If last week’s poll is indicative of the national mood then Theresa May’s Conservative Party appears in reasonable shape for June’s general election.
Of the 348 respondents, 42 per cent opted for the Conservatives, followed by 15 per cent Labour, 14 per cent Liberal Democrats and three per cent choosing ‘other’.
That does, however, leave over a quarter (26 per cent) of respondents putting their cross in the ‘None of the above’ box’, which by anyone’s estimations is a significant proportion of any vote.
As has been suggested by a number of readers who commented on the poll, one reason for this is the lack of clarity from political parties with regards to engineering and manufacturing.
“Without seeing any manifestos I can’t make any informed judgement,” said Eric Christison. “What policies for engineering and manufacturing?” added Michael Kenward.
One commentator – a certain 1saveenergy – suggested that successive governments have ‘consistently ignored advice and warnings from all sides & pushed their political agendas to the detriment of the UK population,’ whilst Andrew Smith has identified knowledge gaps in parliament that are detrimental to industry.
“Unfortunately, with so few MPs having an industry background, and only a handful being engineers, we have a long history of none of the parties being good at strategy on manufacturing, energy policy, etc. but the current government appears to be making more effort than we have seen for some time” he said.
What do you think? The poll is closed but your comments are very welcome on this issue.
Definitely the greens. They need change. They need new technologies in the environmental sector. Conservatives are just concerned about their crony landlords, and permission for foreign engineers and scientists and their families to live here; wasting a lot of time and resources for applications, keeping records of utility bills and other proofs of address in their original form for ages. The environment created a lot of jobs in Germany in the last decades. Not just for recycling and energy but also new materials for construction, new materials for electronics and cars. Becoming independent from rare earth imports, using cannabis fibres for car interiors instead of plastics, that sort of thing. There is that need to go where no one has been before. That’s what you want as an engineer.
” using cannabis fibres for car interiors” : I do hope Nick D means bast and linen, NOT what is described. Its a long time since I took a good chew at my car-seats , but who knows? When my regular supplier fails….
Hemp is the word I was looking for.
where is the poll hiding?
Unfortunately, with so few MPs having an industry background, and only a handful being engineers, we have a long history of none of the parties being good at strategy on manufacturing, energy policy, etc., etc. but the current government appears to be making more effort than we have seen for some time.
You are quite correct in saying “avoid downright ad hominem attacks on particular politicians”;
we should be giving ad hominem attacks to ALL politicians !
Successive governments of all colours have consistently ignored advice & warnings from all sides & pushed their political agendas to the detriment of the UK population.
– close down manufacturing & invest in banking & insurance….how well that worked …banks went bust, we bailed them out, bankers made a fortune, we sell the good bits for pence & keep the bad bits, bankers make another fortune; Nobody went to jail.
– “We can run the UK on 80% green energy & create millions of jobs” , every engineer & their dogs said not possible,… 15 years & £billions (mainly to foreign company’s/governments) later,
they decide its not the best way !
NHS, railways, defense, energy security, …….long list, when politicians (with a PPE & no experience) get involved you just know it will be over time, over budget & a complete dogs dinner.
Looking at the UK from the outside, – and as a European I have a vested interest, – the Lib Dems seems to be the only party that really appreciates the insanity (and collective irresponsibility) of Brexit. Pity that you don’t have a proper electoral system. PR works a lot better than first past the post in that the wishes of the electorate have some chance of being equitably represented.
The UK does have PR for certain circumstances – example 1 = European Parliament elections – winners = UKIP; example 2 = Referendum – winner = Brexit.
The concept of a local MP (who actually now primarily act as ‘lobby fodder’ and local ombudsmen) has long roots, along with those of ‘political parties’: when communication between areas of the country and London took days! [now-namoseconds? as do commumications between both the citizens and the leaders of all States. ] Correct me if I am wrong, but we already have a Head of State [Royalty] so have no need to ‘elect’ one: with the inevitable personality ‘cult’ and yaah/Booh from each ‘side’ that results. William Dick’s point about PR is sound. We (and our US brothers/sisters) alone in Europe and most of the rest of the world still have an adversarial process for litigation and elections. Which benefits only the paid-verbal- thugs who engage in such. I did, for a year, whilst doing VSO there live in a former colony British Guiana (now Guyana) which had a PR system of elections imposed upon it (amazingly by us and the US!) in the early 60s. This was to ensure the eclipse of a popular (to their electorate) but Left-wing Prime Minister (Dr Cheddi Jagan) who leaned far to closely to Castro, Che and the Soviets. So much for democracy?
