‘Buying British’ problems are hardly new

3:36pm Wednesday 16th July 2008

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Companies do come and go but there was something particularly sad about the news that Hilden Manufacturing had gone into administration last week.

The Hyndburn textile firm can trace its origins right back to 1874 and the descendants of Spinning Jenny inventor James Hargreaves — a man at the centre of the industry in the 18th century which made Lancashire famous throughout the world.

Anyone who has been to Australia, for example will notice that the linen sections in their department stores are referred to as ‘Manchester Goods’ to this day.

True a buyer may still be found to keep things going because the linen Hilden provides to hotels and restaurants around the world do give it annual sales of around £15million.

But it is now four years since weaving, bleaching and dyeing operations were moved to Egypt to try to compete with all their competitors in the cheaper labour markets of Asia.

So like so many companies their products are not locally made. We in East Lancashire are the centres for sales, administration, distribution and warehousing — and if we are lucky original design.

And that’s the dilemma for consumers who want to do their bit for our economy by buying British.

It’s virtually impossible.

Hilden’s Egyptian-made tablecloths and napkins are quite likely to be on tables which have been imported from Thailand, India or another part of the developing world or manufactured in China to designs which we think of as Scandinavian.

The table in turn is almost certain to stand on flooring which has been made from imported wood or non-British carpets (although there are still a few British carpet manufacturers).

And we all know where most of our food comes from, don’t we?

Lamb from New Zealand, ‘fresh sea bass’ flown in from fish farms in Greece, monkfish from the United States and a recent addition to our supermarket shelves alongside crustaceans from Thailand we have a fish called Tilapia — from Vietnam.

It is quite tasty but must have notched up more air miles than the average Brit collects in a decade.

We all know about the veg which comes from various parts of Africa and those bags of salad with labels which just say ‘product of more than one country’.

Then outside the two months of the year when you can buy gorgeously tasty asparagus grown in Britain we are offered shelves of the stuff that has been freighted from Peru! And even when we do manage to grow something in this country all year round it doesn’t quite work.

Am I the only one who thinks those Scottish-grown Elsanta strawberries have a blandness that’s a million miles from the taste of the varieties we used to get for a couple of months in the summer?

But these sort of ‘Buy British’ problems are hardly new.

It’s exactly 40 years since prime minister Harold Wilson launched his ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign — with emblazoned t-shirts which were then revealed to have been made in Portugal!