[Bagman]

I would say that other countries have unions and higher wages. Germany and Japan stand out a bit there. France is about the same, Volvo haven't done too badly in Sweden. All of these countries have a much higher level of government support of unions and similar or higher labour costs. Britain often made a decent car, sometimes with great ideas and potentially ground breaking advances (they also had a fair share of dogs too). They released these cars and sat back, very little development and very little reinvestment in production technology. In the early and mid 90's I worked in Rover/Vauxhall/Ford/RR/Nissan and saw the different styles. Going into Rover was stepping back in time. It was pretty shocking from a production point of view in comparison with the others. This carried over into the staff attitude (not really a British thing as it was better in the other plants). It was always going to slowly die, it was written on the wall ever since BMW bailed. I don't want to use BMW as an example but their cars are mostly made in Bavaria (not cheap) in a factory I regularly drive past. The ongoing investments there are staggering. New halls (all crammed with solar panels on top), lots of disguised development cars on the local roads, an obvious air of professionalism and you can just see and feel the difference. It's not (just) the unions that killed our domestic car industry it's blinkered management that failed to constantly improve and and change to a different kind of motor industry. I'm in manufacturing and believe that it is dying off in the UK (there are still many good, successful firms out there but now there are fewer household names), it's not so much about salaries and cheaper labour costs abroad especially now with an exchange rate that should be a dream to an exporter. It's not about the unions now as the British unions are now in a much weaker position than most foreign countries. Production firms that don't have a logical investment policy will get left behind I won't mourn them as they deserve to go under and not get propped up.