Derby – A Centre for technology but for how long?

Derby – A Centre for technology but for how long?

Who caused this downturn – the Conservative and Labour Party

Last Saturday saw a massive protest rally in Derby where people from Derby, Derbyshire and other bordering counties turned out in their thousands to protest at the loss of yet another railway contract to a German company (Siemens).

Unfortunately once again although this has been very distressing news for this industrial city it has been used as a political football by the Labour Party and the Unions to try and force a change of government at the next election.

What both Gordon Bowden and I have discovered is that the true reason behind the demise of this once great city is as a direct result of massive corruption by the Conservative Party and to some extent the lack of action by the Labour Party who watched it all happen and did nothing.

If you were working for a large enterprise and its technological advancements were amongst the best in the world you would expect that in the event of a downturn or some other financial difficulty that your government would help it through difficult times, especially knowing that research and development for such products as Railway Trains and Coaches or Jet Engine Development can be extremely expensive.

But before we look at who is the blame for the partial collapse of this once great city lets look into its past. Derby and Derbyshire became the centre for the start of the Industrial Revolution and launched on a programme of very large cotton mills etc powered by water and steam.

On the very sight where today’s rally was held (the Derby Silk Mill and Industrial Museum) there once stood one of those earlier creations that propelled England into a new age…..The Derby Silk Mill as portrayed in the picture below. Some of the original structure still stands and this was one of several in the district that gave England much respect and prosperity around the world………… Some of my own relatives worked in such a mill.

Old Painting of Derby Silk Mill

One can see that today’s rally was a very fitting location for this rally as the picture below depicts, showing the crowds with the old mill to the right of the crowd.

Saturdays Rally alongside old mill

Four of the main industries that were the strength of Derby were the original Silk and Cotton Mills, the Railway Locomotive Works, Rolls Royce Aircraft Engine Division and the Qualcast Foundry. In Victorian days the mills and the railways were the pride of the city and Qualcast provided the huge castings of Iron & Steel for the railway and other industries. The latter name derived from the phrase of “Quality Castings” and was amongst the best in the world…..later came Rolls Royce who developed some very famous aircraft engines such as the one that power the first Trans Atlantic Flight and the famous Merlin and Griffon engines that powered the Spitfire and Hurricane

The first industry to collapse was the Silk & Cotton industry and then in 1969, Qualcast merged with Birmid and went on to become the largest foundry operation in the UK, surviving the recession of the early 80s. However, it went into voluntary liquidation in 2006.

Derby continued on with its British Railways Research Centre and its Train and Coach Design and Production lines…….these covered vast areas close to the city centre and employed many local people. The facilities produced many powerful Steam Engines which was also a local success story and again I had relatives working in this high tech industry.

Many new and innovative trains were designed here in Derby including the Advanced Passenger Train (APT) and the High Speed Train (HST) and the little known Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) Train designed by Prof Laithwaite of the Imperial College in London who set up a development stage in Derby.

One of the most advanced trains at the time was designed, built, tested and run on a test line between Derby and Duffield…..this train even today looks ahead of its time as shown below and was powered by Gas Turbines (jet engines).

Jet Powered APT at Derby R&D Centre

Then came the High Speed Train (HST) which is still running in many areas of the world and was again a very innovative product designed and built here in Derby as shown below:

HST

However what could have turned out to be a major advancement for Derby was the establishment of the Magnetic Levitation design and test facility at the Railway Research Centre.

In the 1960s, Great Britain held the lead in Maglev research. British Rail set up a Maglev Experimental Centre at their Railway Technical Centre based at Derby. The world’s first commercial automated system was a low-speed Maglev shuttle that ran from the airport terminal at Birmingham International Airport to the nearby Birmingham International railway station from 1984 to 1995. Based on experimental work commissioned by the British government at the British Rail Research Division laboratory at Derby, the length of the track was 600 meters (1,969 ft), and trains “flew” at an altitude of 15 millimeters (0.6 in). It was in operation for nearly eleven years. The older Maglev is shown below with its replacement train and track which was cable driven.

