to ask people to support their country

[tuffie]

If everyone made a pledge to buy more products made in Britain, the country would climb out of recession much more quickly.

Op, if only it were that simple!

southeastastra - that'll solve the obesity problem too, then

Well, if your aim is to encourage jobs in manufacturing in the UK, then it doesn't matter who ultimately owns the company, it matters where it was made as those staff are being paid to make it in the UK, they are earning their wage and paying taxes and will be spending that money in their local community as well.

As other posters have alluded to. It is not at all clear what 'Buying Bristish' means.

A company incorporated in the UK but selling imported products.

A foreign firm selling products made in the UK from imported raw materials.

Both cases might be thought of as 'Buying British'

lurking - thanks, would love to hear - hope it's good !

"English Wine" is made from grapes grown, pressed and matured in England. It is sometimes very good, though as it tends to be rather expensive, opinions differ about the VFM.

"British Wine" is made fom imported concentrated grape juice, in tankers, tipped into vats in Britain. It is generally to considered to be not very good. It tends to be rather inexpensive.

Funny, one of the first sentences I learned in Latin was 'vinum britannicum pessimum est'.

I do things like buying British meat.

Any good?

Yep, totally agree Lydia - no problems with which country owns the company - after all we are all "globalised" now , but just those products that actually say "made in the UK" are the ones I look out for. As another poster also mentioned, it's also much better for the environment if we're not ferrying all our stuff in from abroad.
One supermarket I went in recently was stocking free range chickens from France, and NONE from England, which I found a bit bizarre, and quite depressing for our farmers (and the poor chickens that had to make the journey, but that's for another thread !)

Thanks Piglet, I didn't know there was that distinction. Of course the problem in this country is lack of decent spells of sunshine for the grapes. Now sunshine is something it WOULD be good to import... !

tuffie* - don't worry. They were slaughtered and packed in France and brought here in a refrigerated container ship.

Its a globalised World. It is frankly almost impossible to buy a truely British product but in reality the World is better off if we encourage trade and far worse off if we all try to erect trade barriers.

No, i don't want a typhoon fighter (bae systems), or a brompton bike (aren't these about the only things manufactured here now?)

Erm but what if 'your country' isn't Britain?

joanofarchitrave - thanks for site details - looks good.

BadTaste - I take your point. I have to travel around Europe quite a bit, and obviously buy their products whilst there. But my concern is that a much larger proportion of their goods are actually made in their own country than is the case in Britain. Just a small example( apart from the chicken example above), French supermarkets sell predominantly French cheese and no British cheese. Conversely, our supermarkets are full of French cheese. Some cynics may say that is because our cheese is inferior, but I do not believe that to be the case. Somerset Brie is delicious !

If I had the choice I would prefer to live in a country where the supermarket stocks a range of cheese from Britain, France, Italy, Greece, and other countries than one that only stocked cheese from the country I was in.

Not only are British products far more expensive but protectionism is a bad thing.
Globally if we all did that then everyone both here and abroad would be worse off: if it can be more efficiently produced elsewhere then it makes sense for it to be produced there because it's cheaper!

Incidentally on a level you're right, if everyone in Britain did that but no other countries changed their spending habits our economy would grow but we'd only be doing that by screwing over other countries which would then affect us.

I think it's fair enough to buy goods made in Britain, over goods made in another country, if both products are of equal quality. I buy mostly locally produced meat, because it's free range, local free range eggs, English or Welsh butter etc.

Mind you, I feel very sorry for Greece and, purely to help their economy, I have been buying bucket loads of Mavrodaphne (sp?) wine from Waitrose

Oh dear it is British wine I have bought. Oh well, I can always wash it down with the Blossom Hill Rose I also bought!!

I know I know what I can buy to get the economy going!!!!!!!!! Not only British, but also made locally to me.

This!

"It works brilliantly." "it costs an almost reasonable £168,500 yet is constructed around a carbon chassis that is normally reserved for cars costing twice as much; it runs on a sophisticated hydraulic suspension set-up and is powered by a brand new McLaren-designed V8 engine and dual-clutch gearbox.

Oh, and the McLaren MP4-12C's vital statistics are 592bhp, 443lb ft and 1434kg. Remember that the McLaren's target - the Ferrari 458 Italia - makes do with 562bhp, 398lb ft and weighs 1485kg."

McLaren? A baby buggy?

small issue of funding though... do you think i can get a mortgage, from a UK bank of course

MushroomMagee - "if it can be more efficiently produced elsewhere then it makes sense for it to be produced there because it's cheaper"

I'm not sure this should be universally applied, as we would see an increase in the notorious sweat shops of the Far East if that were the case.

I would like one of those Maclarens though.....