In 1976 the Lucas Aerospace Company was faced with the
prospect of making up to 20% of its 18,000 workers redundant. Lucas was a big
conglomerate that had just come into existence, partly with the support of the
1974-79 Labour government’s industrial policy. They wanted to create ‘national
champions’ and thought ‘big is beautiful.’ Not if you’re going to lose your job
as a result, it isn’t!

British capitalism is in big
trouble.  The official annual inflation
rate has hit 3.3%, its highest level for 16 years. The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn
King, has been forced to send a letter to the Chancellor of Exchequer, Alastair
Darling, to explain why the Bank has been unable to keep inflation from rising
at more than 2%, which is the target set by the government for the Bank.

Bradford and Bingley are the latest bank to catch a cold in
the present financial crisis. They’ve declared a loss of £8m for the first four
months of 2008. This compares with £108m profits they made in the same period
last year. The main reason for the losses is because they’ve had to
write down £89m of their assets. ‘Write down’ is banker-speak for the fact that
they realise they can whistle for their money.