Fixing Britain E-Book

Michael Wilson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 369

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

No nonsense solutions from the straight-talking face of British business.

IF FUNDAMENTAL REFORM DOES NOT TAKE PLACE THEN WE ARE DEAD IN THE WATER.

GLOBALISATION DOES NOT TAKE PRISONERS. BRITAIN MUST BECOME FIT FOR PURPOSE IN THE 21^ST CENTURY.

This is the explosive, first book from 'the face of British business', Lord Digby Jones. With a renowned, no-nonsense, straight-talking approach, he is one of the world's most acclaimed business commentators.

In his candid and forthright style Fixing Britain puts the spotlight on critical national and international business issues and lays out the essential reform urgently needed for the growth of our nation. Knowledgeable, authoritative and independent, Digby highlights how untenable the status quo is in the UK, and sets out how Britain can get back in – and stay in – the globalised race.

Sending a clear message to government, business leaders, strategists and the media, Fixing Britain explores the effective linkage of change at all levels, from Westminster to education, the public and private sectors, our social cohesion and our sense of common purpose.

Digby is never afraid to say what others are thinking - this is the most explosive examination of the state of British business in years.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Epigraph

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

CHAPTER 1 - FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT – TIME FOR CHANGE

CHAPTER 2 - THE VOICE OF BUSINESS

CHAPTER 3 - THE GLOBE-TROTTING GOAT – TETHERED BY WESTMINSTER AND WHITEHALL

CHAPTER 4 - EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION?

CHAPTER 5 - THE WORLD MOVES EAST

CHAPTER 6 - THE BUSINESS OF POLITICS: FIXING THE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 7 - TAXING BRITAIN OUT OF BUSINESS

CHAPTER 8 - THE GIMME SOCIETY

CHAPTER 9 - OUR GREAT BRITAIN

Acknowledgements

INDEX

This is one of the most remarkable people I have ever come across. His commitment, his dedication and his enthusiasm are quite extraordinary. He is a great British patriot.

Tony Blair, as Prime MinisterCBI Annual Dinner, May 2006

They broke the mould when he was made.

Sir John Sunderland,Chairman Cadbury PLC, March, 2006

My friend Digby is a well-informed patriot who has ‘been there and done it’. From early, cautionary tales about the impact that democratised markets in eastern Europe would have on the motor industry in his beloved West Midlands, to his warnings that India and China would ‘have your lunch and your dinner’, he is a trend spotter to keep Governments and commentators on their toes. This book is his catechism and his route map for taking the UK forward to where he believes it should be, and should never have slipped from.

Alastair Stewart OBE,ITV News

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham Kt

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ISBN 978-0-470-97763-7 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0-470-97924-2 (ebook) ISBN 978-0-470-97925-9 (ebook), ISBN 978-1-119-97654-7 (ebook)

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To

Bernard Lowe, my primary school head teacher, who set me on my way.

John Webber, my headmaster at Bromsgrove, who fired my enthusiasm.

Jim Stephens, my tutor at University College, London, who developed my legal ability.

Gil Hayward, my Principal at Edge & Ellison, for answering all those questions and advising me along the way.

John Wardle, Senior Partner at Edge & Ellison when I joined in 1978 until 1990, for his inspiration and example.

Sir Clive Thompson, President of the CBI, 1999 and 2000, for giving me the break that changed my life.

My mother and father for all the love, encouragement and enthusiasm I could ever have wished for.

My wife, Pat. Simply my rock.

CHAPTER 1

FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT – TIME FOR CHANGE

Consider, for a moment, a small country which ventured out from a place rather distant from the rest of the world but which proceeded to create the most powerful economic and military empire the world had ever seen.

It gave the world a common language, a common currency, the rule of law, the freedom of citizenship, tariff-free trade and peace. But after that amazing achievement, in the space of just three or four generations, it was all over.

I speak, of course, of Rome.

But Rome’s majestic achievement declined and collapsed, alarmingly and quickly.

Rome didn’t fall apart because the Huns came out of the Ardennes Forest or the Scots came over Hadrian’s Wall. Rome fell apart in Rome. It became complacent, lazy, and indolent. Its citizens stopped caring for each other. It became a society for the selfish. Its people concentrated on their rights, not their responsibilities. As it unknowingly approached its own demise, it lacked leadership and blamed everyone but itself.

We all know that Rome wasn’t built in a day but, relatively speaking, it fell apart in an afternoon.

I don’t want that to happen to my country.

I have an essential creed for business’s role in our society – my country.

I have always believed in socially inclusive wealth creation; skilling a dynamic and confident workforce and letting them enjoy the rewards of ability and sheer hard work, instead of allowing yet another generation to be consigned to valueless obscurity by a society and a system that simply doesn’t care – or perhaps even worse, doesn’t know what it’s destroying.

Over the past decade or so, I’ve seen at first hand how political dogmatism, the making of policy in ignorance of real life, and an inability to harness the good of business can lead to the disintegration of a cohesive society. And I’m not sure now that ‘society’ – whatever that is – has the tools, the knowledge or the will to learn how to put itself back together.

We are the sixth biggest manufacturing country on earth. As you read this book, there’s probably an Airbus flying from Santiago in Chile to Sao Paulo in Brazil, or from Chicago to San Francisco, or from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Approximately half of each of those planes is built in Britain. The wings are built in Broughton in North Wales. The undercarriages made in Gloucester. Many of the avionics are made by small businesses in the North and Midlands. Under the wings are the best engines you will find anywhere in the world, made by Rolls Royce in Derby. The Germans, the Spanish and the French all make a sizeable contribution but the bits that are important, the bits that get it up there, keep it up there and bring it safely down again, are all made in the UK.