Ideas 1...Increased Employment Prospects

Before we look at job creation, we should first ask ourselves why it is that it is so difficult to get a secure job in the first place. The reason is because there are too many people chasing after too few job vacancies. It doesn't matter how good your education and training, if the jobs aren't there, then you have just wasted years of effort and expense. When the UK joined the EU few people realised that many of these jobs would end up in the hands of EU citizens from the continent, prepared to work for next to nothing. It led to the gig economy, part time, low paid. The UK was a member of the EU from 1973 to 2020. During that time the school leaving age was raised from 16 to 18 in order to reduce the unemployment statistics. Since leaving the EU and faced with the Covid-19 lockdown, many of its citizens have drifted back to their home country. The nation is now short of workers again, but the PM only wants the 16 to 18 year olds to study maths instead of joining the labour market during what should be the most productive years of their lives. The PM wants them to study maths, when employers are only interested in what computer apps they have worked on. The real demand for workers in January 2023 comes from the NHS. They could all be conscripted into the NHS as auxiliary nurses, but there appears to be too many people who want the NHS privatised first. Just how many people have to die on ambulance trolleys at A&E (Accident and Emergency) hospitals before we see non-apathetic, non-incompetent and non-corrupt governments manage the human race?

This shortage of workers has acted like a beacon to the world's economic migrants. Thousands cross the English Channel each year in kayaks and inflatable dinghies, seeking the good life. For how much longer can the UK remain the charity of the world? This website extols the benefits of a world technocracy, but how can such a system succeed where even the Roman Empire failed, when in 410CE migrants fleeing the Huns, crossed the frozen River Rhine. The benefit of a world technocracy is that there are no borders, so people can be moved around quite easily. Workers can be moved in to replace retired people moving out to that place in the Sun. If HMG had somewhere practical to send abroad its retired people, then the pressure on housing from immigrants would not be so bad. There would be even less pressure if this was a global effort, with all developed countries pursuing a similar policy. Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world, full of intelligent selfless politicians. The world of employment is therefore nothing less than a jungle, infested with fly-by-night employment agencies. Having a determined will to get a good job, simply doesn't guarantee you one. As a result governments' waste billions of pounds on projects, decided upon on the spur of the moment, designed simply to generate employment, when it should be spent on R&D. But R&D requires vision, which is often lacking on at least one side of a multi-party democracy. Party politics therefore tends to kill off these projects.

There are a number of ways that employment can be created by government. The most obvious is to embark upon a series of public works programmes. Repairing and modernizing sewers, building a water national grid system based upon the existing redundant natural gas pipelines, new airports, more motorways, alternative electricity generation by wind, wave, tidal, fusion and solar energy, etc., much of it to supply energy to the continent of Europe. Many of these projects it can be argued are from an economic point of view unnecessary. Tidal projects on the River's Severn and Mersey may well go the same way as the abandoned project for the Wash, on the east coast. A reawakening of the need for non-polluting energy may make these projects, plus the scheme for obtaining electricity from Icelandic geothermal energy, transmitted to the UKGB by superconductors, look not only attractive but essential programmes in the fight to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power stations. They would provide further employment whilst improving the environment. The British Government's policy since 1979 has however been one of not financing large projects, the Channel Tunnel included. I personally preferred the multi-stay road & rail bridge project, since it would have been a visible high tech example of British supremacy in civil engineering. There is not much prestige to be gained by building a hole in the ground, since both the Swiss and the Japanese had already admirably demonstrated their capabilities in that field.

The British Government's refusal to build a national cable TV network using fibre optics, was in my opinion a short sighted decision. To leave it to private enterprise was a disgrace. The export potential for fibre optics, in which the UK led the world, would have been enormous. The social impact of having a cable TV network was almost incalculable. It would further the establishment of a cashless society via video shopping, which in turn would cut down shop lifting and other overheads, resulting in cheaper goods. It would also lead of course to more redundancies in banking and the retail trade. There are unfortunately disadvantages to most advances in technology, usually leading to less demand on manpower. A cable TV network would however make general elections and referendums possible by electronic means. Outdated electoral registers would no longer exist. Greater democracy would be established. Maybe that is why Mrs GG effectively torpedoed the project. As it was, only Westminster and a few other places would benefit from it. With any luck it would not be too long before this technology was superseded by ground to satellite to Earth laser communications, which would permit a higher data rate than that possible with radio frequencies, placing it on a par with fibre optics.

