Rhys Davies

@rcdavies

Common culture and community. Believer in manufacturing & interested in productivity. Trade should be balanced & energy should be renewable.

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Rhys Davies@rcdavies· 1d

....and the obligatory graph to go with my Thatcher comments (with apologies to my followers who have seen it a dozen or more times).

Graph, based on ONS figures, showing the collapse of Britain's trade balance from about 1981 to the end of Thatcher's time as PM, followed by a stabilisation during Major's office, then renewed collapse with the economically Thatcherite New Labour government.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· 8d

Clearly, the Premier league is a major international TV product, but the loss of top-flight football as a source of national stories is one big downside. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Graph feom the Guardian article showing the increase of non-British or Irish managers and players from less than 20% in 1990 to almost 75% in 2026.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· 23d

There is an orthodoxy in this that has to be challenged. We have 20+ yrs evidence that high immigratn, a loose labour market, and lots of students has not delivered decent social care, wage growth or reindustrialisatn. A tight labour market & more technical training (not unis) are first steps.

Blog extract. The biggest question about ‘Burnhamist’ nostalgia is how far its overlap with Brexitism extends to immigration policy, and continues with the false proposition that it is possible to have economic prosperity and thriving public services as well as draconian immigration controls, and that this is necessary to see off the threat from Reform. The retention of Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary might suggest that this is just what is in prospect. If so, that is going to make Burnham’s (highly laudable) aspirations to reform the social care system undeliverable. It will also undermine his ideas of regional re-industrialisation since central to any realistic possibility of this are universities, which are currently being immolated on the altar of ‘legitimate concerns’ about immigration.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jul 15

These are full match statistics, so the last quarter was all Argentina. With Messi on the team and a couple of distance sharp shooters alongside him 😒

Game statistics showing for England and Argentina respectively: Shots 6 to 14, Shots on target: 3 to 6; Possesion 36% to 64%

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jul 12

Britain's deindustrialisation was a political choice. It can be unmade by political decisions. All we ask is that trade should be about balanced. That will not be achieved by finance as services (as the past 40 years has shown). So a revival of industry is required.

Graph showing the UK's trade deficit which grew throughout most of Thatchers government, levelled off in Major's time and expanded hugely and consistently from the election of Blair until the Cameron government (at which point this data series runs out).

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jul 4

A new, more balanced system of international trade is surely coming as more and more nations find themselves losers in the current system.

WSJ extract: This evolution was a deliberate, state-backed engineering feat. Under its “10,000 Little Giants” initiative, the Chinese government funneled massive subsidies, tax breaks and state resources into thousands of specialized midsize firms, explicitly designed to replace Germany’s famed “hidden champions.”

There are still German companies that make products that China needs, said Barkin. These include Trumpf, a maker of lasers, and Zeiss, which manufactures optical devices used in medical machines and chip-making equipment. But Beijing is trying to address those dependencies and produce those goods.

WSJ extract: Mittelstand businesses, which long prided themselves on a die-hard free-trade ethic, have recently started requesting government protection from state-backed Chinese firms.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jun 20

The graph and the narrative seem to contradict each other. From this, I would say maximising Britain's productivity would mean focusing on Auto, Pharma and Computers (all volume industries), not the things Britain is 'good at' or niches (which by nature can't move the dial).

Extract from the OP article showing a graph of Productivity growth across key industries in the UK since 1998 and how productivity in Automotive and pharma has been high and low in Finance and Retail. Below the graph is the somewhat contradictory text "Why does the UK have too few successful, productive, international industries? There are many reasons, but the most important is that the UK has simply fallen out of love with the things it is good at. The things the UK excels at – finance and business services, tech and the creative economy, various advanced manufacturing niches – depend on openness: to trade, to ideas, to skilled workers."

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jun 14

Many people including you, I presume, did not experience this curve pre-brexit. If you lived in the deindustialising North and Midlands, it was keenly felt.

Graph from the BBC based on ONS data showing that UK average wages stagnated from the GFC in 2008.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jun 10

Sunrise, just at that point when you can actually watch it climbing against the horizon.

Sunrise over a bay, just at that point when you can actually see it rising against the horizon. The low sky is deep red, with the sun a light white dot. The foreground looking out over the bay is dark. Whisps of high orange clouds are pierced by what might be a pale vapour trail which is a bright yellow.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jun 1

If only leader writers move away from the cliche that Western workers and corporations can be unskilled always to be ahead of the competition. To balance trade Western nations must compete in all domains like manufacturing, not just fantasy niches with insurmountable walls and moats.

