[Acrylic-bob]

Part three.

So here we are now, at the beginning of the 21st Century. The Silicon Revolution is well underway, changing all our lives for better or worse. China, the new kid on the block, has developed low cost manufacturing into something of a minor art form, making the prospect of maintaining this country’s manufacturing base a hopelessly expensive undertaking. India, the even newer kid on the block, is doing the same with service sector industries. This year they are taking all the call-centre jobs and software development is also going that way. What is there left for a high cost/low skill workforce to do? Increasingly, technological developments will demand that those who do not adopt a strategy of constant learning and updating skills will be left behind. And it seems clear that the pace of change will accelerate as the century progresses.


We are already seeing evidence of that change on the streets of Accrington as, one after another, businesses fail to compete, and the shops fill with comparatively inexpensive far eastern imports. We can also see that to provide any sort of development for the local economy, the council must now rely on handouts from Central Government and the European Union, simply because the borough is incapable of generating enough income to be able to afford the necessary investment, which is, and will become, increasingly, too little too late.


There is little will on the part of local government to take the radical steps necessary to equip the borough to survive into the next century. Just as there was little will to recognise and manage its industrial decline from the 1960’s onwards. Oh certainly they fiddle about a bit, here and there, and there is plenty of self congratulation when each new regeneration effort is announced, but there is little real understanding of the problems that face the borough, both now and in the future, and consequently there is no unified vision of a way forward.


And instead of whipping our children into frenzies of enthusiasm for arts and sciences, we encourage their facile ambitions to stardom. Instead of spending every damn penny we can afford on providing an education that is second to none, we lavish every electronic and stylish luxury on them. And instead of making absolutely certain that every child achieves all that he or she is capable of, we are content to sit back and watch them sink into a morass of moral and social misbehaviour, in which they consistently underachieve, congratulating ourselves that at least they are able to read and write sufficiently well enough to fill out the benefits claim forms. True not all children are like this, there will always be some children who shine, but, sadly, the ones that shine have a habit of going on to tertiary education – and then leave the borough, taking their skills and ambitions with them.