Even today the UK's internet network is still a whipping post for politicians. As of 2019 HMG still wants to bring about a fibre network, whilst Virgin Media have other ideas with the introduction of VIVID 500, that's 500Mb/s download and 35Mb/s upload using copper cable.

Advances being made in superconductivity research at this time, would no doubt make magnetically levitated trains a practical proposition. Such mag-lev trains would be more comfortable to travel in, be faster and cost less to operate. The construction of such a rail network would meaningfully employ many thousands of people. Researched in the 1970s by scientist Eric Braithwaite in the UK, maglev trains are considered a status symbol, the only maglev link being in Shanghai. The cost of elevated track and rare earth magnet being considerable. It was he, in 1974, who first proposed anti-gravity propulsion in a Royal Institute lecture, later published as 'Engineer Through The Looking Glass. This theory was patented in 1999. In 1990 he worked on the PRT maglev rocket launch assist system for NASA. Today, 2019, most of us are still waiting for maglev trains and anti-gravity. It would appear that the future of trains, assuming that they are still economical, in the face of air taxis, lies in fuel cell technology. By swopping over cryogenic fuel cell modules at the end of a trip, it is possible to power an electric train where an overhead pantograph & power system is absent.

In a country such as Great Britain, whose future depends upon competing in high technology on an international basis, the government should ensure that the latest ideas in research receive immediate financial support leading to full scale manufacture in as short a period of time as possible. Developments in new materials such as hydraulic cement, new modes of transport such as tilt rotor VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) aircraft, and above all interactive video disc and erasable disc technology (something which the Japanese excel at), are projects which require determined government support in order to ensure that high levels of employment are maintained. We no longer live in societies where individuals alone can create substantial jobs. It is governments through grants to industries and universities, and through the control of import tariffs, who effectively control the number of people in work.

What is becoming abundantly clear is the pointlessness of handing out grants and tax incentives to companies engaged in the manufacture of traditional products, who when established, compete with and hence undermine established industry engaged in providing a similar product or service. The courting of Nissan to Tyne & Wear, to compete against the nationalised Austin Rover car manufacturer at a time when there was already gross over capacity of automobile manufacture in the EEC, demonstrates how little thought goes into the spending of tax payer's money. Nissan's project although scheduled to expand further, is in the long term unlikely to create more jobs and increase government revenue overall. From the trade union movement's point of view, Nissan was a Trojan horse, designed to force workers into becoming slitty eyed workaholics. The Ford UK strike in February 1988 highlighted this problem. As with so many engineering companies, Ford was to see its workforce cut in half over a ten year period, in the quest to retain a competitive edge through greater automation. One has to ask therefore whether there are more important reasons for handing out grants.

Most of what you read here was written years ago. Whilst proof reading this, redundancies at Nissan are in the air. In December 2015 Nissan unveiled its smart-home. I thought at the time that five of these inside a biome could be the basis for a truly zero carbon home.

The establishment of an industry which does not already exist, within the nation to any extent, and which furthers high technology, is one which in my opinion should receive greater priority. Such an industry is space research and development. Whether we like it or not the world is becoming more science orientated. The Japanese Government's commitment to building a series of science cities across the nation, and the PRC's declaration to build its own space station and explore the Moon, are clear indicators of the way ahead for mankind. The UK already has established centres of scientific research. The building of science cities in the UK is therefore not essential, but the building of space orientated satellite towns in areas of high unemployment would help to rejuvenate many cities that have lost their traditional industries.

Further details into economic and social issues in the UK can be found on the following websites:

The British Government's refusal to increase the British National Space Centre's, now the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), budget from one hundred and twenty million pounds to three hundred million pounds to part finance the European Space Agency's (ESA) manned space programme, was by many considered unbelievable. The amount asked for was about a third of what France spent on space at this time in late 1987. To many the price was already being paid in unemployment and supplementary benefits, wasted regional grants and tax incentives, plus the increased cost to the nation's prison and health systems. The spin-offs of employment in space related industries could be measured in a lower crime rate, better industrial relations and better health resulting from the generation of a sense of purpose and the creation of an esprit de corps, not to mention advances in technology itself. At one time people use to say that the money spent on space would be better used in building hospitals, etc.

