Wealthy UK post WW 2, How & Consequences

[El Pip]

Coal is not doomed as of 1919, for example

As a mass employer it is. In 1919 1.1 million men mined 230MT of coal. Twenty years later the same output only needed 750k men and it's all downhill from there. Then there is the squeeze on demand from growing efficiency and the end of steam at sea and on the railway. And above all geology, the coal that was left was deeper, in thinner seams and in worse ground. There is still at least 190 Billion tonnes of coal in the UK, it's just not economic to dig it up.

Coal employment and output are going to drop, you can manage it better perhaps but the trend only goes one way.

, nor is steel

This is where "socio-economic" role becomes a problem. What the UK steel industry wanted and asked for was a few, concentrated, fully integrated works that could produce at volume and remain competitive. But that would have meant major job losses in several key marginals, so what it got was too many sites, all too small to be really efficient and so job losses for everyone when the subsidies had to stop.

or shipbuilding

As has been mentioned above, a British trade union movement that realised the industry had to make a profit in order to exist would be helpful here. Not to absolve management of the blame, they certainly cocked many things up, but if shipbuilding could be dominated by general trade unionism and not craft unionism that would help enormously. Of all the heavy industries this one I think has the best chance.

; there is a better case to be made for textiles, but that did take until the 1970s and 1980s to fully peter out.

Once again though the bulk of the job losses occurred earlier, you can keep the industry healthier by mechanising and automating it faster, but that just accelerates the job losses. At which point we hit the "socio-economic" factors and political interference.

Further, the wording of the OP ('being as economically powerful as the State of Japan') can be interpreted as extending to Japan's role in 'traditional heavy industry' in the 1980s.

It was only in the mid-1980s that the UK dropped below Japan in terms of manufacturing as a share of total employment. The problem of course was that all the workers were not working particularly efficiently and output per worker was far worse.

There are new industries that emerge in the period in question, such as aviation, aerospace and nuclear, that will be valuable. Along with the automotive and electrical engineering sectors, they can be useful areas for growth.

The political problem is that those industries will want to grow in the South East and Midlands, because of logistics, access to supply chains and the available labour force. OTL various governments from the 1930s onwards tried to force those industries to areas of high unemployment and then force them to build lots of small plants to 'spread the benefits'. All this meant was that the industries were inefficient and uncompetitive.

To go back to Japan, one major advantage/difference is that internal migration was massively more common. In Japan in the 1960s 4 million Japanese a year were moving around the country, about 5% of the population. Comparable figures in the UK was less than 500,000 a year, about 1% of the population. In Japan industry could build in the best sites and workers would go to the boom areas, in the UK people were reluctant to move so government tried to force jobs to locate near them. It is pretty clear which approach worked best economically and I would argue even socially, at least in the medium to long term. Such changes are easier said than done though.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Now we get into some interesting areas.

Overall, what is the purpose of an industry? Is it just to make a profit or is there something more to its value to a nation? I'd lean towards the second side, without fully leaping into the swimming pool of the social purpose. Whilst individual businesses and corporations can present something of an argument that their major responsibility is to generate a profit for their shareholders, whole industries are something more than just the aggregation of different firms.

In terms of coal, 1919-1939 is a generation. Falling employment over that time isn't as noticeable as it might be down the line, particularly with the reasonably steady/only slightly declining overall production. Coal is a strategic resource in terms of defence and the national interest for several generations to come. Coal is the only realistic option for power generation then and until the mid 1970s. It isn't just about being a mass employer, but about being a vital industry in the overall picture of the nation. Coal is needed for power until the 1970s as said, chemicals until the 1960s, railways until the 1950s/60s, steamships until the 1950s and steel production into the 1990s and later. Whilst it may decline over several generations in the amount of men employed overall and as a proportion of total employment, that isn't the same as being doomed in my book.

Steel again has an intrinsic position in national defence and national strategy for effectively the rest of the century. Until the aftermath of any WW2, steel production is one of the absolutely vital sinews of national strength; after that, it provides some constraints on a range of downstream industries and projects. Postwar reconstruction and housing was limited by steel production as well as timber availability, for example, with flow on effects from that bottleneck. You make a good point on some of the criticisms of British Steel's @ policies, but the value of steel stretches beyond jobs and marginals (the focus of short sighted politicians in @) and into broader questions of the national interest.

