392 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
392 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
finance
|
|
yourbusiness
|
|
8407630
|
|
-----
|
|
# Lord Digby Jones: 'We must rebuild UK PLC'
|
|
|
|
## In this exclusive extract from his new book, Fixing Britain, Lord Digby
|
|
Jones writes how Whitehall bureaucrats frustrated his attempts to reform and
|
|
reignite British trade.
|
|
|
|
![In this exclusive extract from his new book, Sir Digby Jones writes how
|
|
Whitehall bureaucrats frustrated his attempts to reform and reignite British
|
|
trade .][1]
|
|
|
|
In addition to his role as a crossbencher in the House of Lords he serves as
|
|
Chairman of the International Business Advisory Board at HSBC, and Chairman of
|
|
Triumph Motorcycles Limited.
|
|
|
|
By Lord Digby Jones 7:00AM BST 27 Mar 2011
|
|
|
|
[Comments][2]
|
|
|
|
Consider, for a moment, a small country which ventured out from a place rather
|
|
distant from the rest of the world but which proceeded to create the most
|
|
powerful economic and military empire the world had ever seen.
|
|
|
|
It gave the world a common language, a common currency, the rule of law, the
|
|
freedom of citizenship, tariff-free trade and peace. But after that amazing
|
|
achievement, in the space of just three or four generations, it was all over.
|
|
|
|
I speak, of course, of Rome. Rome didn't fall apart because the Huns came out
|
|
of the Ardennes Forest or the Scots came over Hadrian's Wall. Rome fell apart
|
|
in Rome. It became complacent, lazy, and indolent. Its citizens stopped caring
|
|
for each other. It became a society for the selfish. Its people concentrated
|
|
on their rights, not their responsibilities. As it unknowingly approached its
|
|
own demise, it lacked leadership and blamed everyone but itself.
|
|
|
|
I don't want that to happen to my country. I have always believed in socially
|
|
inclusive wealth creation; skilling a dynamic and confident workforce and
|
|
letting them enjoy the rewards of ability and sheer hard work. Over the past
|
|
decade or so, I've seen at first hand how political dogmatism, the making of
|
|
policy in ignorance of real life, and an inability to harness the good of
|
|
business can lead to the disintegration of a cohesive society.
|
|
|
|
We are the sixth biggest manufacturing country on earth. As you read this,
|
|
there's probably an Airbus flying from Santiago in Chile to Sao Paulo in
|
|
Brazil or from Chicago to San Francisco. Approximately half of each of those
|
|
planes is built in Britain. The wings are built in Broughton in North Wales.
|
|
The undercarriages made in Gloucester. Many of the avionics are made by small
|
|
businesses in the North and Midlands. Under the wings are the best engines you
|
|
will find anywhere in the world, made by Rolls-Royce in Derby.
|
|
|
|
## Related Articles
|
|
|
|
* [A British car? That's against the rules, Minister][3]
|
|
|
|
27 Mar 2011
|
|
|
|
* [Think tank: Overpaying staff can reap rewards for businesses][4]
|
|
|
|
26 Mar 2011
|
|
|
|
* [Budget 2011: Small firms nudged to invest][5]
|
|
|
|
23 Mar 2011
|
|
|
|
* [Yorkshire entrepreneurs call on Chancellor to restore confidence][6]
|
|
|
|
21 Mar 2011
|
|
|
|
Our country has declined to such a state that is in serious need of fixing,
|
|
but we do have the framework on which to base our fightback.
|
|
|
|
The most productive car plant in the whole of Europe, the second most
|
|
productive in the world, is Nissan's plant in Sunderland. Where is the only
|
|
other place in Europe where Toyota is building its hybrid car? Burnaston in
|
|
Derbyshire. Not France nor Germany - but in Britain.
|
|
|
|
The UK is home to some 70pc of the Formula One motor racing teams, the second
|
|
most watched sport on earth. They are not here for the fun of it but for the
|
|
high-class engineering skills they find in Britain - even Michael Schumacher's
|
|
Mercedes is built in Northampton.
|
|
|
|
We are a globally preferred place for food manufacture and export. The second
|
|
biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, GlaxoSmithKline, is based in West
|
|
London. Our creative industries generate thousands of millions of pounds in
|
|
web design, textile design, books, film, art, theatre, architecture,
|
|
advertising, consultant engineering.
