Britain won’t rebuild itself with paint and press releases
I walked through town this week and saw another boarded-up shop. The council had slapped on some fresh paint and a new shutter – but behind the gloss it was still empty. No trade, no life, no future.
That, apparently, is what the government now calls “Pride in Place.”
£5bn to tart up high streets, block vape and betting shops, and form local boards to sign off projects. In theory, communities reborn. In reality, a slogan with a lick of gloss.
Because pride doesn’t come from a shopfront. It comes from work. From making things, building things, running a country that actually functions. Until we stop flogging off our assets, importing tat and living off slogans, Britain will stay busted.
Glossing over the real problems
The government thinks a few tins of Dulux will save the nation. Slap gloss on a shutter, job done. Britain reborn.
Pull the other one. That isn’t pride. That’s spin.
Real pride is “Made in Britain” stamped on a product that lasts. We once led the world: Sheffield steel, Stoke pottery, ships on the Clyde, cars in Coventry. Germany never gave up on quality manufacturing, and the world pays a premium for it. Why can’t we?
Real pride comes from being productive
Instead, our industries die while high streets choke on pound shops and knock-offs. Pride doesn’t live in a warehouse of tat. Pride dies there.
And what of the political class? Detached, shallow, smiling into cameras. Half of them have never built or fixed a thing in their lives. Assets flogged to investors who bled them dry. Basics rotting: police who don’t police, GPs who can’t see patients, potholes that swallow wheels whole.
They tell us it’s fine. It isn’t. We aren’t mugs. We see it.
JLR, Rolls-Royce, JCB …
If we want pride, it has to be earned. Britain must remember what it’s good at: making. We still have the know-how: Rolls-Royce powering the skies, JCB shifting earth, Jaguar Land Rover exporting cars the world wants to drive. Aerospace in Bristol, advanced engineering in the Midlands, shipyards still capable of turning steel into warships.
What’s missing is the will.
So how do we turn it around?
• Treat trades and craft as equal to degrees.
• Teach skills that give young people dignity and wages.
• Offer real apprenticeships, not token schemes.
• Back firms that build here, not just import.
• Put British-made goods back on our high streets.
Factories rebuild a nation – not fancy paint jobs
That’s how you build a nation. Not with slogans, but with steel, sweat, and skill.
Yes, paint your shopfronts if you must. Cut your ribbons, pose for the cameras. But don’t kid yourself.
Paint doesn’t rebuild a nation. Factories do.
