We Inform and Comment - Make the Decision Yours!

Share on LinkedIn Share on Facebook Print

CIoJ

TRANSPORT

INFRASTRUCTURE

MOTOR

INDUSTRY

VEHICLE

APPRAISAL

TECHNICAL

ANALYSIS

23 July 2019

Politicians Musical Chairs - Who Cut the Legs Off?

The endemic liar Boris Johnson becomes UK Prime Minister tomorrow (Wednesday) unleashing a brand new catalogue of negative achievements such as the shortest-serving UK Prime Minister, Trumps arse-buddy, donkey and servant.  And so on.

This contrasts appositely with the appointment of Jo Swinson as leader of the Lib-dems, we congratulate her and trust she will be leading The Principal Opposition almost immediately and will ultimately serve as PM.  At least her vision is clear, to remain in the EU - or if we are forced out of Europe by a mop-headed idiot, then to negotiate our re-entry to Europe.

In other news, the Europeans (those people Boris-arse regards as unimportant) are refusing to assist the UK diplomatically or otherwise, with negotiating with The Iranian National Guard per se.

More other news.  The name ‘Little England’ and ‘Little Englander’ have both just been copyrighted.  This leaves Boris-arse with a big decision to make.  What can he now call the United Kingdom he is putting into Recession and dissolving?   For info, the Boris-bike was actually Ken Livingstone’s idea and was already being built when Boris became Mayor of London.  The buses he ‘pushed’ into existence were hugely expensive and 10 years on still not working properly.  His cycle super-highways have brought many bottle-necks to the Capitals public transport, the most interesting bottle-neck is right at the foot of Big Ben.  Boris-arse is a big achiever?   Apparently mainly in the toilet department.

For forecasts of likely timetables to Brexit, general elections and other failures we have to endure, see the always-accurate BBC News page                                      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49004486

3 April 2019

Brexit No-deal Threat from Ford

Unbelievably, despite not building any cars in the UK, Ford still has the most employees, but not for long it seems.  Ford employees are concentrated in Dagenham and South Wales, where they are machining and assembling engines for their own cars assembled in Cologne and Ghent, and for certain cars in the PSA group and other smaller customers.  These facilities are referred to under the codename ‘Gemini’.

Generally, these engines are small advanced diesels co-designed with PSA and the falling popularity of diesel has already affected production levels - the adverse effects of a no-deal Brexit are almost certain to increase unit cost and therefore reduce production levels.  Both PSA and Ford have available production capacity within the EU and it is very likely both companies have already calculated reduced unit production costs in those existing factories - or maybe even elsewhere within the EU or at the Transit plant in Turkey.

We already know that the other major car assembly ‘trans-plants’ are under varying degrees of threat for future continuation.  This would include Toyota, Honda and Nissan.  Jaguar-Land Rover plants may also be under threat as their American and East European plants come on stream and consideration is given to increasing sales and manufacturing in the Far East.

We must not forget that while these UK trans-plants directly employ a large range of skilled and semi-skilled workers, their supply chain employs - it is estimated - approximately 3 to 4 times that number of staff, plus often giving after-sales support.