Having lived through the collapse of the Coal Industry and the shipbuilding Industry in Britain, it is chilling to see the faltering steps of the Motor Car Industry following the same path, clearly indicating potential collapse, in Britain at least!  This involves around 63,000 direct production workers and at least the same number of workers in secondary and tertiary supplying industries.

It has become increasingly obvious that the vast numbers of cars produced is not related to current market needs and the problem is much wider than just the "strong pound"!  Identical cars are now available more cheaply in Europe whilst costs are less, whilst output ratios are much greater there. Additionally cars last much longer now and so the demand for new vehicles has diminished and so we are faced with huge pools of but, but unwanted, overpriced and deteriorating cars! So, like it or lump it, we have to take an objective view of the situation.

The social, economic, and political impact of potential collapse - as with coal and shipbuilding - is unimaginable, but so is the economic ineptitude of the possibility of pouring vast sums of money from Gordon Brown's treasure chest into an economic, technical and commercial Black Hole!

At the same time, the Government is retaining an 87% tax on petrol allegedly to divert motorists to using Public Transport - which is, generally, inexpedient, and by further somewhat strange logic, investing in increasing roads at the same time. It just doesn't add up, does it?  Clearly any compromises are an effort to solve a problem which is increasingly, and obviously, doomed.

Clare Short has recently courageously criticised the efficacy of Aid Distribution from affluent countries to poor countries. Some of, apparently, disappears into the Swiss bank accounts of dishonest politicians, and some fails to materialise due to the lethargy and incompetence of Euro bureaucrats. The ultimate effectiveness and validity of these Aid promises is, at best, often open to a lot of questions.

However climate change, floods, and western-assisted wars, have decimated the already fragile and limited capability of most African countries to adequately house their citizens and provide adequate schools, hospitals etc, They do not have the means, the materials or the technique know-how so to do hence just throwing money at them serves little purpose.

In the last War when we suffered from a saturation bombing, the Americans, in an incredibly short space of time, designed, produced and exported to us vast numbers of prefabricated houses which could be erected in two or three days. They were expected to last for only a few years but many of them are still happily inhabited sixty years later. They are in both design and construction a stark contrast to our traditional brick-on-brick methods which haven’t changed since the Pharoahs!

Anyone who has spent any time in these so-called "underdeveloped" countries appreciates the vast gap which exists between the basic social, domestic and community amenities there and what we enjoy in the West.

Now the motor car production industry has a wide range of adaptable skills, relevant experience, designing and production capabilities, which was not present in the Coal and Shipbuilding industries. It has huge presses which can form the side or top panels for a car at one go and could as easily produce the wall of a room. Also, since cars have water systems, pumps, heating and cooling systems, lights, air conditioning, all things which are essential to homes, hospitals and the like, those relevant skills could quite easily be transferred from motor cars to pre-fabricated houses, hospitals, water supplies, and storage and sewage systems. There is a wealth of experience that could, with some thought and assistance, be easily adapted. Additionally it could initiate. experience in erecting those buildings in overseas countries providing both work and training for local people plus jobs in transport for conveying the sectional buildings from factories in Britain. It would also ensure that, if the AID is wisely spent on such activities, it would avoid the economic collapse of those labour-voting communities currently almost totally dependent on the car production industries.

We don't have to convert ALL the car factories- but we DO have to do something else with most of them and, as the proverb says, "It is better just to lose the saddle than lose the horse".