OUR once prime industries like textiles, coal, steel and pottery have almost ceased to exist but the cheap cost of foreign labour which undermined them has now taken its toll on consumer products. Many British companies now outsource labour and manufacture.

Manufacturing industry continues its plunge from 22% of GDP in 1995 to a measly 10%.

Both developed and underdeveloped countries now sport a huge number of multi-millionaires whilst a creeping tide of poverty and homelessness affects ordinary workers.

European conditions of work have deteriorated and in the under-developed countries, they remain awful. Neither they nor we have benefited.

Have we asked ourselves whether the massive savings made by British companies getting their goods manufactured cheaply overseas might have been better invested in our own country?

Banks have outsourced hundreds of thousands of jobs to Indian call centres but judging by the size of their bonuses, the returns have, as usual gone to the few, not the many.

Donald Trump recognised what a political point he could make by gaining the working-class vote. He therefore threatened to impose huge tariffs on foreign imports to prevent ‘dumping’ threatening their jobs. This avoided ‘bearding’ the real culprits, corporate buyers whose greed calls for the hardship of the poor.

Every item of goods traded in the developed world is covered by various regulations including the traceability of component parts.

No stone is left unturned. Conspicuous by its absence, is the need for overseas suppliers to prove that every employee used in the supply and manufacture of their goods enjoys reasonable working conditions and a fair rate of pay.

If the corporate rich could put a moratorium on their greed and impose fair and humane controls over the labour used to provide foreign goods, the problem of ‘dumping’ would cease to exist. This will become very obvious when our witless government plunges us into a ‘foreign’ world.

Mike Joslin

Garfield Avenue

Dorchester