Shipbuilding, as you say, has a fairly good chance, with appropriate reforms. To really be able to play to its full potential over time, it does need a fair bit from the former industry.

Textiles are a useful employer, but aren't necessarily on the level of the former three industries as strategic national interests.

The point on UK manufacturing as a share of total employment is well made, but provides its own caveat. The issue isn't just raw numbers of employment; it isn't just "Industry X employing Y number of men". On an economic level, it is about efficiency and productivity, not just makework. But there is also something else.

A nation isn't just an aggregation of companies, whether they are public owned or privately owned. People extend beyond that, with their various human needs, including social cohesion, belonging, tangible senses of attachment and all those bits and pieces that don't really fit on a balance sheet. There is a value to manufacturing industries and even traditional heavy industries as employers of the type of men and boys who aren't suited to many office or service jobs and a pathway to a good, productive life for them, their families and their communities. It doesn't have to be one specific industry or the other - many coal miners didn't want their lads to end up going down pit - but having something matters a great deal. It saves the nation on welfare, crime, substance abuse and the like to some extent.

This also plays into the point regarding internal migration. Whilst there can be an argument made that it is a good thing, as you say in the medium to long term, in the short term, it works better in a Japanese context due to cultural differences. Individual workers and their families, particularly in the mid 20th century, were not as mobile as their equivalents down the line and often had deep family ties or commitments, as well deep roots in particular locations. In David Kynaston's 'Family Britain 1951-57', he writes of how some of the people moved out of London to the New Towns appreciated the new conveniences, but missed people, missed their social connections and missed what added meaning to their lives beyond the material. There are reasons as to why people didn't move or travel a lot around Britain, beyond the immediate ones of necessity and lack of motor vehicles.

What is the purpose of an industry? What is the purpose of the economy? These are questions that can't be answered without considering the human chess pieces that make it up. If a government does not, and there may be very good and logical reasons for them doing so, then there will be a backlash of some kind as well as consequences down the line. The cost of industrial subsidies might not be so high as the cost to society of writing off some industries, even before we consider the broader questions of war and peace.

The 'new industries', services and finance provide many of the engines for the type of British growth needed to fulfil the OP's challenge, but that doesn't need to mean the end of the traditional industrial strengths of the North, Wales and Scotland to the same extent as @. Making Britain as economically powerful as 1980s Japan is a difficult task that needs to incorporate measures that go beyond the immediately economic.

 

[Drunkrobot]

- Consider ROBOT

Could you elaborate in this? Is this an acronym for something, or are you referring to mechanicisation of labour (robots)?

 

[Simon Darkshade]

The Cabinet Papers | Crisis and creation of ROBOT

A new Churchill government was elected in 1951 with Richard 'Rab' Butler as Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was concern amongst economists over balance of payments deficits, drain on the dollar and gold reserves. In 1952 the ROBOT plan was proposed (an acronym of its originators names Leslie...

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Remaking the Postwar World Economy: Robot and British Policy in the 1950s

eh.net

That should help

 

[Hayatgheibi]

The issue with this premise is that Japan’s economic miracle occurred partially because the country was devastated by WWII. The UK was already a relatively wealthy country, and got through the war relatively unscathed. So the country’s economy was not able to grow much faster than the rate of technological progress. Luxembourg and Switzerland are only richer because their financial sectors are large compared to their overall economies, and they are small countries. As for why the US is richer, it’s probably a combination of natural resources and more exploitative labor. Maybe stumbling upon a gold mine is the best way to induce an economic boom.

 

[El Pip]

The issue with this premise is that Japan’s economic miracle occurred partially because the country was devastated by WWII.

The more relevant point about the comparison is that Japan had the most ridiculous stock and land price bubble during the 1980s and has never really recovered from the crash in the 1990s, it is now on it's 3rd 'Lost Decade'. To strictly hit the wording of the Challenge you could have the UK enter an utterly unsustainable boom for the entire 80s that takes decades to recover from, but I'm not sure that is the aspect of Japanese economic performance that is being admired.

The UK was already a relatively wealthy country, and got through the war relatively unscathed.

There is an argument that much of the UK's relative economic performance can be explained by everyone else just 'catching up', but I think that misses how bad things got in the 60s and 70s.

