ECCOnoob

"manufacturing" what? The list is endless. Come on give us a clue. Let me try and speed this up for you because its getting painful. Are you basically desprately trying to find some point to prove that all British manufacturing is dead. We are all owned by foreigners. We produce nothing anymore. We are all just monkeys at typewriters working in low paid service jobs. There is no future for British industry. We as a society are all doomed by the hideous behemoth called Globalisation. Am I on the right track here?

Either way sky will win. They own Now TV anyway.

A few more than that actually. According to Companies House there are currently 3,404,701 companies active owned and registered in Britain. I too would like the OP to be more specific with whatever agenda they are trying to push. What do they mean "British companies" ??

So what's your solution? Force people at gunpoint to pay more for goods just because they are British made? Build a wall, close the borders and leave us to fester in our own society, lifestyle and industries? Thanks to the world of the internet, the planet has never been smaller. People can buy and import items from anywhere they so choose and for whatever price they CHOOSE to pay for them. I am trying to point out the very much ignored hypocrisy of us British public who get their DVDs online from Amazon or imported from abroad and then go crying when retailers like HMV and Woolworths close their doors. Us British public rioting and nearly trampling on each other to get inside a newly opened Primark or to get our hands on some budget unknown foreign brand television but then crying and demanding the government step in and save our industries. Its sod all to do with my political leanings or even any neo liberalism guff. Its being realistic. All your "genuine British Conservative" nonsense belongs in the days of the ark. Like it or not globalisation IS here. We as a country, we as businesses, we as consumers have took great advantage of that. Cant be crying about it now. We get goods cheaper, we take advantage of global trade, we take advantage of emerging markets, we take advantage of low salaries and low overheads, we have took advantage of free movement and now we are taking advantage of the online world too. ---------- Post added 03-04-2016 at 13:01 ---------- "Industry" evolves and we need to evolve with it. Just because the mass manufacturing might be in decline does not mean that "industry" has gone too. "industry" is different these days. People make thousands of pounds sitting behind a computer tapping away on a keyboard. People are making great things for the fields of aviation, arms, robotics and pharmaceuticals. These are people in shirt, ties and white coats, not mucky overalls these days. There are kids who have made hundreds of thousands of pounds and are famous names just for posting home made films on the internet. Even some of the traditional crafts are making a comeback. Remember the days when people would go to a baker to buy their daily bread, their specialist butcher to get their meats and even get their furniture made by a craft carpenter. Well, take a look around certain postcodes, those trades are back with a vengeance and making more money than ever before. The trend of artisan bakery, specialist butchery and crafted furnishings is making a killing from the upper classes and "organic" lifestyle types.

Doesn't "nail it" at all. Load of rose tinted nostalgic guff. I too remember the days of the good old British car industry. Yes, the great names of British Leyland, the massive conglomerate so excessively flabby and mismanaged that departments would not talk to each other and its own dealers were competing with each other just yards apart. Yes, those great British production lines filled with striking and indifferent workers churning out products with bits missing, bits not connected and poorly finished. God forbid anyone tried to improve standards and increase efficiency. Would only take seconds before they would be drowned out by the screams of "everybody out" Those with selected memories might want to re-learn that it was we the British Public who started lapping up foreign imports. Cars that start on a wintery day?? Oh god, who'd have thought it was possible. Leyland and Rover certainly didn't. As for the rest of the article, PH has obviously been "travelling through the heartlands" blind. We still have chocolate factories here. We still make railway carriages. Mr Hitchens, the reason you cant buy british made general goods (except for high end boutiques) is because we the public demand cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. You cant have a ever increasing minimum wage and demand that retailers offer bargain basement prices. You want clothes for £3, food items for pennies, household appliances for less than £40, televisions for less than £60 then you get them made by those funny foreigners on their slave level wages. WE ALL contribute to the decline of British industry. Want to save it. Then pay for it. Cant have it both ways. I have said before (and its been experimented several times) if you launched an all British worker made, all British materials, genuinely fairly priced product out on the market the first question will be how much? The next statement will be, where can I get the same cheaper? Now, whose fault is that? The manufacturer? The company owners? The government? How about YOU the consumer?

