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| Ruined future? Life 10 years after Venezuela's 'worst natural disaster' news.bbc.co.uk |
The art of industry | Jonathan Glancey Mandelson's rejection of so-called smokestack manufacturing lacks vision. We need steel"I'm unashamedly talking about the reindustrialisation of the British economy," Peter Mandelson, minister with a Stakhanovite production of portfolios, told the Guardian earlier this month, "but not by going back to the old smokestack manufacturing past; we know we can't turn the clock back."This interview, a sign of the government's newfound interest in establishing a solid base for the economy after the collapse of the febrile financial sector, was published the day before Corus announced it was to mothball its Teesside steel plant with a loss of 1,700 skilled jobs. Mandelson himself expressed a degree of concern for the Teesside workers, many of whom had worked for Corus, or its predecessor, British Steel, for more than 30 years. However, as theirs were "old smokestack" jobs, their loss is presumably an end to a tattered, grimy and best-forgotten chapter in industrial history.Britain is no longer a great manufacturing nation. Our economy is reliant on the rollercoaster world of services and the endless growth of the retail sector. How we will become a hi-tech neomanufacturing nation, given the decline of industrial culture, is a mystery. Doubtless other ministers will pop out of the titanium panelling to preach the gospel of scientific, digital manufacturing and to condemn "old-fashioned" industry.What, though, is the problem with traditional manufacturing? With making steel, ships and locomotives as well as gadgets? If you walk through Helsinki, one of the world's most hi-tech cities, you will see huge ships under construction in yards cheek by jowl with the latest art galleries, restaurants and studios of designers and architects at the leading edge of their professions.In Stuttgart and Munich, you will find industrial manufacturing celebrated in some of the world's most innovative museums and galleries. Making things, as many people outside Britain believe, is an art. Who would be so ungenerous as to argue that the Queen Mary or the Flying Scotsman weren't works of art? Industrial art. Made by the very same breed of workers who forged steel for Corus at Teesside.Manufacturing is not simply about brute or emergency economics. It's also about a sense of involvement and achievement engendered by shaping and crafting useful, interesting, well-designed things. In becoming a nation primarily of consumers, we have all but lost this sense of being creative and responsible producers. The idea of having to make things with our hands has come to be seen as beneath us, a task best left to stoic Finns, industrious Germans, and, of course, the Chinese, who make so much for us for so very little.When the global economy picks up again, there will be a demand for the high-quality steels Corus made on Teesside, along with the ships and trains and cranes that will load and ferry machinery and goods worldwide. But we will have relegated the skilled workers to a jobless underclass.The government's new fascination with manufacturing seems superficial. The economy has been slow to recover from the recession not least because its manufacturing base has been so weakened. Looking in hope to a new hi-tech producing economy will not provide sufficient foundations for a stable future. We need steel, physically and metaphorically, to support the fragile bones of our economy. We need active producers rather than passive consumers. Sadly, we dismiss our steelworkers and run down the manufacturing our European neighbours find rewarding, while we flirt with a new manufacturing future based on political manouevring rather than common sense.Peter MandelsonEconomic policyCorusManufacturing sectorEuropeJonathan Glanceyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Afro-Cuban priests predict social unrest and coups in 2010 Afro-Cuban priests predict social unrest in 2010 and call on the older generation of leaders - including President Raul Castro - to step aside. news.bbc.co.uk |
Michael White's diary Ten-shun! Infighting among Whitehall's braves spells a Tory stitchup for Stirrup• Stand to attention, you Â'orrible little reader. Doncha know there's a war goin' on? Not just in Afghanistan, either. Top Tories are gunning for Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the defence staff. Why? For one thing he's air force; and the army, which does most of the fighting these days, wants to run the show again. For another he stitched up General Sir Richard Dannatt's hopes of his job by getting a two-year extension from Labour, for whom he tries to micro-manage the Afghan show from Whitehall. Dannatt's coming back as a Tory minister, though not necessarily under flaky Liam Fox, who angered commanders in Helmand by asking them: "Will most of the killing be over by the time we get elected?" When Messrs Hague and Osborne made the same trip this month they took Times editor James Harding, who came back fired up that Stirrup is "dead meat". Not great for the troops' morale, say Labour MPs. But whoever wins will have to butcher equipment budgets like the A400-M Airbus. And slash army numbers by 20% to 80,000, say some.• Furtive Barclays twins – Âfeudal lords on Brecqhou island and the Daily Telegraph – may have Âinadvertently invaded their own cherished privacy in the Decanter magazine. They hired the loquacious Bordeaux wine-maker, Alain Raynaud, to plant five hectares of vines on land they own on neighbouring Sark. Global warming permitting, it should yield chardonnays, chenin blancs, pinot gris and even a sparkler to flog to visitors. Raynaud tells the discriminating wino's tip sheet that he has completed soil and climate analysis: the omens are good. On the other hand, he also seems to have persuaded himself, if not the taciturn twins, that Sark is "on the same latitude as the (wine-kissed) Loire". Oh no, it isn't.• Manchester City's belated arrival in the Premier League's top four reminds supporters of the prediction once made by Sir Howard "three brains" Davies at the launch of the Westminster branch of the Man City supporters' club. The great Mancunian warned listeners that their team "will only finally arrive when it is like Manchester United – truly hated". Nearly there.• Modest Tory blogger Guido Fawkes is claiming "the first blog scalp of the election". Greg Stone was forced to a step down yesterday as Lib Dem candidate against Labour's chief whip, Nick Brown, in Newcastle. Stone's crime? Caught anonymously abusing opponents like Brown and Hazel Blears ("How much Botox is Blears on?") in hooligan online chatrooms like Guido's own. His claim is disputed, but Fawkes, aka Paul Delaire-Staines, promises more such scalpettes. He is also promoting Tory egghead Matthew D'Ancona as next editor of the Indie instead of loutish Lothario Rod Liddle. Critics say D'Ancona looks too much like the BNP's Nick Griffin to prosper. That may change if Barking's Ukip candidate, boxing promoter Frank Maloney, has his way. He is challenging rival Barking (barking?) candidate Griffin to a charity boxing match which the sitting MP, Margaret Hodge, has offered to referee. "I'm completely impartial, holding each in equal contempt," she says, hoping they "reduce one another to pulp". Alas, Griffin is a Cambridge boxing blue. Watch it, Frank.• Also gunning for ÂPatricia Hewitt (pictured) is Pat Arrowsmith, veteran (79) CND pacifist and troublemaker. She recalls that the then Liberty boss, one P Hewitt, called for her release when jailed for subverting soldiers, but barred the office door in person after Arrowsmith escaped from prison and sought sanctuary there.• In the crisis over Iris ("Ulster's Sarah Palin") Robinson's love life, bolshie Stormont politicians might care to ponder their secretary of state's frame of mind. Here's a clue: posh Shaun Woodward's weekend purchases in middle-class John Lewis included a Salter professional knife sharpener, two grey plastic washing-up bowls suitable for collecting spilt blood, and a Magimix food processor suitable for disposing of chopped fingers. Don't panic yet. ÂPlayful Shaun also bought a HUGE ostrich feather duster.Michael Whiteguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Haiti earthquake: search and rescue mission comes to an end The UN has switched the work of its Haiti disaster relief teams from search and rescue to humanitarian and medical aid. telegraph.co.uk |