Following a 3rd profit warning in just 5 months Hornby’s chief executive, Richard Ames, has quit the ailing British firm. Is this the end for one of Britain’s best loved manufacturers and can anything be learnt from their current situation?

Hornby, which also makes Airfix kits, Corgi cars and Scalextric, have produced children’s toys since the early part of the 20th century. Until the 1999 they produced most of their product lines in the UK but subsequently moved all of their manufacturing to China. It would seem that, despite desperate attempts to move some production back in 2012, it is the unreliability of their Chinese manufactures that is set to toll the death knell for Hornby. The irony of this will be in the event that Hornby does go under, I would be willing to bet that it will be the Chinese that buy it!

Hornby have struggled to consistently get its products out of China and into European stores for the last few years, despite going to the length of changing Chinese factories in 2014. These stories of businesses struggling to get stock out of China are not new to us. We have heard from business owners of, start-ups specifically, that were lured to China by the promise of low unit prices only to be hit by low quality or delayed stock. Such delays can have devastating effects for fledgling businesses and, as we can see in the case of Hornby, more established companies too.

Another downfall to Chinese manufacturing, particularly, is the potential threats against  intellectual property. Again, we have heard first-hand from businesses that have produced in China only to find knock-off’s being produced in the very same factory utilising their innovations. What is more, there is very little you can do about it.

We are not saying that anything produced in China is bad. In fact, it can, and does work very well for some businesses. But, if you are thinking about producing abroad, don’t say that you have not been warned of the dangers and made effort to protect yourself.

As for Hornby, James May, the Top Gear presenter, has recently attempted to encourage his followers to buy a Hornby train set to save the company. We would say that you perhaps opt for one of their Quickbuild kits made at the Plastech factory in Sussex instead.

Celebrity tailor Patrick Grant, of The Great British Sewing Bee, has launched a not-for-profit clothing initiative to support British manufacturers that is offering some real must-have bargains. Grant has recently set up Kickstarter fund inviting the public to pledge their support by placing advance orders for some British made essentials, including jeans at just £49.

The Community Clothing collection features three key items for men and women: a five-pocket jean priced at £49, a classic Harrington jacket priced at £79 and a single-breasted raincoat priced at £119.

The clothing will be made in Blackburn at the Cookson and Clegg factory (which Grant saved from closure last year. However, the garments will also source their suppliers for things like buttons and labels from other UK factories.

Community Collection – Rain Coat

Engineered for simplicity and selling direct to the consumer, Grant hopes to keep the prices low, especially when compared to most other labels sporting the ‘Made in Britain’ logo. He hopes to raise £75,000 through order via Kickstarter and manufacturing will begin in March with delivery expected in July.

I have just pledge to buy a pair of jeans and a raincoat. Once I recieve these in the Summer expect an extensive review from us.

Click here to grab yourself some british made bargins… we have!

Nearly two thirds of UK manufacturing businesses that employ over 500 are now owned by foreign companies claims business minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe.

She went on to say that 320 manufacturing enterprises in the UK, with more than 500 employees, were now in a situation of having over 50% of their shares in foreign hands.

It is clear that foreign investors see the potential of British manufacturing, who are hoovering (or should I say Dyson-ing) up some of our most treasured brands. What is perhaps even sadder than the headline of this article is that in many cases these ‘Jonny-foreigners’ seem to actually do a better job that us at running them. Take for instance Jaguar Land Rover. Once failing under British ownership, JLR have seen production triple since under the ownership of the Indian’s.

Do these stats perhaps highlight another issues – that we might have lost the ability to run a business properly? Have we Brits lost our once envied entrepreneurial spirit? Whatever the reason it certainly must indicate that the system is broken somewhere!

What do you make of this news? Please comment below.

One of the chief arguments used by the pro-European Union lobby has been that in the situation that the UK leaves the EU then as many as one in then jobs will be lost, leaving our manufacturing sector decimated and our economy in tatters.  This is as many of 3.5 million jobs in total. But how likely is this apocalyptic future view to become a reality?