|
|
|
|
A British consulting engineer delivered the Bird's Nest stadium at the 2008
|
|
Beijing Olympics, and the Watercube. A British architect designed the
|
|
spectacular suspension bridge across the Tarn River Gorge in France.
|
|
|
|
Of the top 10 universities in the world, four are English - Cambridge, Oxford,
|
|
University College and Imperial College, London.
|
|
|
|
If you look at the top 100 universities in the world, the only country with
|
|
more than us is America. Our higher education system is first class - a status
|
|
achieved almost in spite of, rather than because of, ourselves.
|
|
|
|
We don't celebrate what we're good at. We merely look inward and criticise all
|
|
the time. We have ceased to believe that we do all this.
|
|
|
|
In the UK, business gets on the agenda merely through gloom or facile
|
|
entertainment. Fifty redundancies at a manufacturer makes the headlines, not
|
|
the fact that Jaguar has had one of its most successful quarters.
|
|
|
|
At the height of the recession it was so difficult, almost impossible, to get
|
|
the nation's own broadcaster, the BBC, to cover the many good news business
|
|
stories. The self-belief of the nation was debilitated again and again by the
|
|
accurate but unbalanced constant drip, drip of bad news. Indeed, many small
|
|
businesses told me that their only two good weeks in 2008 were those when
|
|
Obama's election and swine flu took the recession off the top slot on the Ten
|
|
O'Clock News.
|
|
|
|
Government intrusion has complicated running a business, teaching a class,
|
|
employing more people, taking a risk and simply doing a job. Incompetence in
|
|
government delivery has left us all poorer. And there's been a poverty of
|
|
straightforward and honest planning for the good of UK Plc. It has been easier
|
|
for government to fashion its own layers of bureaucracy, to intervene and
|
|
appear to be doing something than to take the more difficult route to plain,
|
|
simple and effective solutions. Much of this is because few of our politicians
|
|
have had any experience of real life, or a real job.
|
|
|
|
But I believe we can fix this country - economically, yes - but, far more
|
|
importantly, make it a greater place for families who are trying to bring up
|
|
their children into society, helping them get good jobs, and lead fulfilling
|
|
lives, and in so doing, help our country achieve 21st century success.
|
|
|
|
At the root of it all is the desperate state of our education system. We have
|
|
a generation who are not equipped for the world of work. Employers complain
|
|
that, even after A-level studies, many school leavers have basic problems with
|
|
literacy and numeracy and seem to think that the world owes them a living.
|
|
|
|
Whatever you think of her, Margaret Thatcher set about changing the face of UK
|
|
Plc - and she did just that. As a young lawyer in Birmingham in the 1980s I
|
|
saw the improvement in efficiency and productivity in the West Midlands. The
|
|
change was painful, certainly, but it forged companies which were fit to
|
|
compete with the growing industrial strength of Asia.
|
|
|
|
Westminster's ball and chain Gordon Brown and I were meeting at his request
|
|
inside Number 10 on one of the last days of June 2007, 24 hours after Brown
|
|
had become Prime Minister. I was pursuing what I hoped would be a profitable,
|
|
plural career, a year after leaving the CBI.
|
|
|
|
He was very businesslike as usual, but his renewed sense of purpose, of
|
|
reforming zeal, of freshness, was palpable. He explained how he wanted to get
|
|
some experienced non-politicians into government where their specific skills
|
|
could be brought to bear for a limited period to the benefit of the country.
|
|
|
|
He then started to talk to me about the promotion of overseas trade and inward
|
|
investment. He said that I'd been complaining for years that politicians had
|
|
never given it the true clout that it deserved and that governments had never
|
|
addressed it properly.
|
|
|
|
He was right - it had regularly enraged me that, when I was at the CBI, we'd
|
|
been setting out on a trade mission and then the minister had to cancel
|
|
because there was a vote in the House of Commons or some other matter deemed
|
|
of greater importance in the bubble that is Westminster. So a crucial trade
|
|
deal, which could have created jobs in Britain, was often hampered because a
|
|
minister had to vote for something like the fox-hunting bill; or our goodwill
|
|
in an important overseas market was diminished by the fear a junior minister
|
|
had of falling out of favour with 'the centre'.
|
|
|
|
Now, I'd had my problems with Brown in the past, but I'll give him credit for
|
|
the next bit. He said he wanted 'to change forever the way the government did
|
|
trade and investment'.
