The International Trade Secretary Liam Fox had been at the mind altering substances again. Aides said that his latest article for The Telegraph (HERE) had been written and sent before they were able to wrest his laptop away and restrain him for his own safety. He was last seen, one eye blinking rapidly, laughing hysterically and being dragged forcibly out of his office with another aide carrying a strait jacket and sedatives, following behind.
The bizarre article, with a garbled theme about "embracing the future to deliver a high-tech Brexit" came as it was revealed the average age of the rolling stock on Britain's railways was 123 years and that Stephenson's Rocket was finally to be retired along with the open-to-the-elements carriages still in everyday use on the Liverpool to Manchester line.
Mr Fox is said to be secretly working on a new high speed internet using cast iron, polished mahogany and Bakelite with brass detailing. He has already signed several deals to secure investment in the project from a group claiming to have direct access to the Nigerian minister of finance, although Fox's department has recently announced an investigation into funds which have inexplicably disappeared from government accounts.
Really anybody with similar delusions to Dr Fox should read this report about sales of industrial robots HERE in 2015. World market annual sales increased by 15% while ours, from a very low base, actually went down to 1,645 units compared to Germany's 20,000. And as for the density of robots installed in industry it says:
Most of the emerging robot markets have a robot density rate below 30. The United Kingdom also has a rather low rate in the general industry; only 33 robots are installed per 10,000 employees.
In other words we are about the level of an emerging market (read late developer or backward). Korea has 411, Germany 170 and even Sweden has 154 robots per 10,000 workers. Fox is like an over-enthusiastic salesman who claims his company can do everything, supply anything and is the world leader at all conceivable technologies. As Margaret Thatcher might have said, no, no, no.
