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The Secret Engineer
The Secret Engineer
The ordered, sensible world of the Secret Engineer’s youth has been turned on its head. He, or she, asks why we have changed the rules?
Home truths
When my kids ask me difficult questions I’m always very careful to give the most accurate answers that I can. That’s because I remember how some of the answers that my Dad gave me have shaped my thinking over the years.
I remember getting quite excited when I saw a continental police force using Porsches. I asked my Dad if our police might start driving Porsches. He immediately dismissed that idea and informed me that they would always drive British made cars. He went on to explain that it would be wrong to spend British taxpayers’ money supporting foreign workers and silly to boost another country’s economy rather than our own.
It’d never happen here
Over the years he explained several other things that also seemed to make perfect sense. He explained that our farmers are very efficient and that we are able to be almost self sufficient for a lot of foodstuffs. He explained that some industries like gas, electricity, water and even railways were natural monopolies and so it didn’t make sense to have different companies in competition. He asked me to imagine what it would be like if each house had a number of gas pipes, electricity lines and phone lines running to it. How silly and wasteful would it be to have multiple train lines connecting the same cities he asked me? Later in life I came across other things that seemed perfectly logical, like a large coal fired power station built adjacent to a big colliery with many years of coal left.
All these things seemed so sensible; I wonder why we have changed the rules now. The coal mine was shut because of a power struggle, despite there being plenty of coal still underground, and when I visited the power station some years ago they told me the coal now comes all the way from South America. Farmers’ fields are left empty or used for cash crops because of EU directives. I read recently that most police cars are now foreign made and Merseyside police have recently caused some upset by choosing to replace locally built Vauxhall Astras with Korean made Hyundais. During my own career I’ve been made redundant as a result of a government decision to buy products from overseas. Then, when I was short of money after being made redundant, I don’t believe the choice of utility companies on offer allowed me to save money or get better service.
So I’m always very careful with the answers I give to my children, because I’m never sure how the world might change. There’s one other thing I remember my Dad telling me, and that was that the Prince of Wales would never be allowed to get divorced, let alone re-marry.
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Readers' comments (17)
David Graham | 30 Jul 2012 12:37 pm
Couldnt agree more - especially with the "natural monopolies" part. All these parts of industry where privatised to line the pockets of those who where doing the privatising and no intention of saving the ordinary person money. They should all be re-nationalised and run for the benefit of all not a few. Im not proposing a communist state but surely some things should be run for us all and not to make money for the few that dont need it but are just in the grip of greed.
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Nick Pattie | 30 Jul 2012 12:42 pm
Sounds like your Dad was a smart cookie. Shame he wasn't a politician - or a prince come to that!
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Anonymous | 30 Jul 2012 12:50 pm
Your story serves to illuminate how extensively the great British public have been duped by the greed-driven financiers that dominant our political systems, where commercial gain of the few wins over all else - including common sense and basic engineering principles.
I'm with your Dad on this one!
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Anonymous | 30 Jul 2012 1:02 pm
If only we had followed those simple rules this country would be a much better place to live. We have only made it more complicated, more expensive and more confusing than ever. Just how many holes and trenches are dug on a daily basis for various suppliers for the same utilities! How times change, not much left as British made these days, I bet the official Olympic 2012 London Bus and Hackney Taxi boxed toys are made in the far east!
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Dave Davies | 30 Jul 2012 1:06 pm
Dead right. Part of the trouble is that the British public just cannot understand the arguments. I have always, throughout my whole life, had various Land-Rover products - built in England - as my car, but hardly any of my friends see the implications of buying foreign. On a tv programme the other day about Dagenham, it was mentioned that every Ford car is now imported, so if 'industry' doesn't make British, it is damned hard for the rest of us to buy British.
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Dean Newton | 30 Jul 2012 1:24 pm
You have summed up all that is Broken in Britain. Put these issues right, and we could be half way there.
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Tristan O'Brien | 30 Jul 2012 1:30 pm
100% correct.
Could someone please hit the big red button and reset everything. The only way to affect change in the confused world of politics and greed, is to reset the system and start again. It would be hard to deal with and starting again would be a difficult to manage. But wiping out the monopolies of the ‘sharks’ and their political masters, (and in many cases their colleagues) to help out the little fish (us, the ones who pay for it all in the first place) is to put everyone on an even playing field again.
Maybe we need a kind of ‘Arab Spring’ of our own, to remind the masters who they work for.
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JohnK | 30 Jul 2012 3:39 pm
Very admirable sentiments, but an essential precurser to centralising 'public' utilities would be to remove ourselves from the EU. So many utilities are now foreign owned that forced nationalisation would best be done from outside the EU. A UDI perhaps? Not likely under any of the 'big three' political parties. Whatever party is in power it would be a historical decision as it's a one-shot gamble on the future of the UK.
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Anonymous | 30 Jul 2012 8:56 pm
It's called the free market, Hyundais are probably better value than Vauxhall Astras. Virgin media are brilliant whereas other phone utility companies have caused me constant hassles. Nationalised coal mines feeding nationalised coal power stations are best left in the past, just look at the leaps and bounds in wind power and water power technologies over the last twenty years. I'm not saying Dad was wrong, it's just the world is changing very quickly and is going through a chaotic period and probably will do until wage discrepancies and living standards are more harmonious and some of the major environmental issues are addressed too. Got to just go with it.
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Autobulb | 31 Jul 2012 0:06 am
We have enough coal in this country to last for 200 years, but Maggie wanted to teach the miners a lesson. Also she wanted gas to be used, now we must import 35% of gas. As for oil, we have plenty, we need to drill deeper.
We need to think BRITISH and be British all 4 Countries need to work together. Get rid of all these MSPs,MWP,MNIP and let the MPs and the Government of all parties run the country
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