Labour oversees 'Thatcher beating' manufacturing decline.

[afleitch]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6719732/Importance-of-manufacturing-to-the-economy-almost-halves-under-Labour.html

'Its importance to the economy has declined more rapidly since the party came to power than it did during the Margaret Thatcher era.

When Tony Blair entered Downing Street in 1997, manufacturing accounted for more than 20 per cent of the economy. By 2007, it had dropped to 12.4 per cent.

The recession has pushed this figure even lower, to a little over 11 per cent, according to the study.

It means the importance of manufacturing to the economy has almost halved in 12 years – a sharp contrast to the reduction from 25.8 per cent to 22.5 per cent of output under the Conservative governments of the now Baroness Thatcher.

While manufacturing has suffered, other areas of the economy have risen under Labour. Real Estate accounted for 12.6 per cent of the economy compared with an estimated 16.2 per cent today.

At the same time, banks, building societies and other financial services have seen their share of output rise from 6.6 per cent to 9.1 per cent.

Health and education have also gained importance, with healthcare increasing its share of the economy from 6.2 per cent to an estimated 7.9 per cent this year, while education has jumped from 5.3 per cent to 6.2 per cent.

Shadow Secretary for Business, Ken Clarke said: “New Labour has presided over an unprecedented and catastrophic collapse in the manufacturing sector of our economy during their years in office. They have done the damage to manufacturing about which they now grieve.

“They use the false excuse of blaming the previous Conservative Government, during whose long period in office the decline was comparatively small.

“It is far too late for the Government now to start picking up the Conservative argument that the economy needs to be rebalanced and manufacturing supported." '

[k-onmmunist]

Oh great. We're gradually becoming an unsustainable services based economy. Not good.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The article above doesn't mention it (for some reason - not willing to give credit to a rival publication, maybe) but this was an FT study.

Anyway, another example of the fact that statistics can prove anything so long as you pick the right ones. While it's true that the relative importance in terms of GDP has been sharper over the past decade (not that this is actually news; manufacturing hasn't had a great decade, financial services and related stuff did very well and the public sector expanded quite a bit also), the really big falls (or rather;  the really rapid ones) in manufacturing employment and loss of a lot of critical infrastructure came in the 1980's. The real story is the fact that a great deal of economic policy didn't change when the government did (I'm amused that Ken Clarke has the nerve to complain about manufacturing being abandoned when he's as guilty in that regard as every other finance-related-minister since 1980. Politicians are remarkable creatures). That's normal, I guess, but in this case certainly not a good thing (and I was complaining about this years before it became fashionable to do so again).
The interesting question is what happens next. All party leaderships having magically converted to the position that making things is a good thing means that we'll see a lot of cosmetic changes in terms of the political debate over manufacturing... actually, we have done already... but in terms of adopting something that looks like an industrial policy... no, not seen nothing from no one yet. That will eventually change, but when?

[Beet]

Even the most die hard Labour supporter has to admit that Labour has failed utterly, completely, and disastrously at implementing Conservative economic policies.