"I'm All Right Jack"

For the benefit of my non-Brit readers, or even my Brit readers if you are under 50 years of age, I'm All Right Jack was a very successful film made in 1959 starring Peter Sellers but including a cast of some of the very best character actors on British screens at that time.  It was a satire on the utterly crapulous state of British industrial relations of the 1950s which, I might add, continued through the 1960s and gathered strength through the 1970s until the unions ran head first into 'that woman' in the '80s.  Needless to say, British industrial productivity during those decades was abysmal.  However, it is worth reminding ourselves that whilst the behaviour of the unions was a disgrace they got away with what amounted to industrial murder by the weak-kneed, pathetic and incompetent(non)management of the day.  In fact, looking back, it seems fairly clear that once the grim-faced 'Lord Gradgrinds' of the 19th century died off, their 20th century successors proved to be useless in a more sophisticated 20th century.

All of that is by way of drawing your attention to an excellent article by Jeremy Warner in The Telegraph in which he points out that since the 2008 crash productivity from British 'workers'(!) has been abysmal as this diagram shows:

The reasons he adduces to this sad state of affairs are varied but worth reading if only as proof of the belief that the law of unintended consequences rules supreme.  For example, labour is cheap and plentiful in Britain and thus there is little incentive to squeeze more productivity from the working force.  In France, on the other hand,  the labour market is in a state of frozen stasis due to the eye-watering costs to employers if they dare to actually lay off a worker.  Hence, French employers, knowing they face the might of the State if they try to expand by taking on new people and then try to lay them off, simply stick with what they have and squeeze as much out of them as they can - or use modern technology to improve their output.

In the meantime, 'Dim Dave' spends every opportunity boasting of how many jobs have been 'created'(!) under his government without mentioning that all these extra jobs are producing less and less, and anyway, most of them are going to foreign immigrants who think getting the minimum wage is a 'eureka!' moment.  Meanwhile, of course, British management is happy to rest easy on supplying the British market with its insatiable desire for consumer products without bothering to undergo the trials and tribulations of breaking into new foreign markets.

Ah well, it's a British tradition, I guess, and you know how fond we are of tradition!

 

 

Comments

[Lawrence Duff]

Productivity and defence are the two most important "issues" of our time in Britain, and hardly a mention in the policy debate from any of the parties.

The major sump of productivity in Britain is in the large monopoly corporates and the public sector. There must be millions working in the energy, mainstream media, mobile telecomms, banking, pharma, supermarket, NHS, education, central and local government, who puff and blow marketing bullshit and management newspeak at each other and produce nothing.

These companies operate fake competition, where each offers "new customers only" deals, knowing full well they'll gain as many newbies as they'll lose, but none will have to put the prices down, but all can claim falsely that this is competition to keep the monopolies regulators off their backs.

There is a large mobile telco I know that has a campus the size of a small town, in which tens of thousands of "marketing bullshit and management newspeak" graduates from the "new universities" jabber incessantly at each other for 50 minutes in glass bubble meeting rooms, spill out into the 3 or 4 onsite Costas and restaurants for a ten minute jaw rest, before back for another 50 minutes, repeated all day long.

The masts all went up years ago and the phones are made in China. A handful of break-and-fix engineers could run the lot, and your mobile phone bill would be peanuts.

These places are sinks for Britain's vast hidden unemployment, that if released would at least equal France's unemployed.

SoD

[Lawrence Duff]

It's interesting when you just quickly do some sums on it: There are probably 3 million "marketing bullshit and management newspeak" merchants on an average of £40k per annum who produce fuck all, who could be on a benefits package of £10k per annum for the same fuck all, thereby saving 3 million times £30,000 equals £90 billion.

Wanna know where the deficit goes?

SoD

[David Duff]

Language, Lawrence! Who brought you up? Oh . . . !

[Whitewall]

David, I am learning an increasing respect for SoDs offerings on different subjects. As he is descended from Royalty, please just chalk some of the language up to the "flair of writing" needed to reach some of the lower ranks. His points are good.

[jimmy glesga]

Lawrence how do you fancy a system where we do not borrow but just live on the tax income. Would that upset the lenders and those that do not like paying tax? Who are the lenders? No one seems to want to name them. They are just financial institutions!