According to analysis published earlier this month, just eleven global engineering firms with sites in the UK provide Britain. This handful of firms provide around 90,000 of those jobs and, of course, support hundreds of thousands of secondary jobs. Thankfully, the CEOs of those eleven firms have each posted their colours to their respective masts in recent years. In turn they have all made a clear commitment to keeping their business within the UK even in the event that the British people opt to leave the EU, allocating millions of pounds of investment to plants in the UK.

Toyota, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen, Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Honda, Geely and Ford have all stated  thier ongoing committment to UK manufacturing, whatever the result of the anticipated referendum.

With the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union looming, this apocalyptic view, presented by the pro-EU lobby seems to be becoming increasingly central to their arguments. However, given the facts of the matter it would seem that such an argument is unlikely to hold any weight. In short, if you’re worried about businesses and job creators leaving Britain after Brexit, don’t be. They won’t.

For those interested here is a summary of each of these large engineering firm’s positions:

• Toyota, the world’s largest car manufacturer, has announced it would remain in the UK following Brexit, the CEO Akio Toyoda told the Financial Times,“we want to deliver even better cars, so when that capsule is opened after 100 years, all can see we’ve built a truly British company.” Toyota employs 4,000 at its car plant in Burnaston and engine plant in North Wales.

• General Motors-owned Vauxhall/Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann has said, “We have plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port. We will not turn our backs on England, life would carry on. We would continue to find ways to invest.” An Opel plant in Germany closed last year while GM invested £185m in its UK van manufacturing facility. Vauxhall employs 4,500 people in its two plants, plus a further 23,000 in its retail and UK supply chain (not included in overall figures).

• BMW-owned Mini announced a £250m investment in 2012 at its three UK plants to increase production, having announced an additional £500m for the latest Mini only the year before. Mini employs 5,600 people in Oxford, Swindon and Hams Hall, and is one of the UK’s most productive manufacturers in the UK.

• BMW-owned Rolls Royce Motor Cars has dismissed the idea of relocating outside the UK. BMW CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes told Reuters, “I’ve had lots of questions in my time in a way of why aren’t you opening up a plant somewhere else. I sad guys are you kidding me? This is so truly British that it belongs to Britain and it is also part of our success story that we are from Britain.” Rolls Royce directly employs more than 21,300 people in the UK, including over 12,000 at its Derby site, home to its Civil Aerospace and Submarine businesses as well as its car manufacturing business. Other key locations include Bristol, East Kilbride, Ansty, Barnoldswick, Inchinnan, Hucknall and Sunderland.

• Volkswagen-owned Bentley is committed to the UK. Board member for sales, Kevin Rose, has said, “We made our plans, we’ve announced the investments… and they were in full knowledge that there was a referendum so we believe in the UK” Bentley is the third largest automotive R&D investor in the UK, employing 3,600 people at its Pyms Lane site.

• Airbus has corrected claims it would cease investment in the UK. Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier said at the Paris Airshow he had “no intention” of pulling out in the event of Brexit. More than 4,000 people, including 2,000 engineers are employed at its Filton site.

• Jaguar Land Rover announced in March 2015 an investment of £600m in the west midlands including £400 for manufacturing the new Jaguar XF at Castle Bromwich and in September a further £120m in its Solihull plant – all despite the Brexit referendum being likely. Jaguar Land Rover, the country’s largest automotive business, has its headquarters in the UK and employs 25,000 of its 26,000 strong workforce within the UK, across five sites.

• Nissan announced in 2015 it would build its next generation Juke vehicle at its Sunderland plant in the UK, with £100m investment allocated. Nissan Chairman Paul Willcox said, “Nissan, obviously, is a global company. We export to over a hundred different countries from our production plant in Sunderland … the important point is not that referendum and the decision, whichever way that goes. Nissan had made a strong commitment to the UK so that won’t be pushed to one side, we have made that commitment, certainly beyond 2020.” Nissan employs a 6,700-strong workforce in Sunderland, many of whom are ex-miners and ship builders.

