Aditya Chakrabority writes in the Guardian today in support of Liam Fox calling Britain’s bosses fat and lazy;the bosses not the workers are to blame says Aditya.. But they both miss the point. The problem deeper, lying in the short-term view of investors. The Stock Market is like a casino with our old friend the hedge funds dipping in and out. This behaviour does not favour the long-term investment that industrial competitiveness requires. Instead directors are forced to look over their shoulders to see what predatory take-overs may be lurking, how they can boost quick returns and how they might benefit personally.

And there’s more. The government has persuaded us that “the deficit” we should worry about is the public sector borrowing requirement, ignoring the much more important, and larger, current account balance of payments deficit. The government has so neglected industry that our imports of goods and services have heavily exceeded our exports for years. This has meant the sale of much of British industry to pay for the deficit. To some extent this could mean more efficient foreign management being brought in. But it used to be the case that government encouragement of industry promoted a current account surplus (leading to profitable capital investment overseas).