You will note the track for the Maglev consisted of a centre plate with two outer rails which were used by the magnets…….the train once underway did not touch the track and one could see the technical values of this design i.e. less wear and tare and now wheels or boggy required……..at the time spares became difficult as the Maglev was no longer supported by the government and again we had a wonderful concept go under. Obviously streamlining would have come later and remember this was the worlds first ever Maglev.

Original Maglev at Birmingham Airport and its cable driven replacement

As the years went on we started to see and understand that having such high tech in Derby was not only becoming very expensive in the Research and Development (R&D) phase but also in the transition to full production and it became apparent that the government where simply not prepared to pump such vast sums of money into this effort……as we have seen so many times in our aviation industry with such things as the very advanced TSR2 military bomber.

In 1971 it became the turn of Rolls Royce to feel the pinch of very expensive R&D and had a major financial collapse…….as we all know aviation and air travel is a very up and down business with many airlines folding up from time to time and this applied much pressure on Rolls Royce.

However the then Prime Minister Edward Heath decided to bail them out, but at a price, it meant the sale of that other very prestigious division in automobiles. It was in 1973 that the government sold of the car division to VW and BMW and yet again a magnificent example of quality workmanship left our shores for Germany…….some aspects of those companies still existed in this country but on a very scaled down form and started to destroy the traditional quality and workmanship of England.

RR Trent Engine

Then came the Neocon Iron lady Maggie Thatcher who decided to return Rolls Royce (RR) back to the private sector in 1987 and later RR decided to split some of its engine production by joining forces with BMW to build smaller jet engines for smaller aircraft and executive jets…..they did retain the production of many advanced jets engines for both military and civil airliners with the RB211 series being the mainstay of its Derby facility, which remains to this day.

One has to say that in this case Rolls Royce went on to flourish and has a very steady order sheet in all sectors and so one could say that the government at the time did save this company.

However, one cannot say the same for British Rail which was the backbone of Derby and again we saw the axe start to fall as it was handed over to the private sector and many aspects sold off to overseas companies including the only large outlet currently in existence that of the Canadian company Bombardier. I personally think that the government should have stood behind British Rail in Derby as the products that came out of this wonderful facility were amongst the best in the world, in much the same way as Rolls Royce.

The major turning point in this country was Maggie Thatcher’s thirst for privatization of government assets and the strong lean to becoming part of what is now the European Union.

This was the start of the fall from grace of what was once the Railway Technology Centre of the World and is now in steep decline. Bombadier had already stated that it was reducing its workforce by around one thousand but then a major contract was released by the Conservative Government for tender around Europe and as one would expect we were undercut and the tender went to Siemens……..however Gordon Bowden and I have relentlessly attempted to show that the Conservative party, going right back to Thatcher days has been operating in a very fraudulent and corrupt way resulting in the corporate sector, banking sector and key political figures becoming involved in massive fraud amounting to billions of pounds per annum, not counting the tax evasion associated with these extremely corrupt deals.

So let’s very simply look at what has caused the demise of this country and in particular the demise of this city that was once the pride of the nation. You will clearly see that what Gordon and I have uncovered explains it all, but who you may say is interested in our findings?……absolutely no one…..not even the trade unions who profess to save their workforce from being laid off…..such is the state of all three main parties at the current time who have all been notified of our findings and sitting in the middle of all this massive fraud is the Serious Fraud Office who have done nothing to stop it happening as these corporate, banking and political gangster go about their shady work!!!

What I find ironic is the fact that for some weeks now our local MP Chris Williamson has been on the megaphone blasting the streets of Derby with his interpretation of the downfall of our railway industry but he fails to understand that his Labour Government put the final nail in the coffin when the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown put his final signature to the Lisbon Treaty and signed away our country forever. It was his PM that promised the people of this country that we would have a referendum on this final phase of the EU before he would go to Lisbon but he lied and from that moment on any tender for major works in this country now go out to the whole of Europe…….naturally there is an element of corruption involved as we have revealed so many times before and that goes for all parties.

