'In the last quarter of 1997, manufacturing accounted for 21% of lending from British financial institutions while the property business (building, buying, renting) took up 16%. In the first quarter of 2010, the figures were 8.5% to manufacturing and 43.4% to property.'
This stark fact appeared in Mr. Ian Jack's piece in The Guardian on Saturday. It was not all doom and gloom however - Jack reported that Numatic, the Somerset based company that makes the oddly charismatic 'Henry' vacuum cleaner, has enjoyed 40 years of growth without a dip in turnover.
