Jim,
This is a industrialists magazine based on telling you what a good job they are doing

It is the insider journal reporting on the actual state of manufacturing.
Here is the Financial Times in full agreement,
"Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, the data company that conducts surveys of manufacturing activity around the world, agreed: "We don't see [the UK] as being unusually weak in recent years." In 2014, he said, Britain was one of the best-performing nations in terms of manufacturing activity's rate of expansion, before — like the US — sliding down the rankings."

"Yet Britain is still easily one of the 10 biggest manufacturing nations in the world. There are success stories to go with the doom and gloom, including the renaissance in Britain's automobile industry and its continued excellence in aerospace."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ff19bb16-c4fa-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html#axzz4BqzDkjQ1

Steve, we are also, as you said, the 7th biggest economy.
The difference is due to our disproportionately large economic sector.