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Proto industrialization in the UK-Older than you think

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A reply I gave on Quara about proto industrialization. I discuss the origins of wool, cotton, copper, iron, steam power and some ways in which they are linked. If industrialisation means the organisation of the factory system and the automation of work there is one answer. If industrialisation means new (or at least abundant) materials and forms of energy, there is another. I am more qualified to discuss the second but I will start with the first anyway. Both required peace and improved agriculture to gain momentum. There is also the question of what is proto-industrialisation, which I shall treat as trade and technology that creates large new markets, especially for exports. The Saxons had exported woollen cloaks to the continent. In 1066, William the Conqueror of Normandy, became the ruler of England. Importantly for this story, his wife was Matilda of Flanders and he had major Flemish allies such as Eustace of Boulogne,, then Flemish. Flanders was a major cloth weaving centre. For c...
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The Lords should not be elected. The House of Lords should be ex officio

An elected House of Lords is a challenge to the House of Commons. It would be a source of confusion. The democratic mandates would often conflict due to the electoral cycle. For those that like First Past the Post, the allegedly decisive nature of UK politics would be lost. The House of Lords is a reviewing chamber and should stay so. We need a House of Lords based on expertise. To avoid party political bias, members should be appointed Ex Offico. The obvious pool of candidates would be the principal members' representative from trade unions, trade associations, professional associations, charities and the heads of plcs, even a few ex MPs. The Law Lords and the Bishops are already there but add other religions too. This is already done but not ex officio. To limit numbers, each interest group could be rotated like the Bishops at present. It would be important to have practicing professionals as representatives not paid administrators of associations. Such a version of the Lords...
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Revenge of the spies. How to become a target for the CIA, MI6, FSB and Mossad all at once.

2nd Edition My business involves assisting foreign companies with trade and investment in Russia . So I have a more than passing interest in Russia’s international relations. At times, because my office is in the provincial city of Saratov rather than in Moscow, I have perspectives on Russia that do not seem available to journalists and embassy staff based in the major cities. I’m writing about the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia because the British media seems to have closed far too quickly on a single line of enquiry that is very convenient for the government. The attempted Skripal assassination The following link to John Helmer’s Dances with Bears sums up most of the evidence made public by the police. Since the Anti-Terrorist unit took over the investigation from the local police force and Scotland Yard no new evidence has been revealed. So, let’s discuss this in terms of the detective story triad of means, opportunity and motive. Mo...
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The Gravity-Model-of-Trade for opportunities beyond the EU after #Brexit. The #Russian anomaly.

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There is a more up to date, better version of this at the UK Houses of Parliament. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/12422/html/ This analysis is aimed at businesses considering what opportunities are available beyond the EU following Brexit. It uses the gravity model of trade to show that the potential of Russia as a trade partner beyond the EU is second only to the US. It shows that the UK already tends to trade above potential with English speaking countries. It trades well below potential with Russia, Indonesia and Argentina. The shortfall with Russia is such that meeting average performance is worth more than any deal in Asia. The Gravity Model of Trade ( http://www.nber.org/papers/w19285 ) is one of the more robust models in economics. It is based on the observation that levels of trade between countries depend on the size of the economies and the inverse square of the distance between them. Double the distance between a pair of countries and the potential for ...
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Will #British #food and #farming die at #Russia's hand or the #Commonwealth's after #Brexit?

There are only two "benefits" from Brexit that might be concrete rather than flag waving vapourware about "sovereignty" without power. One is changing the source of unskilled immigrants from Eastern Europe back to the Commonwealth which will be addressed in another blog. The other benefit might be cheap food. After two major wars where political survival depended on convoys of food crossing the ocean, British farmers have been heavily subsidised. The Common Agricultural Policy of the EU replaced earlier forms of subsidy and now the average UK subsidy is about the same as the average UK farm's net income (link at bottom). Senior Leavers from the Tories and UKIP have promised to maintain these subsidies (so much for £350m to the NHS anyway). However, there two other forms of protection for farmers. Tariffs and regulations. Tariffs are far more significant. There are tariffs against imported food to protect EU farmers from low cost foreign products. Althoug...
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Why not the #Commonwealth?

Surely the obvious choice for the UK's international partnerships should be countries of the British Commonwealth. Some are settled by British people with as near identical ties of culture and law as can be imagined. Many others have inherited legal and business practices and the English language from the days of Empire. Commonwealth countries more or less by definition, have more positive than negative attitudes to the UK. Only the French have something similar. The Spanish, Portugese and Dutch have no such thing. The Russian experience to try to create something similar through various measures has had very partial success. The British Empire was largely about trade, not conquest and tribute. Most conflict took place as a struggle for power between local elites when the British were withdrawing. We have fought and died together in the same causes. Until 1968, we had total freedom of movement for Commonwealth citizens. There are ties of shared blood sacrifice between Britain ...
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Major #inventions in #Wales that built the modern world

This is a work in progress. There will be additions and alterations. What is this list about? English historians usually do not write the histories of the other members of the UK as if they were separate entities and, a few nods to Scotland aside, the progress they make is ignored. One field that suffers is the role of Wales in the industrial revolution and beyond. Wales took perhaps the earliest part in the industrial revolution. The physical evidence of prior prosperity is there to see for example, in the big medieval ironworks in South Wales built by Cistercian monks. The copper industry was already active on an industrial by the 17th C both around Swansea Bay and in North Wales. In the late 18th C the iron industry exploded upon the world especially around Merthyr Tydfil. The world's first passenger railway and steam locomotive were from Wales as was the precision engineering to make the steam engines. This early activity led to invention and innovation of world significance....
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