Margaret Beckett speaking at rally in Derby

The final straw came yesterday when the other local MP Margaret Beckett did a Churchill type speech talking about the financial situation and the farming out of railway work etc……I simply wanted to throw up as it was Beckett and Williamson that received numerous briefs on the fraud of this country and did absolutely nothing…….it was their closely associated union General Secretaries who were also advised and did nothing.

I have found that Chris Williamson in particular always uses such situations to his own political advantage as does the leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband and the senior members of his shadow cabinet who have all been briefed by Gordon Bowden and myself at an event held in Nottingham this year……….why don’t they understand that once the contract is let there is no going back without going back on the contract and suffering immense default payments.

You will see from the collection of photographs below the effort made by Gordon and I to inform the Shadow Government and finally the old mare herself at the bottom and her conniving partner Chris Williamson with another of his failed political figures, Bob Laxton (that Gordon had in his gunsights)……one should call all of these characters the “Rat Pack” as they have all failed in their duty as Members of Parliament and Failed our Country by not attempting to stop the massive corruption that has consumed our country!!


All of these politicians received our evidence and did nothing!!

Chris Williamson MP and his mate the failed ex MP Bob Laxton

“Yes Mr Laxton read our sign as it reveals massive fraud”

Margaret Beckett MP and Chris Williamson MP

The pair did nothing to stop the ongoing government corruption

Both these Members of Parliament were advised about another previous scam that was run by the Conservative Party when Sir Kenneth Warren and his much younger escort David Cameron went to South Africa to break the UN Sanction and illegally purchase three nuclear bombs (that they then lost) using tax payers money that had fraudulently been channeled via the private sector that many of the Conservative Elite had invested in. The Tory Party then had the audacity to siphon off £17.8 million of tax payer’s money into their own party funds and to this day no one has ever had to explain this……..if you do not believe me go to Hansard June 1993 and read from Column 197……..this matter was raised by Lord Doug Hoyle and by Margaret Beckett herself and still they did nothing……….let me just give you a comparison…..if you or I take even £20 from government funds we end up in prison…….they take £17.8 million and do not even have to account for it……..how’s that for justice?

Chris Williamson also failed to raise my concerns regarding the Chinook crash in which 29 of this countries best RAF pilots and Anti Terrorist Experts died. This was a government inside job and all died from gunshot wounds to the head………so much for another inquiry cover-up. Did I hear someone say that your local MP’s are there to serve you?……what an absolute joke!! Can you imagine that all those pictured above turned their backs on massive fraud in this country that amounts to billions of pounds each and every year……I guess you may be asking why?……maybe they also have a few skeletons in their closets!!

Why, you may, ask are they still allowed to remain in office? Because that’s how politics are run in this country……..once in office they don’t give a s—

Why am I angry you may ask?…….because the Conservative Party destroyed this country and the previous Labour Government helped add the final nails to the coffin………Derby, the once treasured technological centre of the world is slowly dying and they only jump on the band wagon after the event has happened…….they use all these sad events to their own selfish advantage and ignore the major issues that contributed to it………I would like to remind all those self righteous politicians that it was this city that played a major roll in saving this country from the claws of Germany with its engines that powered the Spitfire and the Hurricane and other military vehicles etc

The amount of people that turned out in protest was probably the biggest ever in this city since WW2 but to what avail?…………..the politicians are too busy brushing their own palms with gold or making sure they remain in office at the next general election. I would again as the same question……when was the last time we had a good and transparent government in office in this country?……………don’t even try to remember!!!

Rolls Royce powered Spitfire and Hurricane WW2 fighters – made in Derby

Peter Eyre – Middle East Consultant – 26/7/2011 www.eyreinternational.wordpress.com