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Matt Oliver Industry Editor |
Speaking at Labour’s annual conference last week, Andy Burnham pledged to usher in a “new age of industrialisation” for Britain.
It’s a policy that’s gone down well with the party’s membership and union backers, particularly as the Prime Minister has vowed a bigger role for the state.
Even so, what does more industrialisation really mean? That part, experts say, remains far from clear, and achieving it is far from easy.
As a share of Britain’s economic output, manufacturing has been in decline for decades, having gone from accounting for 30 per cent of all jobs in the 1970s to less than 8 per cent today.
There are powerful structural forces behind this change, not least growing competition from countries such as China and soaring energy costs.
While Burnham and John Healey, the Chancellor, are pledging to reboot British industry, critics say the rest of their economic agenda seems almost perfectly designed to achieve the opposite.
Increases to national insurance contributions, more onerous employment laws and carbon taxes on energy consumption are just a few of the things that have pushed up costs for businesses.
This is why Make UK, the manufacturers’ body, has warned that factories face an “existential threat”.
With my colleagues Szu Ping Chan and Emma Taggart, I asked economists, businesses and experts what they thought about Labour’s plan to reindustrialise Britain. Continue reading ➤ |
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Neil McCormick Chief Music Critic |
My song choices for the Music of the Decades have been stirring comment and debate among readers.
There has been a lot of love expressed for the nostalgic sounds of the Fifties, the beat explosion of the Sixties, the harmonic golden age of the Seventies and a little more disagreement about what should still be celebrated from the gaudy Eighties.
This week, the series ventures into the Nineties. There was a great spirit of confidence about pop at this time, a decade that saw the rise of Britpop, inspiring notions of “Cool Britannia”.
There was also grunge rock from America, hip hop, trip hop, techno and a shiny new plastic RnB to contend with.
The burning question for some will be whether I have found space for the Spice Girls. Continue reading ➤
Have I got it right? Join me in the comment section from 10am to have your say.
In case you missed them, read my musical rankings of other decades:
The 30 best songs of the 1950s, ranked ➤
The 30 best songs of the 1960s, ranked ➤
The 30 best songs of the 1970s, ranked ➤
The 30 best songs of the 1980s, ranked ➤ |
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Janet Daley The Prime Minister’s desire for proportional representation is the antithesis of democratic accountability Continue reading ➤
Jake Wallis Simons Whisper it, but America might be winning the Iran war Continue reading ➤
Simon Heffer The BBC once made great contributions to our culture, but it’s time for it to go Continue reading ➤ |
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Just before she set off to Birmingham for this year’s Conservative Party conference – which starts this morning – Kemi Badenoch sat down with Camilla Turner. The Tory leader explained why she believes the tax system must start rewarding people who “are being treated as if they’re all billionaires when they’re actually just about able to get by”. She used the interview to set out her pitch to Britain’s aspiring middle classes by promising to scrap the £100,000 childcare cliff edge, while accusing Labour of being the “welfare party”. Continue reading ➤
Telegraph View: Badenoch is right to end the war on success
Plus, here is what is happening today at the conference:
• 8.30am: Badenoch is expected to take part in her traditional pre-conference media round, including an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg at 9am • 2pm: The Tory leader will make the first of two speeches to the Tory faithful
• 4.30pm: Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, fields questions from Tory police and crime commissioners
• 5pm: Katie Lam, the new shadow housing secretary, will take part in an “in conversation with” event to discuss the homes Britain needs |
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Go woke, go broke? Such has been the gleeful reaction of many on the Right in America to the news that Nike’s share price has collapsed by 76 per cent since 2021, writes Tim Wigmore. However, the company has also been attacked as not woke enough, suffering from rising anti-Americanism abroad. “Lots of things definitely changed because of social media,” a Nike insider told me. “Hindsight’s a great thing.” Continue reading ➤ |
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Prepared to provide the corduroy, braces, and regular greenhouse dispatches in a dressing gown, Caroline Quentin is cross. The BBC has not called her to succeed Monty Don on Gardeners’ World. So, frustrated by television chiefs who “always play it safe”, the Men Behaving Badly star has embarked on a surprising reinvention elsewhere. Continue reading ➤ |
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The Royal family’s jewellery collection is unsurpassed, not just because of the exquisite designs and countless precious stones, but because each piece is immersed in regal history. From the diamond tiara that snapped on Elizabeth II’s wedding day to the striking Japanese pearls worn for state banquets and funerals, Kim Parker has delved into the stories behind some of the Royal family’s most treasured items. Continue reading ➤ |
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As an oncoplastic surgeon, Anushka Chaudhry spends her days treating women with breast cancer and battling the misinformation they’ve picked up along the way. From the truth about how alcohol and HRT affect diagnosis, to why finding a lump is no longer a death sentence, she shares everything she wishes her patients knew about the disease. Continue reading ➤
- As Helen Mirren’s go-to makeup artist, there’s very little that 67-year-old Val Garland doesn’t know about working with mature skin. Here, she reveals how to get the best from your make-up in midlife.
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Roaming around the Midlands by train this week, I saw that our Victorian rail network handles an implausible amount of traffic remarkably well. There are limits, and every now and again Network Rail must renew key stretches – the festive season, with far fewer commuters, is regarded as the least bad time to close lines and stations.
Birmingham New Street, the busiest station outside London, will shut for five days after the final train on Dec 23. During the closure, bus shuttles will link New Street with Birmingham International, Tamworth and Wolverhampton while some trains divert through strange corners of the West Midlands.
Some GWR trains will run from London Euston to Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea, albeit by a convoluted route |
Travellers between Bristol, Cardiff and London can expect some fresh scenery, too: along the East West line between Oxford and Milton Keynes. There is still no sign of “normal” Chiltern Railways services on this expensive new route, though, because of a bitter dispute over who operates the train doors.
Members of the RMT union will strike on the next two Saturdays over the issue. Continue reading ➤ |
Shackleton aboard his boat, Elizabeth Bligh, known as ‘Lizzy’ |
Jasper Shackleton, who has died aged 68, was a furniture designer from Dorset who in 1989 led an expedition to mark the bicentenary of Captain Bligh’s 4,000-mile voyage across the Pacific. He sailed in a replica of the 23ft boat in which Bligh was set adrift by mutineers aboard HMS Bounty in 1789.
Using plans from the National Maritime Museum he built a replica of the Bounty’s open boat and named it Elizabeth Bligh after Bligh’s wife.
Shackleton, seated, with his crew |
He recruited five others for the voyage from Tonga to Timor, but took no modern navigation equipment, relying on sextants, charts and “dead reckoning”. Early on, the cook collapsed with appendicitis and had to be evacuated. Then, in the Coral Sea, Shackleton faced a Force 10 storm with 30ft waves and “dense streaks of spume” recorded in the log.
As Shackleton put it: “What drew us all to it was the romance of the story… I was aware that it was potentially very tough and we might all get drowned.” There were certainly many more surprises to come. Read the full obituary here ➤ |
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1883 | The Orient Express departs on its first official journey from Paris to Constantinople
2011 | US state department offers a $10m reward for information leading to the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
2012 | Michael Schumacher announces his retirement from motor racing
2017 | Theresa May experiences a nightmare speech at the Conservative Party conference as she suffers a coughing fit, a prankster interrupts and the set collapses (you can see our front page from the following day below)
Birthdays: Dakota Johnson (37), Nick Mohammed (46), Anneka Rice (68)
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Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was EXFOLIATE. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. |
Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk. |
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