 Okay, welcome everybody, welcome to everyone in the room, the lucky few, unfortunately who are allowed in, and welcome to the many who are taking part online in the first of what I hope will be a series of hybrid King's maritime history seminars so just to remind everybody where we are we've been welcomed to the Department of War Studies, the Law and Naval History Unit, the Sir Michael Howard Centre for Military History, King's College London, were the hosts for this series of seminars organised by the British Commission for Maritime History and with the long standing support of the Society for Nonical Research and also Lloyd's Register and of course it's very exciting to be here and to be here in person. I also want to just make a note that the British Commission for Maritime History is decided to honour the memory of Professor Peter Davis who died in 2020, former chairman of the British Commission for Maritime History and of course, a very big figure in maritime history, he's had a huge influence on economic history, maritime history and so forth, and with an incredible range he had, I'm not going now to talk about him at great length, or I'm not really in a position to pay tribute to him, there'll be opportunities for that, but I want to announce this as the first of what will be an annual Peter Davis Memorial lecture. So to honour him and the historian and the man, but also to remind us about what this seminar series is all about, we get pulled in lots of different directions, we have papers as many of you know on all sorts of different things and I think that's a good thing, but the maritime and the economic history, which was the ultimate purpose of the series we don't want to be sight of, and so this is a good way of doing that. Tonight, for the very first Peter Davis Memorial lecture, we have Professor Hugh Murphy who is, I think everyone will agree, the most appropriate speaker to begin this series of memorial lectures, most of you will know Hugh already from his prolific output from his participation, in these seminars over many years, but more importantly for his prolific academic output. Hugh, for people who don't know him, had a career pre academia in engineering and shipbuilding, he was a qualified mechanical engineer, and he's held, cared fellowships at the National Maritime Museum over in Greenwich, he's been a visiting reader in maritime history there, he's won accolades, of course, he's the owner of the Anderson Medal for Research in Maritime History, often by the Society for Nautical Research. The important thing really, really impressive thing is, is the author of eight books and chapters and articles, all over the place, all sorts of things. So he was an honorary professor of business history in the University of Glasgow, and he is better placed than I to speak about Peter Davis. And he's best placed, of course, to offer this the first lecture and so Hugh I'm going to hand over for the thanks now to you. Peter was a great friend of mine. He was a pioneer in internationalization of maritime economics. He's also my PhD examiner. And simultaneously with Stig Tennell, no, Stig is now a Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the Woodland School of Economics, and he would have loved to have been here, unfortunately due to the COVID travel restrictions, he's not really able to make it. Peter was essentially a pragmatist, and in that light, I'll get on with it. As my late professor, Derek Haudy said to me, we are doing a maritime history lecture, we must have pictures of ships, so there'll be some pictures of ships. But I'll start, hopefully I can get this done in an hour, there's a lot of slides, so we'll do our best, okay. Our chair philosophers, sarcastic sages, assorted malcontents, industrial voyeurism, and mainly Scottish business historians have all commented on the relative then absolute decline of the British shipbuilding industry during the 12th century. The assembly industry characterised by a strictly demarcated labour rather than a capital intensive mode of production. In the voluminous academic literature, the declinus paradigm of senescence in light of international competition in tandem with epic managing failure holds privacy. The nationalisation, the transfer of a major branch of industry or commerce from private to state ownership or control has always been controversial in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the very late nationalisation of the British shipbuilding in July 1977 was no exception to this general rule. And several of the UK's major strategic heavy industries, coal, iron and steel, railways and public utilities, water, gas and electricity were nationalised from 1946 to the early 1950s. Only to be disastrally returned to the private sector between 1979 and 1997. In the very late 1970s, they've become increasingly apparent that many of the industries nationalised between 1945 and 1951 were experienced difficulties. The major problem being prolonged under investment and lack of modernisation due to limited scope to raise capital and competition for scarce