In 1984 the British Government under PM Margaret Thatcher decided to do neither. Instead it handed the money back to the affluent by reducing the top rate of taxation from 83% to 60% per cent. Then two years later it was reduced again to 40%. During the second world war it stood at a loyal 99.25%, stepping down to 90% in the 1950s and 1960s, causing the Beatles to write the song Mister Taxman. We have now had thirty years of low income tax for the rich. One of the main causes of the financial down turn we are experiencing today in the early twenty-first century. The unrealistically low, top rate of income tax, was possible since the sale of nationalised assets financed the scheme, but that money soon dissipated, leaving a huge national debt in the decades to come. It was a huge con which political parties have failed to reverse. The money should have gone into a Sovereign Wealth Fund to finance new industries such as space research and micro-electronics to build communication, weather, navigation and Earth resources satellites, but HMG couldn't see this in 1971 when it scrapped the Black Arrow rocket immediately after it launched the Prospero satellite from Woomera in South Australia. In 1988 HMG closed the Skillcentres (former Government Training Centres) when it should have upgraded them to train IT workers. The younger generation are expected to endure the repercussions of this for most of their lives. HMG has no vision and no business sense, just a mindless beaucracy infested with apathy. Just how can a space industry survive in such an environment?

ESA's space programme has evolved in recent decades from Ariane 5 to a more competitive Ariane 6, and not the British reusable single stage to orbit Skylon spaceplane. HMG's stance against man in space has isolated it from ESA members, who through the manned Columbus module are participating with NASA over the ISS. Alienation from other ESA members has resulted in the UK being thrown out of the Galileo satellite navigation project, due to Brexit, with threats from HMG that it will develop a competing system, as if we needed anymore? Will HMG partake in ESA's Gateway contribution to NASA's manned space program back to the Moon?

In addition to collaboration with ESA and other space agencies, the UK did have the capability to go it alone in certain areas. The potential of the world renown BBC World Service transmitting in video from direct broadcast satellites to the world would be enormous. It would provide a major contribution in understanding between nations, acting as a catalyst for world peace. It would also increase British prestige around the world and British exports, since the system should be financed by a compulsory advertising levy on British industry. It would act as a guiding light as far as programme quality was concerned, in a field already saturated by cheap commercialization.

The move towards a science orientated society would place additional strain on the education system. Science not only requires scientists, but also engineers and technicians. In a global high tech world where millions of graduates are produced each year, drastic action is necessary. Our higher education system should be replaced by specific job training, carried out by professional guilds, after successful completion of national service. Each apprentice, having signed a life contract with an employer/HMG. They would be paid directly by HMG, but the company that trains them would have first say in where they are employed. Breaking a contract, by either side, would be illegal, although employees could be contracted out to another organisation, if all parties are willing. This method ensures that capabilities were not wasted, and that an employer's needs are satisfied. The number of apprentices a company was required to take on would be determined by the amount of profit that company was making, and as laid out in government legislation and economic plans. Advances in AI, thereby eliminating jobs that compose mainly of repetitive tasks, would greatly influence how long the working week would be.

According to major internet based employment agencies, the jobs in demand at the moment (2023) are cloud management, AI, sales leadership, data analysis, translation, GUI design, SEO, people management, animation, audio/visual input, accounting, HR, programming, webmaster, machine learning and IT security. When you study this list you realise that most of these duties are contracted out, and just about all of them will be done better with AI in a few years time. Any job that simply consists of handling information or performing repetitive tasks, is likely to be done by AI in the near future, so there's no point in doing a training/higher education course in it, is there?

For the unemployed the system of short TOPS courses like the ones I went on, should be replaced by two year courses leading to recognised qualifications in up to date employment orientated subjects, again sponsored by industry. This would be similar to the scheme that existed at this time in Germany. In order to keep costs down whilst at the same time maintaining a high standard, a standardized approach to education using expert systems stored on interactive compact and video discs is preferred. Classes could be monitored by prefects, since teachers would be in greater demand for practical lessons, the arts, sport, entertainment, etc. It maybe possible to engage in most interactive computer based education and training at home. Each profession would have a job description laid down by British Standards, in collaboration with employers and HMG. As a former industrial engineer and engineering draughtsman, I know that in order for things to work well, it is necessary for the existence of specific instructions. Success is in the detail.

Governments can create demand through legislation, such as increasing pollution controls for farms and power stations. The construction of the necessary equipment to do this would generate jobs. Employment demand could also be generated by banning automobiles, buses and taxis over ten years old from public highways, and replacing them with British built electric hire cars, driven by AI. Jobs in the construction industry could be created by demolishing buildings over fifty years of age, except those of architectural and historical importance, and replacing them with environmentally friendly homes for extended families. However, the environmental cost could prove to be unacceptable.

