Surrender: How British Industry Gave Up the Ghost, 1952-2012

by Nicholas Comfort

British industry at the start of the New Elizabethan Age was a world leader. The first - British - jet airliner was taking to the skies, the first nuclear power station was under construction at Calder Hall and British firms were pioneering the computer. Our shipyards reigned almost supreme, and from Britain's factories came cars, lorries, buses, heavy machinery, aircraft and locomotives, exported all over the world. Sixty years on, many of these industries and millions of jobs have disappeared, while competitors have flourished. Much of what remains is under foreign ownership. Britain has lost many export markets, and essential goods have to be imported. How did all this happen? Britain's loss of competitiveness has traditionally been blamed on outdated working practices, failure to invest and modernise, poor management, bloody-minded unions, the loss of Empire and the ability of post-war Germany and Japan to rebuild from scratch. All this is true, but the picture is far more complex. The role of Whitehall and successive governments, Britain's relationship with Europe, corporate greed, misjudgement and even suicide, and sheer bad luck all play a part. In Surrender, Nicholas Comfort revisits the past six decades and identifies some of the factors behind the greatest mass extinction since the dinosaurs.

Genres: History, Economics

344 pages, Hardcover

First published January 26, 2012

Reviews

[Ajay · Rating 1 out of 5]

A boring read, deeply detailed -- Nicholas Comfort's book is a play-by-play of six decades of British industrial decline. Each chapter describes the jobs lost, brands bought or shuttered, and the missteps by both government and businesses. However, I found it difficult to see the forest from the trees. Despite describing so many events in pain-staking detail, there is remarkably little analysis or commentary in this book. Few themes to organize things beyond chronology. In an ending chapter "Could we have done better", the author lists a series of failures, mistakes, or alternative choices that Britain could have made. However it feels undeserved and disconnected from the rest of the book. I'd much prefer the book have chosen 2-3 critical recommendations to explore as focused themes throughout the period (e.g. European integration, overvalued Sterling, organized labour) rather than 8 chapters of A failed, B was bought .... and a 9th chapter listing 30 things that could have been done differently with no grounding or support.

[Bob Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A catalogue of the failings of government policy, trade unions and business leaders since the end of the second world war. Much of the book catalogues these failures without giving a clear picture of what is happening. A clear case of not being able to see the forest for the trees. Perhaps the salient points that I could take away from it have been these. British trade unions remained craft based rather than industry based as in Germany and France. Germany and France with one having been defeated and the other being occupied started the post war period with a chance to build their industry anew. British industry remained wedded to the past. The UK passed up the chance to become a member of the embryonic EU instead still focussing on the relics the Imperial past in the form of the Commonwealth. In the decades of European growth in the post war period the UK was locked out of this.

[Ian Fletcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

If one is interested in the topic this book is about, it is simply the best one on the subject. Also a good read for anyone worried about the economic future of the U.S.A.

[Kevin Regan · Rating 5 out of 5]

great read

A great read on an important topic, illuminating and thoughtful , apart from a few automotive inaccuracies, very insightful work.

[Nicholas · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author's command of detail and history is impressive. However, he does not give his sources and no doubt most of what he says must be right, there are weaknesses. One of the few examples I know something about is on page 92. Here he wrongly says that BAC concluded an agreement to supply jet fighters with Saudi (in fact the 1973 agreement was for maintenance etc. of previous jets bought in the early 1960s - a big deal at the time) and wrongly claims that the US could not supply jets to Saudi in case Israel got upset. But during the 1960s and 1970s in fact the US did supply Saudi with plenty of aircraft.
The book is an enormous mass of detail and largely inaccessible to someone who is not retired and does not know the background. And with this narrative there is not a great deal of analysis and I left none the wiser as to why things had turned out the way they had except with a sense that there were quite a few reasons.

[David Clayton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interestingly, this is not the book I scanned on goodreads. The book I scanned is called The Slow Death of British Industry. As has been pointed out on amazon, this is the same book released under a different name.

This book is a very long list of corporate mergers, takeovers and failures punctuated with spurious and unreferenced anecdotes (evidence of the decline in university standards courtesy of an "ex-colleague's wife who worked in academia").

The contemptuous prose style (where the writing does stretch beyond cataloguing dates and names) reads like a Daily Mail business columnist's history of 20th century Britain and her agonising demise at the hands of scurrilous trade unions, intcompetent mandarins and dastardly foreign competitors. The book offers very little in the way of analysis or in-depth exploration of the wider issues.

[Jonathan Hull · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well constructed and researched book that looks at all sides of the debate from public policy, industrial relations and management.

He analyses ownership structures and endemic short termism that goes back 50 years.

It is an easy read because his journalistic style.

This is a must for anyone interested in economics and political economy.

This is pure reportage and doesn’t give any answers.