Strength of service
Sir: Matthew Lynn and Steven Bailey (Letters, 1 February) are quite wrong to deplore the decline of Britain as a manufacturing nation. Manufacturing – especially of the heavy sort – is best suited to a country with plenty of space, little regulation, cheap energy and cheap non-unionised labour.
That was once the case for Britain but it is no longer; nor is it so for the majority of European countries. Germany epitomises the folly of mindlessly adhering to manufacturing, as is well explained in Wolfgang Munchau’s excellent book Kaput. Britain, on the other hand, has successfully diversified into services and is now the world’s second-largest exporter of this income earner. It is easy to be seduced by a nice shiny new Mercedes while wondering what a put option looks like and arguing that only making things constitutes ‘real work’, but it is also wrong. It is the same mentality that imagines that investing in property is a sure winner, whereas shares are risky things and best avoided.
A country is best off looking to the future and playing to its strengths, not indulging in nostalgia for old times.
John Murray
Guildford
Independent advantages
Sir: I read Katharine Birbalsingh’s article (‘Second class’, 8 February) with interest, agreeing with many of her points. However, the comparison she makes between her school and Eton College reflects so much about what is wrong in our modern education system: namely, concentrating on exam attainment rather than championing pupil achievement across all disciplines, which is the very core of independent education. Yes, she can be enormously proud of her school’s GCSE results, but she seems unwilling to acknowledge the incalculable extra benefits that schools in the independent sector offer their pupils.
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