On a GDP/capita basis the UK is not doing badly, roughly level with France and New Zealand and substantially ahead of Japan, which is perhaps relevant here. However it is a good way behind Germany, the Nordics and even Belgium. Even if you say the US as the only Superpower with a very different social setup is a bad comparison there is still considerable room for improvement.

 

[El Pip]

What is the purpose of an industry? What is the purpose of the economy? These are questions that can't be answered without considering the human chess pieces that make it up. If a government does not, and there may be very good and logical reasons for them doing so, then there will be a backlash of some kind as well as consequences down the line. The cost of industrial subsidies might not be so high as the cost to society of writing off some industries, even before we consider the broader questions of war and peace.

Deep questions indeed. I would agree certainly agree such things cannot be just reduced to profit and loss, but I think you miss the other side which is the people paying the taxes that fund the subsidies. As a short term measure to get over a crisis or help with a transition you'd hope their is enough common feeling to cover it, but as a long term plan I fear it fails as it will be seen as fundamentally "unfair". Why does one group get to avoid hard decisions (like moving or re-training) while everyone else pays for it?

The 'new industries', services and finance provide many of the engines for the type of British growth needed to fulfil the OP's challenge, but that doesn't need to mean the end of the traditional industrial strengths of the North, Wales and Scotland to the same extent as @. Making Britain as economically powerful as 1980s Japan is a difficult task that needs to incorporate measures that go beyond the immediately economic.

I believe a key issue here is manufacturing and industrial employment has been in decline in all the G7/Western nations since the 1970s or earlier. Even in Germany manufacturing has fallen from 40% to 20% of the workfroce since the 1970s, even as German industrial output keeps rising.

For the purposes of this question I agree that is it possible to keep some of the Northern or Scottish industrial strengths, Britain could still have a large steel industry and a stronger shipbuilding industry for instance, but employement in those industries will fall even as ouput increases. The challenge is getting politicans to accept these changes and help those areas adapt, not make the OTL mistake of throwing a lot of money and resources trying to fight it and often just accelerating the decline.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

A.) Let us look at the people paying the taxes that fund the subsidies. They are all of the people across the nation, not just particular (non coal mining, for example) portions of it. We also have the examples of @, where there was no great groundswell of discontent against this or that particular avenues of public spending. Building upon this we have the notion that it isn't simply a one way street - by providing some level of industrial subsidy, there will be less need for spending on social welfare, public protection (law and order) and even health to some extent.

In order to make a proper judgement, we'd need to get out the actual figures and see how much was spent on subsidies for coal and steel, for example, in the 1960s or 1970s. Having spent far too many hours, days and years pouring over historical British budgets, monographs on British economic history and Hansard when I could have had a life, I can say that many of the savings made through 'hard calls' in the post WW2 period were ultimately piffling (scrapping Vanguard saved a few hundred thousand pounds and winding down the postwar Home Guard a princely 500,000) in and of themselves. We won't be operating in a vacuum in this circumstance, but rather a Britain that is already markedly wealthier in raw GDP and GDP/capita through cumulative effects and cumulative reforms.

As baseline aims, I'd suggest going for a floor of 300,000 coal miners and 180-200 million tons of coal and 200,000-250,000 steel workers for the 1960s-1980s. The peak target level of ~36 million tons reached roughly in the @ 1970s (https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1972/may/08/steel-industry-1) needs to be greater, with many positive impacts from investment in integrated steel plants in the 1920s and 1930s for WW2 and any reconstruction. With these baselines, we should be able to find how much the nationalised industries received as subsidies on an annual basis and isolate that figure.

Extra steel would go into building, infrastructure, defence (particularly shipbuilding), general shipbuilding, manufactured goods and exports.

B.) You are again correct on the general decline of manufacturing/industrial employment. This isn't something that can be handwaved away, but it isn't something that should be accepted or brought forward. Rather, if there is to be a decline in the role traditional heavy industries, and I think we all agree that this is going to occur, then it needs to managed generationally, with new opportunities for the sons of coal miners/mill workers/steel workers rather than simply an expectation for them to move where the work is.

