Saturday 10 April 2010

Labour Manifesto Pledge - Shut that Door!

Watching the media tonight and the Labour Manifesto has begun to leak as they try to get back some momentum in the election campaign.

Now Labour have been doing badly but not too atrociously so far, but now I think they have gone and done it. They have decided to make it much harder for Foreign firms to buy UK firms. Only it appears that the UNITE union has forced it on them.

Moreover the last few years of their Government has seen many UK companies taken over by foreign ownerhsip... BAA, ICI, Corus, Imperial Energy, Cadbury's. A chunk of the FTSE100 in fac...and just today BA has merged with Iberia.

Also Gordon Brown was out yesterday at Innocent Smoothies bestowing his curse on them as another UK company was taken over by Coca-Cola yesterday!

 This policy is real bolt the stable door after the horse has long gone. Where is their credibility to do this 10 years after reversing the rules?

Not only that but the lame claim that somehow other countries are protectionist, we should be too. What rot. France is protectionist as is Germany, they have double the unemployment of the UK and less than half the Forieng Direct Investment - go figure. Just because other States want to throw rocks in their Harbours does not mean that we should!

Weak, Weak, Weak.

4 comments:

Nick Drew said...

Too right !

There will be a very interesting test-case just around the corner - shall put fingers to keyboard first thing ...

Mark Wadsworth said...

Why would Labour care?

Protectionism wins votes, just like high house prices. The fact that things are bad for the economy is pretty irrelevant.

Old BE said...

Our openness to foreign investment has been a major boon to us over the centuries. OK so sometimes companies buy a company and shift production overseas and that hurts, but we have recovered from these problems before because we have that golden commodity: flexibility.

Even Brown wasn't so stupid as to undo Thatcher's union and supply-side reforms. Now he says he will? FAIL.

Budgie said...

You can add Pilkington's to that list. But I have to disagree with your analysis, CU.

The UK policy is not (currently) an open arms (ie anti-protectionist) policy, it is a policy of indifference bordering on contempt.

It all depends what you mean by "protectionist". Example: Volkswagen (German) and Peugeot (French) vans are much of a muchness. If a UK business made a van of comparable price/utility would the UK (local) government be protectionist by ordering the UK van? I think not. Such a policy would nurture UK businesses without being protectionist.

That attitude has been missing in this country for decades. Indeed the chattering classes seem to take a delight in denigrating British products (and services).