Good poll!
The only problem is that there isn’t a “don’t know” box which is where I would have put my cross because without seeing any manifestos I can’t make any informed judgement.
One thing I do like that I do know of is the Labour party’s plans for an investment bank to invest in new UK business ventures. We lack the mass of innovative investors that fund the many start ups in silicon valley, why shouldn’t the Government step in to help our own innovators instead?
” investment bank…”
That is an oxymoron if ever there was one -like legal profession or military intelligence?
[for that matter intelligence community is another] Who is kidding who? These non-producers have a sole (should that be soul?) interest: making money by manipulating more, NOT making the route to wealth generation that our Victorial ancestors understood so well.
Every party in Germany is committed to the very best possible vocational
training. Presently their are over 1.5 million apprentices in Germany and 60.000 unfilled ones.
What policies for engineering and manufacturing?
I’m afraid that I’m with Mike Blamey and ISaveenergy in terms of scepticism about the competence of our elite. I believe that there are about 4 scientists and engineers in parliament. As Isaveenergy said this allowed the foolish Climate Change Act to go through on an ethical but non-technical viewpoint.
I will certainly vote, but do not believe that there is a “horse of a different colour” available so far as business is concerned.
But JD, we do have a revising chamber (800 strong) to ensure that all the mis-mash of laws? that the lower-house tries to create are properly scrutinised? 800 needed. Call me old fashioned, but I was of the view (having practiced and taught such for much of my career) that the gurus of good old quality management requires ‘right first-time and every time’ as the goal for all human affairs?
Presumably there are far too many hands in the till, benefitting from the alternative presently used, to allow this.
I went for “none of the above”. Nearly as good as “don’t know”, given that we have yet to see any manifesto lies, I mean promises.
With luck, this snap election will not give editors (hint hint) enough time to commission those pointless “party line” articles from all candidates, or rather their tame PR teams.
The problem of policies for engineering and manufacturing – more broadly the ‘productive’ industries- is that none of the major parties have really recongnised the issues around large parts of these sectors which are under performing on productivity and potentially dragging down the relatively dynamic (ie increasingly productive) parts of the wider economy. One example being trained, skilled and educated engineers possibly working for lack lustre companies and industries and exacerbating the skills shortage elsewhere. Also this is as much about economic analysis as it is about Engineering and technologies.
In the understandable rush to support manufacturing by both govt and publications such as The Engineer and the Institutions over the past few years – the ability to critically judge manufacturing where it is weak – has been lost. If productivity is not growing then wealth growth will not grow either and as can be seen wages will stagnate.
Nationalisation may largely be behind us – but other forms of state support and propping up means that the ‘welfare state’ for Industry has just taken a different form (expanding education, Catapults etc, etc.)
Some of the Tories do recongnise this, but are unlikely to say to SMEs ‘you need to have your subsidies removed and stand on your own two feet’ – since SMEs have as a whole group been venerated – where in reality only a relative few will make a difference long term.
A more interesting question might be ‘Where should the state support Industry and where should it not?). Really we need numbers – and it would be good if The Engineer could get in some trusted and tame economics experts on this?
I agree that the Conservatives are making more of an effort to support Engineering & Manufacturing (only about 30 years overdue !), but in my opinion the UK will lose trade with Europe as a result of a hard Brexit pursued by the Conservatives. This is likely to result in the necessity for Government cuts in spending, potentially ending any support that is currently being committed to & promised for the future in the run-up to the Election. The supposed experts in Government tell us that the rest of the World is queuing up to trade with us, but anyone who has ever worked in Engineering Sales will know, that it will take many years to build up this trade, assuming we are competitive enough in the first place !!
” ever worked in Engineering Sales will know, that it will take many years to build up this trade, assuming we are competitive enough in the first place !!” I agree entirely, in the case of textile machinery, machine tools, etc [actually we don’t make many of either?]
Perhaps that is why we only really ‘sell’ in quantity military hardware elsewhere: so that we can wheel out a Royal or two (in uniform?) to charm the locals into buying such.
I know, let’s bottle ‘soft-power’ and sell that?