>TWO NATIONS*

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Last night I watched the BBC/Open University program Made in Britain presented by Evan Davis.

We were smugly told that Britain’s move into high value production and service industries was the only way to go.

This morning it was announced that 1,400 jobs were to go at Bombardier train makers in Derby, because the Government [our government] had awarded the Thameslink contract for 1,200 new carriages to Siemens of Germany.

I immediately thought of the passage in Philip Kerr’s Field Grey.

‘I don’t like the criminals who break the law,’ I said.

‘What other kind are there?’

‘The kind that make the law. It’s the Hindenburgs and the Schleichers of this world who are doing more to screw the Republic than the commies or the Nazis put together.’

A smiling, almost smirking at times, Evan Davis suggested a future for the country based on building fighter aircraft for countries that could well use them against us, constructing and selling McLaren MP4-12C cars at £167,000 a throw, designing hotels with helipads in Dubai, selling £25,000,000 plus houses in London to super rich Russian oligarchs, financial services, and selling intellectual property rights.

If you are not an estate agent to the super rich, or an automotive engineer, you can always get a job in a call centre, a fast food outlet, or as a servant.

But if you want to study to be a doctor there might not be a place for you because the University has sold it to the highest bidder from abroad.

We have become in Evan’s words “a host nation”. An interesting choice of words.

A host: a person or animal on or in which a parasite or commensal organism lives.

*With apologies to Benjamin Disraeli. [Photos-Harrods and somewhere near Wandsworth]

The out of touch politician now our Deputy PM.