In a country with wages and living standards like ours, manufacturing is dead. We need to do what the Victorians did, show initiative and start a new way. Blair is right to make education a priority. If our young do not respond, they will be condemned to fritter away their inheritance on booze and a good time. If they pick up the baton we can go forward, as America turns itself into a fundamentalist country that, like all of that ilk, begins to say no to scientific progress on theological grounds. The most religious countries in the world are generally the poorest, so this is our opportunity to re-create ourselves with science, medicine, art etc. If we don't other European countries will and we will sink into genteel poverty and dreams about the good old days. Now is the time to kick arse and change our culture for the better, we cannot compete with the Far East and their poverty wages or the shareholders who would rather see a bigger return on their investment than british jobs can offer.