FT extract:

This would then allow western governments to devote more resources to upskilling workers displaced by import competition, while pursuing the reforms needed to strengthen their countries’ competitiveness. These include reducing barriers to investment, innovation and entrepreneurialism.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· May 23

Even if one accepts the lump of labour fallacy, the labour market is not sufficiently elastic to instantaneously adjust. If you add more labour, prices will temporarily fall. If you keep adding labour year after year, the effect is sustained. migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...

Migration observatory data showing progression of monthly median earnings by origin and cohort for recent immigratants form 2015. It shows that in all cases earnings start around or below 80% of the median and take up to 2 years to reach parity, sometimes up to 6 before exceeding it.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· May 22

Productivity hasn't grown since 2008, and for sections of the population, the slowdown begun even earlier. Inequality has increased, but that is to be expected in a stagnant economy where returns on capital exceed productivity growth. lordslibrary.parliament.uk/economic-gro...

Graph from the link attached showing productivity rising smoothly until 2008, at which point there is an infection and productivity continues as a lower level. The figures are taken from the ONS.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· May 10

As I have said several times on this thread, it is not the rules or regs that are consequential, but the numbers. The transition to a culture of permanent high net immigration is undeniably a Blair-era innovation, turbocharged by EU accession in the early 2000s. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Graph showing gross and net UK immigration figures from the 1960s (taken from the attached link). It shows net emigration until the early 1980s and then fluctuating net numbers before about 2000, after which numbers increased and remained around 200,000 annually. A red line has been added to demarcate the upward inflexion in about 1997.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Apr 30

This corresponds to my shock in 2015 when I took the train from NY to Washington passing through the derelict US hinterland of some of its most prosperous states. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Apr 28

Britain's youth unemployment is exacerbated the its loose labour market and almost certainly by the very high immigration after covid. It is a fantasy that the jobs market will automatically flex to absorb high immigration even in a downturn. www.theguardian.com/money/2026/a...

Guardian article extract:

The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the UK was facing a “crisis” in youth jobs amid a dramatic rise in the number of 16- to 24-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training (Neets) to almost 1 million – the highest level in more than a decade.

It said a “quartet of causes” had led the UK to lose ground against many of its international peers, led by a rise in ill-health among young people, weak vocational education, a hands-off benefits system and a deteriorating jobs market.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Apr 12

The huge inflexion and plateau after the GFC suggest that it was not an organic change, like an ageing population, that is the source of the problem.

Graph of UK weekly wages adjusted for inflation showing that wages stagnated after the Great Financial Crash in 2007 at about £590

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Mar 5

With high unemployment, massive underemployment (on benefits),& rising youth unemployment, we'll take our chances on low immigration, thanks George. (Why do certain Englishmen always deny the existence of the English as an ethnic group?). www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Guardian Snippet: Net migration might turn negative this year, with dire consequences for crucial public services, especially hospitals, care homes and universities as well as many private employers.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Mar 5

It's reassuring to see a senior politician who gets the nature of the problem. The scale of recent immigration (2.4m in 4 years!) could never be absorbed by the labour market without forcing up unemployment & underemployment (the British-born young on benefits). www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In the four years to the 2024 general election, this country experienced levels of migration not seen in more than four decades. Net migration hit 2.5 million people. It wasn’t only the scale, but the nature and pace of change. After the Conservatives dropped visa requirements, this country experienced the largest and fastest expansion in low-skilled migration in its history. Visa routes were loosened without safeguards. Large numbers of people arrived without clear pathways into skilled work.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Mar 4

The problem predates Trump by a long way. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance...

Wikipedia graph of the US trade balance since 1895 showing the collapse from the 1970s and the persistent trade deficit there after.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Feb 26

For those interested in manufacturing, and in particular its retreat in America (and the West at large), I highly recommend Vaclav Smil's: Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing.

Screenshot of the cover of Vaclav Smil's book: Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Feb 20

Hope I haven't misread this....but this is what I was looking at in particular. It just seems really high.

Graph of Graduate premiums by percentage of graduates in the population by country. The US has premiums of up to 90%

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Feb 15

Absolutely extraordinary that Wales get these stats and still lose 54-12. In every dimension except points, it looks like a competitive, even a winning result.

Wales - France Rugby 6 Nations results:

54% / 50% Possession 1H/2H 46% / 50%
38% / 43% Territory 1H/2H 62% / 57%
6 Clean Breaks 17
23 Defenders Beaten 34
13 Offload 25
122 / 127 (96%) Rucks Won 85 / 86 (98%)
1 / 1 (100%) Mauls Won 6 / 6 (100%)
13 Turnovers Conceded 22

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Feb 15

Having read Rubio's speech, which was obviously written to flatter a European audience, I found it presented refreshing realism; a straightforward rejection of economies run on outsourcing and immigration.