Hopefully arms reduction talks between the super powers would lead eventually to meaningful reductions in defence expenditure all round, providing the opportunity for greater foreign aid, which in turn would stimulate and enlarge the world's free trade area, creating more jobs. Many third world countries are impeded from developing quickly, due to high energy costs. Building ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and geothermal energy power stations, whilst tapping into other sources of renewable energy, as part of a foreign aid programme, therefore makes sense. Converting the world's stockpile of thermonuclear warheads into fuel for fast breeder nuclear reactors for the third world, is an option which should not be ignored.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, hopeful arms reduction talks appeared a long way off. Trade embargoes against Russia as a result, led to a global crisis in energy, since Russia was a major exporter. The UK prime minister was unable to get his energy plan approved by cabinet and treasury in late March 2022.

With the cost of energy going through the roof in the UK, one assumes that HMG has a secret plan of action. So what could it contain? Will it be a windfall tax on energy companies as the Labour Party promotes? Such a plan has the benefit of being instantaneous. Construction projects however take years, but they do create jobs for people who can then pay their energy bills, but of course not everyone will get a job. Take me for instance. I'm retired on basic state pension. I will sit at home and watch my savings slowly disappear in energy bills. There is no support from HMG for me. And for how long will this go on for. If it's linked to the war in the Ukraine, then it's likely to go on for as long as the civil war in Syria......eleven years. So what construction projects could HMG put the nation to?

Off the north coast of Scotland there are presently three sea current generators under test. When will they be put into mass production? Surely HMG has the necessary performance data by now? Then there is micro hydro electric on rivers and mountain streams. A geothermal project is underway in Cornwall I believe, whilst there are numerous plans for coastal tidal barrages, going back half a century to one across the Wash. The largest proposed Severn Barrage across the Bristol Channel would take about 4 years to build and generate 15GW of electrical energy, much of which would be stored in a reservoir on Exmoor for use when needed. On the other hand, Sizewell C will only generate 3.2MW, creating loads of radioactive waste in the process, and take three times longer to build. The Mulberry Harbours for D-Day took less than 2 years to build. So why is it that such technology is as illusive as photo-voltaic production and the insulation of UK homes?

As for on-shore wind farms, I remember seeing such magnificence near my mother's home at Finedon, Northants. The windiest parts of the UK are Pembrokeshire and Anglesey, the latter where I once lived. I'm sure there are plenty of people there who would dearly love to be in employment due to the closure of Anglesey Aluminium and Wylfa nuclear power station. So why is HMG dithering? Is HMG deliberately making hard work for his successor, or is there a secret plan that only the Royal Navy with its beam weapons is privy to. I of course refer to HB11. What is HB11? Has it ever been debated in the House of Commons? Just how far is HMG supporting this programme with the EU? When will it become a reality, by producing electricity at every one of the world's sub-stations? It is the only green energy technology that could be mass produced in the millions to combat global warming on schedule........if only someone could get it to work. Have they?

So assuming we could get all these green energy plants to work, what do we then do with this energy. Well, electric cars will need it, as will electric central heating, but right now there is an even greater need. Has it occurred to anyone in HMG that the EU is now desperate for a replacement for Russian gas, just as British workers are desperate for real jobs? It was the Conservative government under PM Margaret Thatcher that scrapped engineering and manufacturing in the UK by telling firms to relocate to eastern Europe and the Far East. It's time that that mistake was rectified, and with any luck we can then pay off our debts.

As for restoring the top rate of income tax to pre Thatcher era, somehow I don't think any political party has the honesty to do it, because to do it at a time when we are 2 to 4 trillion pounds in debt would require a rate of at least 90%.

In a letter to HMG in November 2023 I suggested that the PM should not put 16 to 18 year olds on maths and english courses, but instead train them in professions that are likely to be least affected by technological advances, in science, engineering, IT, utilities, horticulture, the arts, commercial sports (motor racing, snooker, tennis, horse racing, golf, chess, computer games, boxing, football), acting, media and entrepreneurship. In a world of AI, that is where the money is. The reply from the Department for Education made it clear to me that the nation would be better off without a civil service. All they wanted were easy subjects for their staff, and to hell with any future economy. The best years of their young lives would be wasted.