in GDP would be spread over such a period that it simply would not be felt by the average household.

But decline in GDP is surely relative and this point by Larry Elliott cannot be ignored

 Even so, Brexit Britain has recovered more strongly than either France or Germany from the pandemic. Relative performance matters. The rejoin camp tends not to focus on what is happening on the other side of the Channel, and it is not hard to see why

UKs GDP has been and is forecast to grow at at least the same rate as the EU and stronger than Germanys up until the end of 2025.

So much for “decline”

In a further blow to those who shriek about how Brexit will ruin the economy, Nissans huge new investment in the UK is not welcome news but it doesn’t stop there. The UK is still streets ahead of the EU in the tech investment sector. Start ups are key too any economy and we do have an excellent environment for starting a business, which is down to regulation which is both geared towards enterprise and thorough it its management of data (take a bow our excellent Companies house).

Few would argue that the economies of France, Germany and the most of the rest of the EU are conducive to initiating enterprises and one valid fear of remaining within the union was being dragged down to that turgid level.

This is all making the ludicrous claims of many “remainers” sound pretty ridiculous now and I recall a line from (remained) Rory Stewarts excellent biography that his dear old but very smart mother was all for voting remain until talked down to (as we all were) by the Cleggs and Osbournes of this world. Indeed I also recall being pompously lectured by someone with connections in the House of Commons that if we left the EU we would be banned from all trade world wide for at least seven years whilst our WTC application was mulled over. We would be the new North Korea

Idiotic of course. I wasn’t strongly either way on the vote and I would fully acknowledge the damage done to many smaller businesses exports and many short term benefits are hard to pinpoint but the doom laded claims were nothing more than that and were every bit as ridiculous as some of the claims by the xenophobic far right