Clearly Liam Fox’s comments about British Business have caused a big stir. It was a recording of a private meeting, but since everybody carries a recording device in the from of a smart phone, there is today no such thing as a meeting which is private. So Fox knew his remarks would escape the room.
Is he right? Well no doubt there are many who would feel deeply hurt and insulted among the business community, but raw statistics back Fox. At something in the order of $125 billion for 2015, the UK’s trade deficit is the second largest in the world after to the US. This compares with a surplus in Germany of $285 billion, so something is not right for sure. The plain truth is that as a trading nation we are a flop, no matter whose fault it is. We create little new wealth, we are surviving (for the moment but for how long?) on borrowing to inflate assets and we cannot earn enough revenue to properly pay for public services at all levels. We owe more money as a country to the result of the world, yes that’s right, than any other except the US. This is because we fund everything we do by borrowing. much of it overseas. We import 90% of everything we consume. So the Secretary of State for Overseas Trade has a Herculean task ahead of him to turn this mess around. A few harsh, unkind and plain nasty words may be needed to get people to face reality and start to fix it.
It is also worth recording that our most successful exporting industry, motor manufacturing, is entirely foreign owned. It is the Germans, the Japanese, the Indians and more recently the Chinese, who have created success from a disaster heap. That tells us something as well.
The gravity of the hour can be underscored by the fact that this blog is backing Dr Fox. Regular readers will know that this is as close as it gets to pigs flying.