UK industrial output in surprise fall
Hopes of a recovery within the UK economy were hit today after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed a shock fall in UK industrial output in August.
Manufacturing output fell 1.9% compared with July – the largest fall since January, according to the ONS. Analysts had expected a rise of 0.3%.
Meanwhile, the wider measure of industrial output (which includes power generation and resource extraction) plunged by 2.5% on the month, against analysts forecasts of a 0.2% rise.
Commenting on today’s weak data, Vicky Redwood, UK economist at Capital Economics, said: “August’s dismal industrial production figures will dampen some of the recent optimism about the economy’s apparent bounce-back.”
“A return to positive overall GDP growth in the third quarter now looks less certain,” she added.
However, there has been some positive economic news today after the latest property index from the Halifax revealed a rise in house prices for the month of September.
According to the Halifax, house prices rose by 1.6% with the average UK property now costing £163,533.
Furthermore, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed that sales of new cars rose 11.4% in September compared with the same month in 2008 – as a result of the Government’s scrappage scheme.
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UK’s Shock Fall in Industrial Output – 11.2% in a single year
Britain has lost its way in the modern world in terms of its once highly coveted industrial prowess and since it was the world’s foremost technological nation that led the world some 100 years ago. What has gone so badly wrong for us? The answer is that successive British governments, from when Henry Campbell-Bannerman become the first Prime Minister of Britain and was the first to officially bear the title of ‘Prime Minister’ to Brown today, did and do not still understand the ‘real’ strengths of the British people. These reside as just two examples, in the creative and innovative thinking of our people determined by government reports by Japan (1980s) and Germany (1990s). This stated that up to 55% of the modern world that we see today was created through the thinking of our people. But the most important fact is that 75% of this leading-edge thinking came from the British lone inventors and not our universities or advanced centres of research. Therefore this country needs more than anything else, the technological catalyst and system putting in place where our innovative thinking can be released. For this is the only thing that will deliver our nation in the future from increasing poverty and continual economic decline. This need is for the establishment of the ORE-STEM system of innovative and creative development in the UK and where it is the only viable answer to our problems. Indeed it was one-hundred percent backed in 1997 by the world’s pre-eminent scientists and engineers at that time but where our government took no notice. Unfortunately both politicians and journalists in this respect are also silent about this real need for change for our nation and do the British people the most dire disservice that they ever could possibly do through this ignorance. But the greatest threat to our nation’s future survival is that their stupidity simply does not allow them to realise this.
Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation
Bern, Switzerland