Max Power

An analysis of Honda's withdrawal. Why? Frankly, Swindon *never* made an adequate return for Honda. There's too much capacity in Europe and the situation got worse and worse as Honda’s market share fell. Output at 160k last year is sub-scale. It’s an obvious business decision to close it. However, Honda has avoided that obvious business decision for many years. Instead, they've tried everything possible to keep Swindon open, such as exporting to the US. The role of the EU-Japan trade deal is interesting. Britain pushed for the earliest possible reduction in EU auto tariffs, believing it would help Japanese assembly plants in the UK. There was some logic to this – if they had access to the EU market. German and French manufacturers always thought Japan would just move assembly home. With the UK outside the EU, the trade deal makes that easy. Past UK policy comes back to bite us. The next question is Toyota in Burnaston. That is an equally subscale plant. Business logic says Toyota should close it, but like Honda, they’ll try everything to make it work. I’m afraid the mood music from Toyota these days is not encouraging. It’s a tragedy really. Swindon was a huge investment, attracted with much difficulty, and started with high hopes. Once it’s gone it’ll never come back. I also wonder when we’ll hear the first UK voices calling for Trump-style protectionism.

I had an accident there when pulling out of the Milestone, looked right and drove into the back of a car which was trying to avoid hitting the back of an idiot who slammed everything on in a last minute attempt to get his Big Mac! My fault of course!

Correct, unless it becomes a national epidemic.

It looks like there is more room on the site for cars to queue up Sultan? Also, won't this just ease the congestion at McD's? There can't be that many locals desperate to clog their arteries, can there?

Perhaps if they could give up a little of their land to allow the pavement to be realigned making it possible to have a pull in and exit lane for traffic to back up into? To be fair,the site is much larger than McD's and should allow traffic to disperse easier.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a difficult thing to prove in most cases, harder still after so much time and at such a young age! I don't think his name should have been released, it's wrong. If there are circumstances which we are unaware of, they should have been released after the case has been heard but a child should not have his life ruined to satisfy the flaws in the Manx justice system!

You wouldn't think he would have developed enough to commit rape?

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/douglas-man-faces-historical-child-sex-charges/ This 21 year old was between 10 and 12 when these offences took place, is it right that he should be named?

Considering how profitable it was prior to government's takeover, yes!

Well, all of my Valentine cards must be delayed?

To be fair though Wooley, we have never experienced AI as we are now beginning to. I accept your points but I feel we are entering a much different phase than what we have in previous industrial revolutions.

It is happening though Dilli, for example from my own industry, so much of car manufacturing is computer controlled, designs are done by computers, putting cars into production in virtually months as opposed to years, ordering of stock etc is automatic as is the picking of that stock. Computers control your car, they can self diagnose faults etc. Vast armies of staff were once needed to make things happen, even at dealer level. Now a handful of people can run the business. Unfortunately self driving cars are already a reality, governments are keen to make them happen along with electric power. It takes out the human element. AI is coming whether we like it or not! It will work somehow, it will have to eventually! The alternatives don't bear thinking about!

I think that is where the majority of jobs will be, in service and hospitality type industries. Not enough of them though I expect?

Strangely the Caucasian population seems to be falling, the Chinese limited parents to one child but there are more than twice as many people in the world as in 1970.