Should we Buy only British to help our country ?

ruggedtoast

If you can find me a British TV, a British car, a British computer or a British mobile phone, that even exists, I will say with certainty I will consider buying it. (and actually British made by a British company, not made in Britain by Japanese people because we're only a bit more expensive than China to outsource to).

Really2

ruggedtoast wrote: »

If you can find me a British TV, a British car, a British computer or a British mobile phone, that even exists, I will say with certainty I will consider buying it. (and actually British made by a British company, not made in Britain by Japanese people because we're only a bit more expensive than China to outsource to).

Morgan. The only one i think;)

bo_drinker

Just stop buying Chinese tat. Not easy to buy British anymore. Although I am not a fan of the Mini I think that was a huge mistake selling to BMW. Look at what was left and where Rover are now. And look at how many Minis are on the road........ Big mistake. Would be great to support British Industry but it's a pipe dream really.

ruggedtoast

Really2 wrote: »

Morgan. The only one i think;)

At least we have Clown's dynamic knowledge based economy.

To fall back on like.

itsnever2lateisit?

Jim_B wrote: »

Presumably, if we buy something from abroad, that means someone abroad has some UK purchasing power (assuming that Sterling is still seen as a viable currency!) that they either trade or use to buy from the UK; eventually, someone uses it to buy British anyway.

Thats how it should work, but trade has become too imbalanced, hence the devaluation of sterling. To import goods from (say) China we have to convert sterling into Yuan (or USD) hence China then builds up a reserve of £. Instead of buying British product, they lend those £'s back to us, with interest, so we can buy more of their stuff.

The currency devaluation should make such imported goods prohibitively expensive

kennyboy66_2

It doesn't really make a blind bit of difference that your car that is made in Derby is manufactured by a Japanese company rather than a British company.

What does matter is that some of the UK car manufacturing plants are amongst the most efficient in the world.

19 of the 20 biggest component makers actually make stuff in the UK as well.

Obviously if people think we need to become "self sufficient" in raw materials like Aluminium, we are going to struggle.

The UK has traded overseas for 400+ years. Once we give that up, it really will be time to turn the lights off.

stephen163

As a consumer, I don't bother to look where something is from before I buy it. The world should be trying to internalise all the externalities (like pollution from air travel) so consumers can make more informed decisions. If we paid the true cost of some of the things we buy, especially food, i'm sure buying British would make sense about 9 times out of 10. With things like electronics and clothing, it is almost always cheaper to buy from abroad even with the externality of air travel included, in which case, unless a UK company can find a profitable niche, why bother subsidising them?

maytaurus

mirry wrote: »

Do you buy British ?

If so why ?

if not why?

I would if I could afford to
for the reason you have already stated in the title of your thread
Should we Buy only British to help our country ?

Thrugelmir

kennyboy66 wrote: »

It doesn't really make a blind bit of difference that your car that is made in Derby is manufactured by a Japanese company rather than a British company.

What does matter is that some of the UK car manufacturing plants are amongst the most efficient in the world.

19 of the 20 biggest component makers actually make stuff in the UK as well.

Obviously if people think we need to become "self sufficient" in raw materials like Aluminium, we are going to struggle.

The UK has traded overseas for 400+ years. Once we give that up, it really will be time to turn the lights off.

Are there any British car companies left?

At least by buying a car assembled in Britain means that Company is employing British labour. Buying a VW for eg means all the benefits are "exported" to Europe.

JayScottGreenspan

bo_drinker wrote: »

Just stop buying Chinese tat. Not easy to buy British anymore. Although I am not a fan of the Mini I think that was a huge mistake selling to BMW. Look at what was left and where Rover are now. And look at how many Minis are on the road........ Big mistake. Would be great to support British Industry but it's a pipe dream really.

But without BMW there wouldn't be a new mini as we know it.

Without BMW they'd probably have stuck to churning out the same old models as before (reasonably popular, but deathtraps of diminishing appeal). Or, even worse, some terrible British non-BMW heap-of-junk new mini would have been born.