What is truly British is a fantastic question and more people should be made aware of what is and what isn't and they should care, but more importantly why.
The list of companies posted is valid, and I am very proud of anything that the we the British make and control.. However it is really deeper than it seems .
Hi Fi and in particular electronics is a market that for decades has been dominaated ( Low-Mid end at least ) by the far east, it has been made there and it has been sourced from there and we the British have bought product produced there. However even when Onix was making product in the UK as much as I tried (and on many occasions paid more for parts made in the UK) it became harder and harder to get the parts/components we needed to make the product we sold.
This meant we made units in the UK,we designed the units in the UK with some parts made in the far east ... was our product British ? .. Yes it was ... but was the sum of parts a 100% British... no it was not... and neither was any other HI FI company for at least the last 40 years.
In reality to be British you need a few key ingredients you need British management that controls all production , you need British design and you need British Control, you need an understanding of British likes and Dislikes, you need to pass some of the "Britishness" to each and every unit made ..British design integrity , British history of passed on knowledge and British Quality demands ... this is where the far east fails ... Parts do not make the sum, after all Frakenstein may have been the best bits put together but we all know how that turned out .
Have you ever wondered why German cars are so typically German ? Or why American cars are so typically American ?
Then have you wondered why when these companies that go to make product using overseas contractors somehow lose their character ?
The reason is as above, I am British I am proud to be British, England is my home... and even as I currently live in Asia I am still British. When I am in control, anything I design comes from my ways a British person anything I control is done in a British manner and anything I make will be made the way I want it made and expect it to be made because of my "Britsh "training and Britsh ways.
I may own a machine in Asia but I still drive it, I will drive it the way I was trained to drive it , I will drive the way I think it needs to be driven, my house will still be the way I like it and my Factory will still work the way I want it to . The staff may not be British but the factory will be .
The problem with the HI FI companies that have gone to the far east to make product is not where they make it , it's how much they control it, and how much they have control . They go to get cheaper production they dont set up factories they contact OEM manufactuers they go to get costs down. They don't go because it the best place to be, and that's why what they do fails.
British is British, if its owned by the British designed by the British and controlled by the British on a daily basis. After all how many people working in British factories were not born in the UK ? isn't this the same ? , if 50% of the staff at the companies named above are from another country does that make it a foreign company ? No it does not
The Empire took control of large parts of Asia, if you go to Singapore or Malaysia the "British way "is there for all to see, go to the Philippines and the "American way "is so obvious it's scary, go to China and its pure Chinese... and this is where so many companies have gone wrong .. You cant contract Chinese companies to make product and expect it to be the same as it is in Britain/America/Germany or anywhere else.. it just won't be, you can however go to other countries and do it the same way.
This is my opinion and because I was educated and I am British, I can voice it .
Adam W