You've identified the key troublesome constituency - politicians. They naturally are infected with short termism. What is needed is some sensible leadership from the top and from other sectors, including business, unions and the civil service based on some long term planning. That won't be a starter in the 1920s, 30s, 40s or early 50s, but the mid 1950s are a good time to see whatever writing on the wall that has developed (noting from our external perspective that it may be different in concert with our other raft of changes) and invest in education, training and opportunities for particular areas. If job contractions are spaced out over time, there is more capacity for people and systems to respond effectively.

My gut feeling is that most of those areas will be coal mining ones, with steel manufacturing areas having a longer life and an easier task of encouraging new downstream industries to be established there and take up the downturn in workforce when it occurs. Yorkshire and Lancashire in particular will need attention; South Wales, Scotland, the Teesside through Tyneside, Scunthorpe and Sheffield are alright in terms of steel, but if Corby is further built up into a much larger modern integrated facility well before the 1970s, it might well be saved.

This is just one facet of trying to achieve the OP's challenge and also has some positive side effects on national power.

 

[LongVin]

Something you have to look at is the role of the US in basically forcing open the UK's economy. Prior to WW2 they had a system in place where the nominally free parts of the Empire and the commonwealth nations traded with the UK first at favorable rates for the UK.

The US for all intents and purposes shut this down following WW2 demanding all trade be open to everyone and imposing global free trade. The UK effectively was no longer able to complete.

If we could find a situation where post war the US decides to go back to an isolationist standpoint or decides a stronger more independent UK serves US needs better than we might see a stronger economy built on the old system still striving.

Or we could perhaps have a scenario where the UK forms a federation with its strongest commonwealth nations in response to the war where we get the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand forming a single nation. This is sort of a cheat because we are just combining a bunch of economies, but it works.

 

[Dr Dee]

Or we could perhaps have a scenario where the UK forms a federation with its strongest commonwealth nations in response to the war where we get the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand forming a single nation. This is sort of a cheat because we are just combining a bunch of economies, but it works.

If Imperial Federation had taken root pre-WW2 or even pre-WW1, this could have worked as something of a counterweight during the coming American century. Some kind of Commonwealth Federation or CANZUKSA set up post-WW2 would also have had greater international heft than the UK on its own.

However, in order to really challenge American hegemony, the stronger Commonwealth nations would still have to be considerably stronger than they were. That takes us to PODs involving earlier industrialisation of the colonies including perhaps a larger, more populous Canada. Or perhaps for there to be other potentially strong commonwealth nations: enter stage right a favourite of Anglophone alternate historians, British Argentina.

But then I guess we're entering ASB territory.

 

[dfl_90]

Something you have to look at is the role of the US in basically forcing open the UK's economy. Prior to WW2 they had a system in place where the nominally free parts of the Empire and the commonwealth nations traded with the UK first at favorable rates for the UK.

The US for all intents and purposes shut this down following WW2 demanding all trade be open to everyone and imposing global free trade. The UK effectively was no longer able to complete.

This is an interesting point because Japan benefited tremendously from the US tolerating their highly protectionist economic and trade policies. That insulated them from foreign competition while still reaping the benefits of the US led global free markets. It wasn't the only cause, but the American push to rebalance trade relations with Japan, starting in the 70s but really hitting hard in the 80s, contributed to the bubble and subsequent stagnation that Japan has been dealing with.

If the UK was able to maintain more autonomy following WW2 and possibly create a tighter economic bloc among the Commonwealth, I wonder if we might see a similar process unfold. Maybe a stronger economy in the short run, but a tremendous fallout a few decades later if the system starts to show cracks. Geographic and political differences probably make it a tough balancing act.

 

[MickCz]

A.) Let us look at the people paying the taxes that fund the subsidies. They are all of the people across the nation, not just particular (non coal mining, for example) portions of it. We also have the examples of @, where there was no great groundswell of discontent against this or that particular avenues of public spending. Building upon this we have the notion that it isn't simply a one way street - by providing some level of industrial subsidy, there will be less need for spending on social welfare, public protection (law and order) and even health to some extent.

In order to make a proper judgement, we'd need to get out the actual figures and see how much was spent on subsidies for coal and steel, for example, in the 1960s or 1970s. Having spent far too many hours, days and years pouring over historical British budgets, monographs on British economic history and Hansard when I could have had a life, I can say that many of the savings made through 'hard calls' in the post WW2 period were ultimately piffling (scrapping Vanguard saved a few hundred thousand pounds and winding down the postwar Home Guard a princely 500,000) in and of themselves. We won't be operating in a vacuum in this circumstance, but rather a Britain that is already markedly wealthier in raw GDP and GDP/capita through cumulative effects and cumulative reforms.

