The UK bet its future on being open to trade generations ago, and this has intensified as the UK's economy has been engineered into a focus on services rather than manufacturing; so when supply chains are disrupted prices rise & supplies are constrained.
The US/Israeli attack(s) on Iran are now having a wide range of disruptive effects as we know, but the latest to be identified as a potential problem is medicines.... that might be pretty serious!
@ChrisMayLA6 I see two main factors in the decline of British manufacturing.
1. The make-do and mend attitude and lack of investment in the decades after WW2 (even though UK got far more Marshall Aid money than a defeated Germany did).
2. Margaret Thatcher.
@wood5y @ChrisMayLA6 I think there's a bit more at play than just that.
Exploitation of cheap overseas labour, and a lack of environmental concerns with overseas factories have played a large part.
As the pollution and destruction was not in their backyard and therefore not largely visible to their customers, companies have gotten away with bypassing most of the environmental legislation that places like the EU have introduced (and those protections are no where near sufficient imo, so it speak volumes as to the crimes likely committed abroad).
And the globalisation of the labour market should need no explanation. Why hire a skilled automotive engineer in Solihull (if you've ever owned a Land Rover, I appreciate you might consider this term a bit of a stretch) when for the same price you can get three in China?
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
Steve Woods
Fishd