It seems 2015 has been another grim year, according to this week’s Economist. “They were supposed to carry Britain aloft, but manufacturers have had a hard year”. British manufacturing has fallen to 9% of GDP – Germany’s is 20%.
Britain’s deep problem is “to get its tens of thousands of small and medium-sized manufacturers to grow into larger, prosperous exporters, as Germany has done with its Mittelstand”.
Perhaps those small companies should dump their spreadsheets and do things properly with Herschel. But how do we get them to do that? Answers on a postcard please…