• Honda announced in 2015 a record £200m investment at Swindon – its only European factory – to produce a new five-door hatchback that would create a global manufacturing hub that would build a new five-door Civic. Honda employs around 3,400 people at its plant in Swindon
• Geely, the Chinese owner of the London Taxi Company has announced an investment of £250m to build a new Coventry plant creating 1,000 jobs to build a low-emission black cab.

• Ford announced in 2014 that it would invest £190m in Dagenham, and in 2015 a further £181m in its Bridgend engine manufacturing plant even though a Brexit referendum was on the cards. Ford employs 13,000 people in the UK.

Ever since James Bond was sent on his first big screen mission in 1962’s Dr No, the most successful franchise in movie history has been a shop window for British manufacturing. Is Spectre, the latest incarnation of Ian Flemings infamous MI5 agent, going to continue to promote brand Britannia?

Bond famously has a weakness for British cars. Along side his famous Aston Martin  he has been spotted driving Landrovers (made in Coventry), a Lotus (made in Norfolk) as well as riding a Norton motorcycle (made in Leicestershire) and even at the helm of a Sunseeker Yacht (made in Hethel). In Spectre, Range Rover and Jaguar models once again line up alongside Bond’s trusty Aston.

But it is not just about the cars – Cumbria Crystal’s hand blow cut-crystal has been Daniel Craig’s whisky glass of choice thought his tenure as oo7 and is once again featured in the new film. And his tipple of choice? This is previously been Talisker whisky but apparently he has, in Spectre, now developed a taste for Macallan.

In addition, we are all aware of Bond as a well travelled gent but did you know that his luggage is made by British brand Globe-Trotter, from Hertfordshire, and that even his undies are British made, by Sunspel in Nottingham?

However, not everything about 007 is produced in the UK. Controversially, Bond has been sporting Omega watches in his last few outings. I would like to suggest that Bremont might be a better British alternative. And, mainly due to the films being produced by Sony pictures, he will continue to sport a Sony mobile phone in the latest film. Again, an alternative might be a phone produced by Vertu (Made in Hampshire). With their handsets starting at £5,000 a Virtue seems a little more his style anyway.

Lastly, James Bond has always been known as a dapper dresser and there are plenty of British made options for him to choose from. However, 007 tends to opt for Tom Ford suits, topped off with Tom Ford Sunglasses, which, while a British designer, I don’t believe makes any products in the UK.

So, our favourite not-so-secret-agent continues to fly the flag for Britain and what better advert could there be for the brilliance of British manufacturing?!

If you manage to spot anything else British made in the lasted James Bond movie please do let us know by commenting below.

British Steel flotation 1988

What a terrible few weeks for British steel manufacturing. The SSI Redcar plant has closed with a loss of 2,200 jobs, Tata Steel has announced 1,200 job losses at its plants in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire and Caparo, based in Oldbury, has now bought in the administrators.  This issue is becoming so severe that as many as 1 in 6 British steel workers now face redundancy. Unions warn are warning that ‘there will be no British industry in a year’ if Caparo  is allowed to collapse. The knock on effects of these events could have a disastrous effects to UK industry as a whole.

Alarmingly the future of British steel seems to be at the mercy of the Chinese. The only realistic short term solution is for David Cameron and George Osborne to get on the phone to the Chinese president and plead for him to stop the devastating impact of ‘dumping’ huge amounts of cheap steel onto the international markets.

However, it might be suggested that China could greatly benefit from closing British Steel for good. Lets face it, in the short-term, HS2, Trident and the Hinckley power stations are likely to require a massive amount of steel over the coming years. If there is no domestic production guess where it will need to come from!? In a strange set of coincidences, the Chinese will likely win the contract for HS2 and will not only build but they will also own the Hinckley power station. I would also be willing to bet that as soon as British steel has been killed off the price of Chinese steel rockets… or am I just being cynical?

With thousands of families effected, and whole communities set to be decimated, the government’s recent ‘March of the Makers’ and ‘Northern Powerhouse’ initiates are starting to look a little meaningless. Certainly something more needs to be done. We have recently saved the bankers with an unprecedented bail out perhaps it is now time to save British steel? [But then David Cameron’s mates tend not to be steel workers, so don’t hold your breath].