Golden Gordon?
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Yesterday’s Labour Party conference speech by Gordon Brown contained more than its fair share of policy announcements, including a pledge to spend £1bn on establishing a national investment corporation
It was billed as a make or break moment, a final opportunity for Gordon Brown to revive flagging fortunes ahead of an election next spring.
And while only time will tell whether he met this objective, yesterday’s conference speech certainly contained more than its fair share of policy announcements.
He pledged a referendum on changing the voting system, laws to curb excessive City bonuses and measures to tackle anti-social behaviour. He promised supervised state hostels for teenage mothers and even free personal care in the home for the elderly.
But of most interest to readers of The Engineer, and apparently of little interest to much of the mainstream media this morning, is the promise to spend £1bn on establishing a national investment corporation to provide finance for exploiting British developed IP and growing manufacturing.
On the surface this seems like a good idea. Britain has plenty of areas of world-leading expertise - particularly, as Brown mentioned yesterday, in low carbon technologies - and any measures that reconcile the twin aims of a low carbon future with domestic economic growth are to be applauded.
The trouble is that we’ve heard it all before. For all the talk of rebalancing the economy, assistance for the manufacturing and technology industries has been little more than window dressing alongside the billions pumped in to the banks.
Brown’s government now has a last chance to deliver on these promises, and with the clock well and truly ticking there is little time to lose. Fail to deliver on the pledges of his conference speech and he will surely lose the next election. Convert his words to deeds and he may just have a chance.
Jon Excell
Deputy Editor
Readers' comments (8)
Kevin weston - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 2:16 pm
Time for Gordon to take a walk in "The Sun".
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David Pring - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 3:06 pm
Gordon Brown has brought us through a very bad recession, something the Tories didn't do very well last time. They stood back and watched as people were thrown on the dole. We are still suffering the consiquences of these lost generations.
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Ken Short - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 3:07 pm
Politicians think the electorate have no memory; let's all just forget about the last 12 years and judge them on the next six months.
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C Swallow - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 3:12 pm
I have to agree with your interpretation. The impact of the so-called rebalance project has been from zero to reverse. We service some customers who operate in large project/civil engineering/infrastructure sectors. Whilst these customer were fairly positive in the new year, being in possession of a long order book and believing the recession would be over before the pipeline emptied; now the pipelines are close to empty, and there is nothing to replace it - their recession may be only just about to start. All these companies are high tech, specialist, highly skilled companies - the one's we need to see grow. In practice this government has done nothing - it's all just politics.
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S. Martin - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 3:50 pm
Well, here’s a can of worms waiting to be opened, so where to begin is the biggest decision?
Brown and Labour have failed the entire country, they introduce prohibitive measures, burgeoning legislation, and more expensive and ineffective, yet costly measures to industry. They talk tough, but have repeatedly failed to deliver on anything; crime was an issue, violent crime has risen 70% (their figures) under Labour, and they have unanimously failed industry, a failure to invest in British technology. Wholesale exporting of such technologies, and the jobs which would go with them; HERE IN THE UK, and the export revenue they would bring counter the unbalanced balance of payments.
So what are we left with? No jobs, no industry to speak of, very little viable British technology, and massive unemployment. So would I trust Brown and Labour? Well, if they told me it was raining I would look out of the window, open it, then stick my hand out to see if it was raining.
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Jonathan Douglas - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 4:26 pm
The Engineer is not a political forum, but if we are to discuss politics, two points: 1) Brown and other 'world leaders' have done a reasonable job of holding things together, but the causes of this crisis are absolutely Brown's (and Clinton's Democratic government in the USA). Brown could have done a great deal to prevent the crisis if he was any good. 2) British manufacturing business needs to be far less encumbered by European and British legislation, and less heavily taxed. Small business costs are disproportionately high due to complying with legislation. The excess taxes appear to pay for lots of unnecessary public sector jobs.
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Keith Jafrato - Golden Gordon? | 30 Sep 2009 11:07 pm
I agree with most of the comments above and dear old Gordon has had his day.
If you look at the Labour record they have had progress in some areas - new schools, hospitals, infrastructure etc but its all been on borrowed money or the PFI's which have cost this country a small fortune.
All these new policy initiatives, where did they come from, how much will they cost? This is the last ditch stand from the Labour party.
Will the Conservatives do any better? Well who knows what they will do; they are still making up policies.
I say give the Liberals a chance. Could it really be any worse? Quite frankly, Vince Cable in my books is the ONLY one with the credibility to get us out of this mess - Angry from West Wickham
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Joe Hayward - Golden Gordon? | 1 Oct 2009 4:03 pm
Don't forget the Tory recessions of the 80's and 90's when up to 3.5 million were put out of work and the Tory party did little or nothing to help them or try to stimulate the economy.
Joe Hayward
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