Private business sometimes close. Yes, in a way I suppose I am saying screw the workers. Its tragic when a major employer goes under but not totally alien. My point is, WHY should taxpayer funds be used to prop up a sole plant which seeming has no chance of recovery. IF, the business has any chance of a recovery it will be bought. IF IT DOES NOT, then why should we waste millions or billions of pounds on it. The workers will have to go and find other work, maybe some will retrain and go into something different. Maybe some will use it as a point in which to retire. They will not be the first ones in such a situation. Why is this privately owned steel plant singled out for such government attention. Did Labour MPs demand that Woolworths was funded by taxpayer monies when it when under. What about those 27,000 employees. Where was the politicians screaming to protect them? Where was the leftie press outrage when HSBC announced their 8000 job cuts. I say again, why is this one company and this one plant deserving of special attention. It is not the sole remaining steel manufacturer in the UK.

Well clearly you do have a problem otherwise you would not have made such sniping comments and assumptions about certain types of people. Your post is far beyond a casual enquiry about who and why people have cleaners. Shall I just remind you what you said less than 14 posts ago. It seems to have been erased from your selective mind.

I was just thinking the same thing. What do some of these people expect to happen. You don't just walk in to an organisation's headquarters and demand a meeting without notice or planning. As far as I can see Javad was on an official engagement in Australia and was proposing taking some holiday after (which he is perfectly entitled to do just like any other employee) This situation has arisen and he is now returning to the UK. This whole thing has only emerged over the past 48/72 hours. It takes over a day just to travel back from Australia. What more do people expect to happen?? He's not Superman, he doesn't just swoop around the world at the speed of light. Oh but Corbyn did something. He took action. My bony backside. Corbyn saw a good PR opportunity that's all. A bit of camera posing and glad handing with the employees. A few empty words and boot licking with the union reps and nothing else. There was bugger all useful action standing in Port Talbot and even less useful action he will take when he gets back to Westminster. Its a private business. That particular sector is losing £1million a DAY. The company is quite rightly taking action. Hopefully the rest of the UK parts which actually are making money wont be dragged down with it and will end up being bought. As many others of said, one company closing one section is not the death of British steel industry or any of this other guff. There are still OTHER FIRMS producing steel and making money in the UK. Some of them are even or our own doorstep. Time to look at the bigger picture.

My god what a load of unnecessary and pointless bile. I don't clean and choose to pay for a cleaner. I am not green fingered whatsoever and choose to pay for a gardener. I cant iron to save my life so choose to get my clothing laundered by someone else. I certainly don't wash my own car and choose to pay for a gang of foreigners to do it for me. Im busy running my business and looking after my family. I want to spent what little spare time I have doing other things and certainly not domestic chores. Its my choice to spend some of my earned income to pay for someone else to do that. Will it make your head explode if I suggest that I also have staff to type my letters, answer my phone and run errands for me too. Its providing work to people. What's your problem? There are 1001 things people COULD do themselves. There are lots of services that people COULD manage without. Wouldn't do much for the job market though would it.

You said ^^^^^^ My answer to your statement is they do pay their dues.

Oh not this old chestnut again. They DO pay their dues. They pay what the HM Revenue & Customs tell them they are legally obliged to pay. Remind me again what LAW is compelling them to voluntary pay a single penny over and above that. If you have some concrete evidence that they are undertaking illegal activity and can categorically prove they are engaging in tax EVASION then you had better contact the Police.

How many council employees and other government department staff have had a salary increase as a result of this new wage? How does those many thousands of wage increases affect the overall salary costs of said council and other departments? How does that overall affect impact on the central budgets which may in turn need to increase rates to pay for it all? See how things work. Increase pay = increase costs = decrease in budget = rate increases to balance the books.

The works will be sold off as an asset to the new company or other party money put back into the firm. The employees will receive whatever redundancy payment and will seek other work. The stakeholder will still continue to be stakeholders in the remainder of the company which is doing what it is to try and get back on track profit wise. If they choose not to, they will withdraw their current stake and take the money.

...and the Shareholders, investment funds, pensions, credit lines, mortgages, loans tied up with thank bank? What exactly would happen to them. Do you think it would do the public good to suddenly get a letter from an Administrator advising that their £100k mortgage must now be paid back in full. Do you think it would do a business some good to suddenly be told that their lines of credit with their suppliers and contractors are immediately ceased. As for salaries, you don't just stop paying someone. Rightly or wrongly those executives had a contract which entitled them to X salary and/or bonus. Its not as easy to say, let if fail. ---------- Post added 30-03-2016 at 00:03 ---------- What do you mean protectionist towards the legal profession?

