Brexit has made Coronavirus much worse

[ludicrouslemons]

Brexit means we started this crisis with

• fewer nhs staff
• knackered civil servants
• a PM and cabinet elected for loyalty to an ideology rather than competence and experience
• less money (more has been spent on Brexit prep than we've ever given in eu contributions)
• failure to co-ordinate with Eu nations on sourcing ventilators etc
• taking eye off the ball re pandemic readiness

I'm sure there's more. Is it still project fear? I think there would have been ways to deliver Brexit responsibly but they haven't been found.

Most notably, Johnson should have a wider range of ministers including people prepared to oppose him and voice dissent. He appointed a load of inexperienced lackeys and it shows.

I'm worried about food security, especially if they go ahead with brexit regardless of the consequences to food imports.

How could anyone think brexit should go ahead amid this mess?

I am certainly rethinking my need for so much imported goods and have genuinely started to look at the origins of products.

I trust you are not planning to go around naked then, Doubletrouble? I know I have talked about the textile industry before and where our clothes are now made. I have just changed into my nightclothes and of the ones I have taken off, one item was made in India, two in Bangladesh, one in Cambodia and one where the writing has worn off the label, so I can't tell. My DH has still got a load of ties going back to the 1970s. Those bought in the seventies were usually made in the UK. I myself used to work in textile factories in the late sixties/early seventies when I was a student. What we made varied with the factory but we mostly made lingerie and ties - virtually all of which is now made abroad. Furthermore, I can remember some of the factories going bankrupt in the late 60s - before we were in the EU so we can't blame them. I myself blame poor management, lack of good marketing, and a lack of investment - some of the machinery we used looked as though it belong to the 19th century. We ought to have been able to read the writing on the wall, and realise that we weren't going to be able to compete with the far east when it came to cheap and cheerful stuff, so we should have retooled to provide high quality goods, of which there would still be a market.

An interesting industry to look at Peregrina, I too have connections with the textile industry coming from an area of the UK famous for wool and cashmere and doing fashion design at college in the 70s. Several relatives worked in the industry back in the day and even now. Like all industry cheaper labour was a major factor but in the case of the woollen mills the machinery needed to keep up required massive investment as you say but also the mill buildings were of no use to house them. as they were far to heavy and the floors wouldn't have taken them. No mill around me was ever built on one level. As for clothing companies, I remember going around loads of lingerie factories and blouse factories in the North East, many making for M & S. My flat mate did her work experience in a tie factory!

I don't see the whole textile industry coming back to the UK but I would like to see people rethinking fast fashion, buying less and recycling/repurposing.

We are in agreement here Doubletrouble - I think the two of us have debated this before i.e. about 3 years ago. It would have taken a massive investment back in the 1950s and 60s to bring the mills up to a standard to make high quality goods for which they could charge premium prices.

M &S contracts were good to have in that they paid good piece rates - but they could be very exacting, so they could be a mixed blessing. DH's aunt worked in a shoe factory, and M & S cancelled an order part way through, so the goods had to go to factory shops and markets.

Even firms which we think are British now mostly manufacture abroad.

If the Covid helps to kill off fast cheap and cheerful fashion produced by young women in Asia paid a pittance then it might be no bad thing. Except then those women would have no work, so it's a difficult problem to resolve.

Because Italy did such a good job of containing Covid-19. Oh wait.

Brexit has fuck all to do with this.

So in what way does discouraging EU staff from coming to the UK not have anything to do with Brexit? Saint Boris himself was nursed by a man from Portugal - maybe if this had struck next year, he would have had to manage with Jenny from Portugal trying to look after him single handed?

Mr Johnson's 'deal' was to capitulate and agree a border in the Irish Sea. Any idiot could have got that deal. It was a deal the previous leader of the Conservative and Union party refused, well, because of the union bit.

To go back to this - he probably hadn't read the details, and if he had them pointed out, thought that he could piffle and waffle his way out of them. He might just find that International Treaties, like viruses, aren't susceptible to his waffle.

Sorry, Jenny was from New Zealand.

Peregrina, yes we have discussed this before. M & S were to the textile industry in the UK what the Supermarkets are to the dairy industry today!
Orders from them really were a poisoned challis.
I think the point of immigration with the Brexit context has always been that everyone, from where ever they come from in the world should be treated equally, thus there may be more Jennys from NZ as well as nurses from the EU. This virus has certainly increased interest in the UK from entrants to the caring professions so we must ensure there are enough training places to accommodate them and ensure we are never in the situation again of having such dire shortages in the NHS.