Speech extract: Deindustrialization was not inevitable. It was a conscious policy choice, a decades-long economic undertaking that stripped our nations of their wealth, of their productive capacity, and of their independence. And the loss of our supply chain sovereignty was not a function of a prosperous and healthy system of global trade. It was foolish. It was a foolish but voluntary transformation of our economy that left us dependent on others for our needs and dangerously vulnerable to crisis.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Feb 6

The surest way to reduce the bargaining power of labour is to increase the pool of labour. Both Republicans and Democrats have colluded in this (mirrored in other western nations). Unions mean solidarity & it is impossible to create lasting solidarity without social cohesion & a common identity.

Graph showing the number of immigrants and their share of the total US population from 1850 to 2024. The percentage was stable at around 12-15% from 1860 to 1910 before dropping consistently to about 5% in 1970, then climbing consistently to 15% in 2024. This mirrors the drop in union membership and is the obverse of the increase in inequality.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jan 30

Wait, haven't we seen this story before? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Snippet from linked article: In the energy sector, British firm Octopus Energy is entering the Chinese market for the first time through a partnership with local company PCG Power to develop a digital platform for trading electricity.

The project aims to improve efficiency in the power system and support China's efforts to increase the use of renewable energy.

For Octopus, which has grown quickly in the UK, the deal allows entry into China's large and growing energy market, where demand for clean energy and digital trading is rising.

Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy who was part of the UK's business delegation to China flagged that the country's scale and innovation have made solar, wind energy and batteries cheaper.

"Now there's a huge opportunity for Britain to succeed as we build the solutions that use these products to cut the cost of electricity," he added.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jan 30

Typically British trade deal: entirely lopsided 🙄 I would do my best to hide these details if I were the government, they are that embarrassing. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Article extract: The UK also signed a number of agreements on closer economic cooperation, including greater trade and services, making it easier for British firms to operate there. They included a £10.8bn investment by the pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca in its Chinese operation.

Beijing also agreed to halve its tariff on Scotch whisky imports from 10% to 5%, estimated to benefit the industry by £250m over five years. It is Scotland’s 10th largest whisky market.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jan 29

Britain's corporate and political class are greedy, dogmatic, and willfully and even dangerously naive. Spend small change at home, and orders of magnitude more in an authoritarian state, despite the evidence not to...

Britain’s biggest drugmaker AstraZeneca is to invest $15bn (£11bn) in China, it announced during Keir Starmer’s visit to the country, just months after cooling on plans for expansion in the UK.

The Cambridge-based company said it would spend the money by 2030 to expand medicines manufacturing and research and development in China, where it already has a big presence. It includes the construction of a $2.5bn research hub in Beijing, which was announced last March.

During the first visit by a British prime minister to China in eight years, Starmer said the move would help AstraZeneca to grow into a bigger business, thereby supporting thousands of UK jobs.

The move comes after a period of cooling relations between the government and AstraZeneca, with the entire pharmaceutical industry at loggerheads with ministers over drug pricing and other issues, resulting in a deal in December. The company paused a planned £200m expansion of a research site in Cambridge in September, having ditched a £450m investment at its vaccine site in Speke near Liverpool at the start of last year.

Pascal Soriot, the AstraZeneca chief executive, said the “landmark investment” marked the next chapter for the company in China, which “has become a critical contributor to scientific innovation, advanced manufacturing, and global public health”.

However, AstraZeneca is under investigation by Chinese authorities over allegations of unpaid import taxes on certain cancer drugs, breaches of data privacy laws and medical insurance fraud. Several of its staff were detained in 2024, including the president of its Chinese subsidiary, Leon Wang.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jan 29

This surely window dressing for this trip. It's risible to believe this is in any way a meaningful policy. There's no way to monitor it. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Extract from Guardian article: More now on Downing Street saying earlier that Starmer and Xi would announce in Beijing that the UK and China would jointly combat gangs involved in trafficking illegal migrants.

The deal is to focus on reducing the use of Chinese-made engines for small boats that transport people across Europe to claim asylum, Reuters reports.

Downing Street said British and Chinese officials would share intelligence to identify smugglers’ supply routes and work with Chinese manufacturers to prevent legitimate businesses from being exploited by organised crime.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jan 29

Starmer must have cringed, and Cameron must feel overlooked. Xi trying to be party political. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Extract from article: Xi also praised former Labour governments, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, for working constructively on bilateral relations. He said: “In the past, Labour governments made important contributions to the growth of China-UK relations.

“China stands ready to develop with the UK a long-term and consistent strategic partnership. It will benefit our two peoples.”

The two leaders spoke privately for an hour and 20 minutes, almost double the allotted time.

Rhys Davies@rcdavies· Jan 28

Curiously, while the change in growth has been abrupt, the causes discussed at most length are an ageing population. To me, the reason for the change has been that the Western nations effectively handed over many of their productive sectors in the false expectation that services were the future.