As baseline aims, I'd suggest going for a floor of 300,000 coal miners and 180-200 million tons of coal and 200,000-250,000 steel workers for the 1960s-1980s. The peak target level of ~36 million tons reached roughly in the @ 1970s (https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1972/may/08/steel-industry-1) needs to be greater, with many positive impacts from investment in integrated steel plants in the 1920s and 1930s for WW2 and any reconstruction. With these baselines, we should be able to find how much the nationalised industries received as subsidies on an annual basis and isolate that figure.

Extra steel would go into building, infrastructure, defence (particularly shipbuilding), general shipbuilding, manufactured goods and exports.

B.) You are again correct on the general decline of manufacturing/industrial employment. This isn't something that can be handwaved away, but it isn't something that should be accepted or brought forward. Rather, if there is to be a decline in the role traditional heavy industries, and I think we all agree that this is going to occur, then it needs to managed generationally, with new opportunities for the sons of coal miners/mill workers/steel workers rather than simply an expectation for them to move where the work is.

You've identified the key troublesome constituency - politicians. They naturally are infected with short termism. What is needed is some sensible leadership from the top and from other sectors, including business, unions and the civil service based on some long term planning. That won't be a starter in the 1920s, 30s, 40s or early 50s, but the mid 1950s are a good time to see whatever writing on the wall that has developed (noting from our external perspective that it may be different in concert with our other raft of changes) and invest in education, training and opportunities for particular areas. If job contractions are spaced out over time, there is more capacity for people and systems to respond effectively.

My gut feeling is that most of those areas will be coal mining ones, with steel manufacturing areas having a longer life and an easier task of encouraging new downstream industries to be established there and take up the downturn in workforce when it occurs. Yorkshire and Lancashire in particular will need attention; South Wales, Scotland, the Teesside through Tyneside, Scunthorpe and Sheffield are alright in terms of steel, but if Corby is further built up into a much larger modern integrated facility well before the 1970s, it might well be saved.

This is just one facet of trying to achieve the OP's challenge and also has some positive side effects on national power.

I'm not sure the mid 50s are the good time to do this. Quite simply there wasn't a political leader prepared to take the necessary hard choices. Eden was too busy being leader of a Great Power which wasn't, Macmillan certainly wouldn't do it, Butler had been rebuffed on ROBOT... Possibly Powell, Birch and Thornycroft but they were all too junior.
Labour had Gaitskell, who wouldn't do it, and the Left wing definitely wouldn't; they wanted to redistribute wealth, not create it.
Possibly a decent departure point is the 1920s by ditching the Empire (it wasn't profitable, according to Barnett anyway..) but again there was nobody with the foresight to do it.

 

[Sasza]

If the UK was able to maintain more autonomy following WW2 and possibly create a tighter economic bloc among the Commonwealth, I wonder if we might see a similar process unfold. Maybe a stronger economy in the short run, but a tremendous fallout a few decades later if the system starts to show cracks. Geographic and political differences probably make it a tough balancing act.

It would be best if the UK were one of the founders of the future ECSC. This will allow for better control over Germany. There was a dominion and the colonies will not offer as much as Europe.

The 1950s should have been a period of deep economic modernization and the abandonment of imperial policy in favor of greater rapprochement in Europe. Building an independent nuclear triad independent of the USA. Later in the 1970s, joint projects with France on submarines and aircraft carriers.

Projects such as ESA/ELDO or the common plane should have been the driving force behind the UK's wealth.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Space programmes and space launchers aren't really contenders to be a driving force behind national wealth, nor would a 'common plane', whichever it may be. The entire aircraft and aerospace industries alone wouldn't do it either, but could be partial yet significant contributors to a rise across the board. I don't think that manufacturing as a whole sector can be *the* driving force behind Britain's national wealth.