There was nothing stopping us from treating people equally. The hostile environment for citizens from the rest of the world was an active choice.

Treating everyone equally would have meant freedom of movement for all! I really don't think many people would have been keen on that.

I do wonder just how many people would actually want to come even with freedom of movement for all? As it is now, Priti Patel is still going ahead with her plans to limit immigration to the relatively better off - despite our finding out that people like delivery drivers are key workers.

This virus has certainly increased interest in the UK from entrants to the caring professions
Is there actually evidence that what has happened in the UK over the past weeks has led to more people wishing to move to the UK and work in these professions? That seems counter-intuitive, though I'm happy to be proven wrong...

This is off topic really but discussion about the textiles and poor management in local textile factories got me thinking. I don't recall any fashion students doing work placements in local factories, despite there being well regarded FE and Art colleges locally. You would have thought that they could all have co-operated to produce a good training package. But to my knowledge, no one had the vision to make this happen, and it doesn't surprise me that the industry went down the pan.

Lots of interesting conversations going on here which is good to see. History, ancient to modern and the very recent (should've, could've, would've) are relevant to the present, I do think that double has a very valid point.

Also i'd add to this that the 'scheme' of global supply-chains that feed our consumerism is very questionable and should be of immediate debate.

I think that indigeneous textiles and, so, their role in fashion is a very good example of the many facets of the Global Supply-Chain Debates we must have.

Myself, my clothes are turning to rags, can't wait for the Charity Shops to open; if I had more time on my hands (still some work and a bit of parenting/edu-guidance) I'd be weaving rugs out of my clothes.

Peregrina I did Fashion Design at what was then Newcastle Poly. and many placements were locally in different factories but maybe not necessarily on the shop floor.
Yes HateIsNotGood I really hope many more people will rethink consumerism and this disposable society we have become. The lock down has given many people time to rethink especially about the clean air we now have and how their behaviours have such a big impact on this. Staycation is now a big buzz word, many people no longer have much of an appetite for a lot of travel in the near future. I so hope changes to the way we all live will be accelerated massively after this.

In our textile city the main players did abandon the mills and invest in modern technology, and survived / prospered even into the 80s (a lot of moaning about paying 97.5 % tax by some of the prominent families) making high quality wool cloth. Then Maggie came along and decided that the textile industry was another arm of manufacturing that could not compete with the Far East and focused on the service sector (which is why our economy is skewed). The most cost effective modern machinery was powered by gas, or at least it was in the 70s against the background of the oil crisis and coal strikes, and with an exponential increase in the utility charges In the 80s as they shaped up for privatisation the technology ceased to be cost effective so it was a self fulfilling prophecy. A couple of players survive much reduced in size and providing high fashion high quality wool to the couture houses. It certainly wasn’t M&S that were the villains, it was the “party of business” . Not only did a lot of efficient businesses that could have survived serving a larger part of that market segment go under, it ripped the heart out of the city, and it has yet to recover.

I don't know who exactly were the villains in our town's case - not M & S especially. As far as the cheap and cheerful stuff went, Maggie was right - we could not compete with Bangladesh. I am quite sure that we could have upgraded. Yes, most stuff now comes out of the Far East, but as yet the quality isn't always there. I may be wrong on this but I think Italy still has a textile industry because they have gone for higher quality.

It terms of the local colleges supporting the industry, I was thinking more at a slightly lower level more like City and Guilds or OND level courses. As it was most women left school at 15, did a few weeks training on the overlockers and that was it. I am quite sure there was much more to learn about the textile industry. Anyway, it's long gone now and I don't think we could get it back even if we were to invest.

I was incidentally talking about a time before Maggie Thatcher - the Wilson/Heath era, so the rot had well and truly set in before she came on the scene.

My recollections of the textile industry and it's demise are way before Maggie too. In the Scottish Borders where I come from things had collapsed well before then. The knitwear industry in my neck of the woods was always of a high quality, focusing on cashmere and top end pure wool.

If these industries were around now they would have all sorts of training opportunities but back then factories in North East where I went to college certainly didn't bother at all. There were a few trained staff in the likes of pattern cutting but often that was a 'man's' job!
I do remember a few smaller companies relying on M and S and then when the went else where or refused stock that was the end of them. Few retailers were focused on quality and trying to buy British like M and S so there was little work for these manufacturers when most retailers were only interested in price.

Yes, pattern cutting was definitely a "man's job".