The curse of Brown strikes Wedgwood

I was very sorry to hear about Waterford-Wedgwood going into administration this morning.

In my professional capacity I've spent a number of days at their site and its in a wonderful location and when you walk around it you think you're in one of those play school through the round window experiences.

Automation, necessary with competition from the far east, had reduced the work force a bit, but still highly skilled jobs existed in the design facility and production line. The sort of skills that will just be lost, unless people can move to another china manufacturer.

Wedgwood has survived the 70's and 80's and even held its on against globalisation. Its also a business that should be benefiting from the pounds dive in value, just the sort of export lead manufacturing business that was supposed to be saving us after Gordon Brown's failure to regulate the baking industry put us in this mess. It has gone under due to the inability to find credit facilities. And that too is very worrying.

Wedgwood are a famous brand (even my spell checker recognises it) and perhaps that will help them to find a buyer, I certainly wish all the employees well for their future. They are a famous and dear part of our heritage.