|
|
|
|
The Prime Minister looked at me and said: 'So here's your chance. Let's reform
|
|
the way we do it. Let's change what we do.'
|
|
|
|
He said he was going to try a big experiment to bring established experts into
|
|
four areas at ministerial level. I would be Minister of State for Trade and
|
|
Investment. My job was to go abroad as a Minister of the Crown and sell Brand
|
|
Britain, stimulating trade and attracting inward investment.
|
|
|
|
This was precisely the change that was needed, but I could sense the trouble
|
|
brewing. I'd become what Whitehall would begin to call, with its habitual wish
|
|
for acronyms, a GOAT - a member of a Government Of All the Talents.
|
|
|
|
They were all mystified when after a few weeks [of taking the job] they saw a
|
|
piece of paper on the front of my desk which had the following written on it .
|
|
. . 'oooosssshhhhwwwrrrcccchhh'.
|
|
|
|
They asked what it was. I said it was the most common sound (through clenched
|
|
teeth and pursed lips) that I heard when I wanted to do something differently.
|
|
That sound would, invariably, be followed by 'I wouldn't do that, Minister',
|
|
or 'very brave, Minister' - the entire place was risk averse, so that the most
|
|
common advice all too readily accepted by career politicians not wanting to
|
|
blot their ministerial-progress copybook was to do nothing. And I never
|
|
managed to change that.
|
|
|
|
But what I hadn't expected was the omnipotent suffocation by process and the
|
|
obligatory emasculation of original thought and initiative. The governmental
|
|
machine demanded complete obedience in a way which anyone outside the
|
|
Westminster bubble wouldn't have believed, and it distanced the parties and
|
|
politicians from the real world and the real voters.
|
|
|
|
I also wondered whether the voters would expect the United Kingdom Trade
|
|
Minister's official car to be made in Japan. I had been assigned a Honda
|
|
hybrid not made at the Honda plant in Swindon in the UK. I told my bureaucrats
|
|
that since we were all paid by the taxpayer, many of whom worked in Britain's
|
|
automotive sector, then we should at least be driving a product they made.
|
|
|
|
I asked for a 2-litre diesel Jaguar X-type, similar price, the lowest of the
|
|
range, made by the good men and women of Liverpool. The answer was 'no'. The
|
|
Jaguar was 'not on the list'. Evidently it wasn't as 'green' as the hybrids.
|
|
|
|
I reasoned to my auto minder that I thought it was important to support the
|
|
companies that invest in our country by driving in a product made by the
|
|
people of this country. Pressure should be put on the makers of those cars to
|
|
make them more green, rather than simply shunning them - and I added that
|
|
since I was about to do a lot of miles around the country, a 2-litre diesel on
|
|
the motorway would be more efficient and a lot less polluting than a hybrid.
|
|
Round London a hybrid is powered by electricity, but on the motorway, its fuel
|
|
consumption and emissions are not competitive.
|
|
|
|
I made it clear that, instead of the Jaguar, I would happily have a Honda (or
|
|
Toyota or Nissan for that matter) made in the UK, thus rewarding the faith
|
|
these world-class Japanese companies have shown in our country over the past
|
|
three decades. Still the answer was no and I was told that if I wished to
|
|
press the case any more, it would have to be an issue for the Prime Minister.
|
|
|
|
So there we were, about to bother the leader of the fifth biggest economy on
|
|
earth with the issue of what sort of twenty five grand car a junior minister
|
|
could have. I knew, sadly, the bureaucrat was serious.
|
|
|
|
We have plenty of friends in the world but I came to understand that there is
|
|
one country that really doesn't like us . . . it's us! Our most effective
|
|
enemy is ourselves; we tie our hands behind our backs and then enter the
|
|
fight!
|
|
|
|
I found a deep respect for Britain in the countries with which we need to
|
|
partner, and from whom we need inward investment, but Whitehall still regards
|
|
business with disdain.
|
|
|
|
Our own Government, whether elected politicians or their enforcers, the civil
|
|
service, must not suffocate our lifeline into the 21st century - the
|
|
businesses of Britain and their natural ability to create wealth, taxation and
|
|
jobs.
