[Stuart]

The problem is cost. You can argue all you want that you want british workers, but would you pay for it?

The cost is partly justified. It *is* incredibly expensive to live in this country, and it's going to take a major change in the economy to change that. I personally believe that change would be for us to STOP regarding property as an investment, which is driving people to get larger and larger mortgages, thus ensuring that they need to earn more to pay for them, and for a longer time. It also drives house and land prices up, which increases both mortgages and costs for business. This, together with increased wage demands (to cover increased mortgages and other increasing bills) and the increased costs for business drives prices up.

Now, whether we can afford the increased cost or not, most people would, given two products/services that are identical apart from the fact that one involves foreign labour and one that doesn't, go for the cheapest, regardless of whether it came from the UK, India or any other up and coming country that is cheaper than India so is about the usurp India as the supplier of service/products.

That idea runs through the whole country so, even if you do practice the idea of buying entirely british products/services, the companies who provide them probably don't, so will buy their parts or other services from other countries.