Worrying

[principled]

With the government's wish to get the UK manufacturing again, the news below makes for harsh reading. Not because of the fact that the defence tanker contract went to S. Korea but because- apparently:

UK firms took part in the tender, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said none made a final bid to take part.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17127488
Does this mean that the skills that led to our shipbuilding prowess are in such short supply that we can't even build a tanker? If so, then it is another indication of the shear lunacy of our successive governments' rush to the apparently "easy money" of the services and financial sector over the previous 30 years.
In wanting us to manufacture again, I wonder if our political masters believe that training an engineer takes just 3/4 years at a university or that training a craftsman takes just a 3-year apprenticeship? If so, then they are more deluded than I thought.
P

[jonjel]

Principled.

We can certainly build tankers, but the Koreans can no doubt build them cheaper. By the time the shipyard workers in the UK have negotiated height money, noxious fume money, dirty weather money and 101 other things we can't compete. H&S is important, but I doubt it is anything like as stringent in Korea as it is in the UK. Add to that the working hours restrictins we have here.

Add to the melting pot that the Korean shipyards undoubtedly get subsidies of some kind from their government and we are no loner competing on a level playing field.

I quoted a job to a company in the Midlands I knew very well.They were for use in Hong Kong. The MD rang me and apologetically told me we would not get it, because he could buy two for the price I gave him, in China, for the same numbers I had given him but in US dollars. I did a quick calculation and we could not have even bought the major components for that.