|
|
|
|
_Fixing Britain: The Business of Reshaping Our Nation by Digby Jones is
|
|
published by Capstone Publishing. To order a copy for £16.99 plus £1.25pp call
|
|
Telegraph Books Direct on 0844-871 1515 or visit
|
|
[**books.telegraph.co.uk**][7]_
|
|
|
|
(C) Digby Jones 2011
|
|
|
|
[X][8] Share & bookmark
|
|
|
|
Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
|
|
|
|
Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
|
|
|
|
[What are these?][9]
|
|
|
|
* Share: [Share][8] [ ][10] [ ][11]
|
|
|
|
[Tweet][12]
|
|
|
|
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/8407630/Lord-Digby-Jones-We-
|
|
must-rebuild-UK-PLC.html
|
|
|
|
Telegraph
|
|
|
|
## [Your Business][13]
|
|
|
|
* ### [Finance »][14]
|
|
|
|
* ### [Industry »][15]
|
|
|
|
* ### [Business Latest News »][16]
|
|
|
|
* ### [Books »][17]
|
|
|
|
* ### [Kamal Ahmed »][18]
|
|
|
|
[![][19] ][20]
|
|
|
|
### [UKTI strategy: the big question is how, not who?][20]
|
|
|
|
[![National Business Award supporters launch the 2011competition][21] ][22]
|
|
|
|
### [National Business Awards 2011:
|
|
|
|
>open to entries<a>
|
|
|
|
[![Three and a half months ago, Sir Nigel Rudd was fighting a losing media war
|
|
about the snow that paralysed Heathrow Airport before Christmas.][23] ][24]
|
|
|
|
### [Growth Fund will create 'opportunities that don't currently exist'][24]
|
|
|
|
Related Partners
|
|
|
|
* [Great savings on Dell business computers][25]
|
|
|
|
* [Save money on your international currency transfers][26]
|
|
|
|
[X][8] Share & bookmark
|
|
|
|
Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
|
|
|
|
Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
|
|
|
|
[What are these?][9]
|
|
|
|
Share:
|
|
|
|
* [ ][8]
|
|
|
|
* [ ][10]
|
|
|
|
* [ ][11]
|
|
|
|
* [Tweet][12]
|
|
|
|
* Advertisement
|
|
|
|
![][27]
|
|
|
|
telegraphuk
|
|
|
|
Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][28] [blog
|
|
comments powered by Disqus][29]
|
|
|
|
[![][30]][31]
|
|
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
|
|
[Market Data »][32]
|
|
|
|
sponsored features
|
|
|
|
Loading
|
|
|
|
Finance Most Viewed
|
|
|
|
* TODAY
|
|
|
|
* PAST WEEK
|
|
|
|
* PAST MONTH
|
|
|
|
1. [Britain faces bleak two years after feeble economic growth][33]
|
|
|
|
2. [Look, even Sweden charges for healthcare][34]
|
|
|
|
3. [BMW blames speculators as aluminium costs rise][35]
|
|
|
|
4. [US consumers in spending retreat][36]
|
|
|
|
5. [Google sued by PayPal in Silicon Valley's mobile war][37]
|
|
|
|
1. [What happens when Greece defaults][38]
|
|
|
|
2. [Dominique Strauss-Kahn: DNA samples confirm sperm traces on maid's
|
|
dress][39]
|
|
|
|
3. [It's ever more obvious, Greece must leave the euro][40]
|
|
|
|
4. [Dominique Strauss-Kahn: new claims of sexual misconduct add to pressure
|
|
on former IMF chief][41]
|
|
|
|
5. [How the euro crisis end game might look][42]
|
|
|
|
1. [What happens when Greece defaults][38]
|
|
|
|
2. [Dominique Strauss-Kahn: IMF head 'hired prostitutes from Manhattan
|
|
madam'][43]
|
|
|
|
3. [Dominique Strauss-Kahn: DNA samples confirm sperm traces on maid's
|
|
dress][39]
|
|
|
|
4. [A tax-based alternative to the Alternative Vote][44]
|
|
|
|
5. [Dominique Strauss-Kahn: maid experienced 'extraordinary trauma'][45]
|
|
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
|
|
Classified Advertising
|
|
|
|
* [Europe Travel][46]
|
|
|
|
* [Fine Arts][47]
|
|
|
|
* [Culture][48]
|
|
|
|
Loading
|
|
|
|
var puffs_8120648 = new Array();
|
|
|