Lochcarrron Mill to Shut

[Highlander31]

I feel for those people who will have their lives upended at Christmas time.

[Jack Daw]

Well, to do my part, I must resolve to order a kilt from a kiltmaker that uses Lochcarron.

[O'Callaghan]

I feel for those people who will have their lives upended at Christmas time.

I once lost a job just in time for Christmas. Fortunately it was long before I had a family to support. It's an awful feeling, though. I'd imagine only being fired on your birthday could be worse.

[Highlander31]

I once lost a job just in time for Christmas. Fortunately it was long before I had a family to support. It's an awful feeling, though. I'd imagine only being fired on your birthday could be worse.

I was informed on my birthday that my operation was to be closed and I had two weeks to term the team and close the office. My boss flew in to tell me in person rather than just do it with a phone call (gives you an idea of what kind of a man he was.) It definitely made for a bad day.

[Chas]

It makes me angry to walk down the Royal Mile and see shop after shop chock-full with Pakistani bagpipes and Indian kilts, dirks, and sporrans and tourists buying same while old established local sporran makers are going out of business and wonderful local pipemakers are barely keeping going.

I am of the opinion that Scotland should enact a law proclaiming certain items National Cultural Products, these being illegal to import into Scotland for resale, and it being illegal to sell such items within Scotland unless they are Scottish-made. Items on the list would be things such as Highland Bagpipes, practice chanters, kilts, and sporrans. Some things such as jackets specifically designed to be worn with the kilt might be difficult to define.

Perhaps the law would have to be UK-wide to be effective.

This would never work - protectionism only ever hurts those it is trying to protect. People buy foreign made goods because they are cheaper. If they are only allowed to buy domestic in their own country they will go out of country. Calais will become the new Princess Street; the day trips from Dover and Harwich will come back as people flock to 'Le Kilting'

This has happened before (admittedly for different reasons). Numerous off-licence chains ceased to exist (Peter Domonic's and Augustus Barnett are just two) with all the loss of jobs and revenue.

I doubt that EU regulation would allow it.

Regards

Chas

[OC Richard]

Calais will become the new Princess Street; the day trips from Dover and Harwich will come back as people flock to 'Le Kilting'

I doubt that EU regulation would allow it.

I don't agree. I think it is possible to regulate what is imported into a nation, though of course some people will always violate the law if the product is valuable enough (like the market in banned ivory etc).

I don't think the tourists who pack the Royal Mile and Princes Street have come there with the express purpose of buying Pakistani bagpipes and Indian kilts:
"Oh my goodness! Where are all the Pakistani and Indian items I intended on buying?! For my next holiday I will go to a country where I can buy these!" (Surprised tourist on the Royal Mile.)

These tourists, in the old days, bought Scottish-made kilts and sporrans and bagpipes because they were the only ones being sold in the shops in Scotland and if they are once again the only ones being sold the tourists will buy them again.

About the EU, I don't understand why the EU would protect imports from non-EU nations. I would think the opposite. By the way, the EU already does protect local production of other sorts of products according to an article I read.

[CelticViking]

Lochcarron operate from Selkirk now. Doubt they're closing down - they closed an old factory to move to another - updated and more efficient presumably.

[Chas]

OC - I will not debate this with you. There is nothing about this subject that is not political and there is nothing that I could say that would not infringe the rules and result in a closure of the thread or a deletion of the posts.

I would only ask you to remember that most of the new member states of the European Union have far lower manufacturing costs than the UK and most accessories currently sold in Scotland are not made in Scotland.

Regards

Chas

[ForresterModern]

Just as an aside to Chas's original post about protectionism, look what 30 plus years of it did to the american auto industry. It really does only weaken you in a global economy, even if it is only intended for the "short run".

We now return to our original programming.

So if the hawick mills only did knitwear for Lochcarron, are they getting out of the knitwear business or moving its production somewhere else? Seems like the tartan works in Selkirk are not involved, at least for now. I too feel for the workers who will lose their employ and wish them well in finding new and hopefully better jobs not too far from home. Having moved 5 times since 1991 for work (mostly voluntarily) I know how hard it can be to pick up one's life and move, start a new job, make a new home and a new life, especially with family.

[ronstew]

People on Princes St. buy the Pakistani kilts on a whim. Ban Pakistani kilts, and the shops selling them and the people importing them go out of business. The Gold Brothers contribute to the Scottish economy - if not to Scottish culture. But 300-pound kilts are not impulse buys. Your average tourist does not buy them. Ban Pakistani kilts, you hurt one part of the economy without significantly helping any other part.