Tragic as it may be its the same faux reaction every time an industry fails. In the 70s/80s people stopped buying British cars because they were badly made and unreliable. Foreign brands and ourseas made flooded in and we all lapped them up. .... Leyland and Rover collapse and suddenly its waaa waaa why didn't someone save the car industry. In the 80s the Sinclair and Acorn groups revolutionised the world computing market. Not to mention hundreds of other small operations all embracing the revolution of the computer market. Suddenly their products failed to keep up with trends and became a laughing stock. HP/Microsoft and Apple come flooding in from abroad and we lapped them up. Suddenly its waaa waaa what happened to our technology industry. In the late 80s/early 90s the final dying cough of the National Coal Board was heard. Everyone was delighted by the modern marvels of gas central heating and the new world of all electric storage and block. Next minute its waaa waaa what happened to our coal industry. Why didn't the wicked witch do something. Now we had the 00s the shopping mecca with clothing, electronic and household goods flooding in for less than a pound. The era gave birth to pound shops and we lap up the thousands of lines of bargain basement clothing, toys, electronics and homewares from our superstores and warehouses. waaa waaa. what's happened to our steel industry. waaa waaa why is our high street stores dying. I don't need to point out the obvious pattern here.

They are making huge losses. People are not buying their product. How long can you keep flogging such a thing. Its struggling because steel is being made cheaper and more efficiently elsewhere. We the public demand cheaper and cheaper goods. The suppliers have to lower their bottom lines. The manufacturers have to ship out their operations abroad to cut costs. Round and round it goes. Banks may well be the root of all evil but Lloyds failing was not an option. People's personal finances in terms of both cash and credit facilities were tied up in there. Businesses had not only the liquid funds but their entire credit lines for stock, assets, payroll, premises tied up in there. The effects of a bank failing is far far wider than the cherry picked panto villians the press like to spread. Its not the same thing. Corbyn and all the union windbags doing the usual guff I see "we will not allow this to happen" "the government must protect jobs".... blah blah. Want to keep British Jobs and British Industries. Buy British then.

90% of the bank is private so good luck trying to enforce that one. Government has sold more than 75% of its stake ages ago.

Cast your mind back longer than the past 5 years and take at look at his history on war crimes, torture of European Citizens and humanity. Its not as simple as "backing Assad"

I disagree. Lino and carpet removal, dismantling of worktops and units, removal of large furniture, sorting through and bagging up selected belongings and tree cutting is not "basic cleaning" IMO, "basic cleaning" is having Mrs Wilson come round with a feather duster, cif wipes and vacuum cleaner once a week. A house clearance and total disinfect is a totally different ball game.

Am I the only one who thinks that this fee is not extortionate at all. Reading through the quotation its far more than a regular clean up. I am seeing carpet and lino removal, dismantling and removal of worktops and units, removal and disposal of several items of furniture, an oven unit, outdoor waste and work to remove parts of a tree from the side of the house. Add on the actual cleaning work, disinfecting, rodent removal, general labour and any waste charges (which some places have to disposal of large goods) and the costs soon rack up. I am not saying that it might not be done cheaper by others but its hardly through the roof in my opinion. At the end of the day, the quotation is there is black and white. It offers time to be amended or rejected but seemingly was not. I'm really not sure how valid a complaint against the council would be. What exactly have they done wrong? Contractors cost money.

How do you think they cope when they deal with the dozens of other road closures each year? Don't be so dramatic. Most of the road are closed for 5 hours at most for ONE DAY! ---------- Post added 28-03-2016 at 15:36 ---------- Its not as simple as that. Last year over 6000 people took part in the half marathon. Have you any idea the chaos that would ensue trying to get over 6000 people completing circuit laps around a running track.

Doesn't the hospital have an ophthalmology department? Wouldn't they need to be referred to this. I would have thought that a proper eye test would need all the relevant equipment which is fixed in the opticians.

Oh fantastic, Just to really put the nail in the coffin on this moron. Before becoming a PR genius he used to be an Investment Manager with skills in Stockbroking. Just what the public really loves.

Whatever happens to this stupid individual police wise, the poor innocent woman involved will get the last laugh. Surprise surprise Mr Big Mouth's twitter account has suddenly disappeared. Now, a quick glace at his Agency's facebook page and its filled with people expressing their "freedom of speech" opinions about what they think about him. As a talent and PR agency, I cant wait to see how some of his clients and associates will react to their behaviour. Good luck next partners meeting when trying to pitch for new work pal. As a new agency which seemingly only started this year and still using @virginmedia.com free email addresses I don't fancy their chances. They are hardly the most established or professional outfit. Any incident like this, no matter how trivial it is deemed, can damage a reputation of a company beyond repair. Considering this guy is supposed to be Partner he really should know better. Next headline, Grant Doyle Associates shuts down.

How dare they. Ruining Easter by bringing some religious element into it. What's the world coming to.