Horsemeat and things

Cosham Iceland

'Food you can trust' says Iceland, who took a hit when Irish food inspectors found traces of horse DNA in their beefburgers. But at least it was only a tiny trace, Tescos were far more embarassed when it was announced that almost 30% of the DNA content of it's 'value' range of beefburgers consisted of horse meat.

Strangely in 'i' newspaper a Tesco spokesperson suggested it was illegal to have the meat in their products. I'm not sure that is true, what is illegal is to say a food product contains beef only, when in fact it contains other meats as well.

Cosham high street

Meanwhile the big corporates continue to fall on the high street. Following the news of HMV and Jessops in trouble, Blockbuster have joined the growing count of failing retailers.

I am just thankful that when I graduated as an engineer all those decades ago that I went more or less into a good engineering job and spent a year as a paid trainee. I designed things that were manufactured in this country, even often went on the 'shop floor' to see the products being assembled and chatting to production line colleagues.

Jessops, Portsmouth

Today young graduates often end up in service industries like supermarkets, despite having degrees in IT, mechanical engineering etc

Yet successive governments, including the Conservatives and Liberals just cut, poke, criticise, blame and find scape goats (such as jobseekers and others) for the situations they are responsible for creating. They kill the desire to make things and the desire to innovate. It is no wonder we are in a spiral and that many are disenfranchised.

Low carbon technology and engineering is a challenge and as such must be viewed as an OPPORTUNITY to exploit, hence fostering new industry and jobs. Wasting time and effort on old industries will result in other nations overtaking us, yet again. Commiting our graduates to stacking shelves whilst other nations take the prize projects and jobs.