Joining the ECSC wouldn't give control over Germany any more than it gave it to France. Meanwhile, in the 1950s, trade with the Dominions/Commonwealth was at its highest point. Not snubbing them to embrace Europe as in @ wouldn't cost anything and would gain useful goodwill and potential, particularly if we take matters from a 1919 start as has been mooted. Europe and the Commonwealth doesn't need to be an either/or option. Further, if we are looking for radically different results than @, choosing the same road but simply accelerating down it a lot faster may not be the best option; not saying that it could not work, but the challenge is for a much wealthier and more powerful Britain.

 

[Jürgen]

People want the magic bullet to make the British economy better in the post-War period…

Create a bigger middle class and weaken the power of the rich. That’s the simple solution, a large middle class serves several benefits, you get a group who expand domestic consumption, you get a group with enough money to tax and not enough to find all the loopholes to avoid paying. While the rich will keep trying to make law which push people into poverty.

All the other elements are really just icing on the cake.

 

[MickCz]

People want the magic bullet to make the British economy better in the post-War period…

Create a bigger middle class and weaken the power of the rich. That’s the simple solution, a large middle class serves several benefits, you get a group who expand domestic consumption, you get a group with enough money to tax and not enough to find all the loopholes to avoid paying. While the rich will keep trying to make law which push people into poverty.

All the other elements are really just icing on the cake.

And how do you weaken the power of the rich? The rich, famously, don't pay tax. Expropriation will obviously work but the capital seized will not generally be in liquid form usable for modernisation of industry and their overseas wealth won't be coming back anytime soon.

 

[El Pip]

Post-war Britain spent decades taxing the hell out of the rich, highest rate of tax varied between 90% and 98% in the 60s and 70s. The Beatles "Taxman" was not an ode to a loved service but a complaint at paying 95% tax, a few years later the Stones "Exile on Main Street" was made while they were in tax exile because of the 98% rate they faced.

But surely all this super high taxation helped the economy? Well Britain had to be bailed out by the IMF in 1976 so I am somewhat sceptical that even harsher punishment against anyone who was successful would help. Maybe that extra push to a 99% tax rate would make all the difference, but it does seem unlikely.

 

[Crazyduck156]

Post-war Britain spent decades taxing the hell out of the rich, highest rate of tax varied between 90% and 98% in the 60s and 70s. The Beatles "Taxman" was not an ode to a loved service but a complaint at paying 95% tax, a few years later the Stones "Exile on Main Street" was made while they were in tax exile because of the 98% rate they faced.

But surely all this super high taxation helped the economy? Well Britain had to be bailed out by the IMF in 1976 so I am somewhat sceptical that even harsher punishment against anyone who was successful would help. Maybe that extra push to a 99% tax rate would make all the difference, but it does seem unlikely.

99.9% would have done it I'm sure of it!

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Space programmes and space launchers aren't really contenders to be a driving force behind national wealth, nor would a 'common plane', whichever it may be.

I agree. Rather than being the driving force behind the national wealth, they'd be what the national wealth would have been spent on.

 

[El Pip]

Europe and the Commonwealth doesn't need to be an either/or option.

The EU founding fathers were absolutely explicit that they thought it was, if for no other reason than France would not tolerate any challenge to it's farmers from far cheaper and higher quality Commonwealth imports. Either any European group does not have a common market in or it does not have France in, the latter seems more achievable and ultimately more useful to the British economy.

Assume no Entente Cordiale and instead an Anglo-German understanding (Kaiser Wilhelm almost drowns in a bath and so is terrified of water and boats, something like that so he vetoes the High Seas Fleet), as a result ideally WW1 is avoided or at least much shorter. Then a European grouping built around a London-Berlin axis. Germany needs imports and markets, Britain and the Dominions have those and the shipping and finance to make it work, while making some money themselves. Plus of course they are united by a common historic enemy - France.

I agree. Rather than being the driving force behind the national wealth, they'd be what the national wealth would have been spent on.

Absolutely on space, even if you argue that the broader economic benefits are positive (GPS, cheap satellite imagery, R&D spin offs, etc) they don't really kick in until the 90s or later. A larger space programme is a consequence of a richer Britain not a cause.

In aircraft, I think I agree they are not going to be a driving force. However BOAC's habit of constantly buying US aircraft was not only damaging to the UK aviation industry but was a regular balance-of-payment headache for the Treasury. So once again because of how catastrophically badly managed the nationalised industries were there is a lot of room for improvement, just dragging them up to 'neutral' for the economy would be a big positive change.