Tuesday 3 March 2009

Huh?

Via the ever alert Penguin, this:

The report by the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA), an independent body, quotes the government adviser as saying: “Defence, aerospace, manufacturing and engineering have no real value to us.

“Only high-quality professional services, financial services and the City of London have any real value and they should be supported at all costs. The rest of the country can be turned over to tourism.”


Er, what? For a moment there, I thought I was reading The Daily Mash, but no, the government really does believe that the City of London is the only part of the UK that deserves to be "saved".

I wonder how well this will go down with our friends from the north? With the brothers?

3 comments:

Edwin Greenwood said...

I vaguely recall some or other minister (one of the females, not Benn Jr, the current Defra head honcho) being quoted on Farming Today to the effect that, "We do not need to worry about food security and self-sufficiency. We are a rich country and can always buy what we need."

This place gets more like Zim-fucking-babwe every day.

Anonymous said...

Every passing day my mind becomes more boggled. Since it's largely these "high-quality professional services, financial services and the City of London" who have caused the current crisis, they are the ones who should be cast aside.

Mark The Skint Sailor said...

Northerers won't be bothered, mainly because they'll be happy in their government-sponsored faux-jobs.
Virtually every government call-centre is based in the North as it helps to generate northern jobs, prop up the northern economy, and ensure northern Labour votes.

Plus plenty of originally London-based jobs have been moved to the north with the excuse it saves money on office rental, etc. But one London-based civil service job ad I saw for a dept recently transferred to the north specified that you'd report to someone in Liverpool and have to travel up there on a regular basis for meetings. Very environmentally sound and cost-effective...NOT.