Glasgow 2 - Portsmouth 0.

[Lt Kije]

I have said many times on here that strategic industries should remain in British hands, Power and defence, steel making ect.

[asperity]

Easily said, not so easy in practice.

[Lt Kije]

Your right Asp, but I do think on military items we should practice it, in time of war we have seen in the last war what submarines can do to imports. We should be self sufficient when it comes to defence

[observer]

.... and for the same reasons, strive for self sufficiency in all things.

[Lt Kije]

The UK's wealth has always depended on trade Obs, Face facts other Countries make better products than we do, so unless you want to force people to buy British it's a non starter, the computer you use to access the internet as a starter.

[observer]

Note: I used the word "strive". All nations are in competition, war just happens to be the ultimate "competition", so your reasoning for "strategic interests" stands. In order to earn a surplus, which could pay off our debts and then provide the growth to afford increasing public expenditure; we have to export more than we import; therefore the balance of "trade" needs to be in our favour. Finally, again for strategic security reasons, we can't rely on others for essential resources such as energy, leaving us open to extortion by OPEC or GasProm etc.