Shameful loss of skills

Tell us the old, old story. Yet another Black Country manufacturing firm is closing. And at the same time a mobile-phone company is recruiting staff. We are witnessing the steady destruction of British manufacturing and its replacement by service industries. The Cradley car-part firm G Clancey, representing nearly 80 years of local engineering, is to close with the loss of the last 200 jobs.

Meanwhile, 150 new jobs have been announced at a new Carphone Warehouse logistics centre in Wednesbury.

Jobs like those at Clancey’s are being taken over by workers in China or India.

The Carphone Warehouse staff will not be selling many products made in the UK.

This process is irresistible. In the global village, why pay Western wage rates when products can be made in Third World or developing countries for a fraction of the labour costs?

Some economists claim this globalisation process is good for the British economy and that Britain makes more from selling foreign-made goods than the foreign manufacturers. But this is a weak argument on two counts.

Firstly, there never seem to be quite enough new jobs to replace the old ones. Unemployment in Britain is climbing remorselessly.

Secondly, the loss of manual skills in areas such as the Black Country is deeply worrying.

For generations of Black Country people, manufacturing seemed almost to be in the genes. Folk had a natural ability to turn their hands to making almost anything from the hardware of war to the luxuries of peace.

It is all very well to create a few relatively comfortable jobs in shops and warehouses but we are raising a generation who cannot tell one end of a lathe from another and it seems a terrible waste of a great national resource.

Some jobs are better than no jobs. But those who claim that globalisation brings nothing but progress are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Now solve the minor crimes

The miracle of DNA takes another great leap forward. A new process called DNAboost can identify minute traces of samples from more than one person.

It should help police to crack thousands of unsolved crimes.

But when will such procedures be available to deal not only with major crimes such as murder but with the millions of thefts and burglaries that police barely bother to record, let alone investigate?

What we need is a cheap and cheerful DNA detector to be used to solve garden-shed thefts and handbag snatches.

The technology probably exists already. What is missing is the money and the political will.

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