resources with other spending branches of government such as health, social security and education. The connection from competition as natural monopolies, management inertia and institutional paralysis were ever present dangers and could lead to a cultural complacency as operating losses would be covered by government, directly or indirectly through subsidies. However, all nationalised industries were major employers in areas of the country prone to higher employment. The fear of the state being responsible for making large numbers of workers redundant made most forms of nationalisation politically difficult. The nationalisation of the British shipbuilding industry by the Labour Party in July, government in July 1977, undoubtedly saved the bulk of the industry, but before discussing that period, it's necessary for context to discover what actually went up to it. Shipbuilding as an industry had never been nationalised, except for one country during the Great War. It was a mixture of public and private limited liability companies, the latter mostly under family control. From the late 1950s onwards, failure to invest was paying out large sums and shared dividends and failure to modernise in mainly stationary constrained shipyards was apparent. In the 1950s, some 31 domestic firms were capable of building ships of 5,000 gross tons and over. Of these, only a trio of yards had the capacity to produce on an annual basis, tonnage approaching or exceeding 100,000 gross tons. In contrast, in 1958 of the post-1945 sellers market for British shipbuilding came to a jarring halt. Japan, who had overtaken Britain in tonnage, launched in 1956 and thereafter retained first place for the remainder of the century, had six yards capable of producing 100,000 gross tons. West Germany had four as had Sweden. In terms of concentration from 1946 to 1955, half of all tonnage launched in British shipyards was delivered by just nine firms. As there were over 500 shipyards in Britain, the industry was atomistic and structured, largely foregoing standardisation. Many privately owned conserves were controlled by our long-established families, seven generations in the case of Scott Greenock and Stephen of Lindhouse or Mirafit Clyde. Modernisation occurred far too late and was initially paid for by accumulated reserves and later by government grants and loans. Modernisation was evidently needed as from 1945 to 1958, British shipyards as a whole invested around 8 million pounds per annum on compensation. A split between 500 firms has averaged 10,000 pounds per annum. If averaged among the four mentioned 31 firms, each could spend around 259,000 pounds per annum on modernisation. Far too low a figure to meet in terms of efficient. The following slides, those three points made that strong and I'm trying to get the slides. The first one is capital investment is a proportion of net output of shipbuilding and other industries in the UK, 1951 to 1952. I hope you can see that's a bit, I couldn't figure out how to get to the right roots. But basically, shipbuilding and repair is the worst class you've read, it's very difficult to see, but it's 4.6%. All manufacturing is 9.9%, mechanical engineering is 8.5%, electrical engineering 7.5%, motor vehicles and cycles 12.2%, metal manufacturers 14.5%, and marine engineering 7.2%. So shipbuilding repair in terms of capital investment as a proportion of net output is the lowest among all these sectors. Next up is the share price index for manufacturing October 1956, the December 1949 100. Aircraft is 209, brewing 113, building 134, chemicals 204, electrical engineering 140, engineering 185, foodstuffs 163, motors 160, plastics 111, radio and television 230, rubber 157, textiles 140, tobacco 86 below the average in 1949, and shipbuilding at the top of the tree at 288. Now what does that tell us? It's a very good investment in the 1950s, particularly for the spills and barrel boys in the city of London, who made their killing on shipbuilding shares. In the private companies, dividends of 25% are not uncommon, and kept the owners and extended families in their country houses, sending the silence to public schools, owning expensive cars, etc. It wasn't put back into the firms. And here's a point on technology. This is left those shipyard in Port Glasgow in the late 1950s, and you can see a horse in the background. Horses were widely used in the cloud shipbuilding industry because they could go places where lorries could not. There were no roadways in the yards, especially mud and rain and snow, etc. Teams of horses, 20 horses in a time that carried ships plates from the inside the yard to all parts of the yard. And this is the last horse in the client. I won't give him his name because the empire won't be having a go at me. But it was retired to the Collins country side of the partnership at the age of nine years of age, which the horse was nine. While those during the Great War complained about the price of horses because so many would need it from the west to the front and other things. And at the bottom of that done, for example, 7,000 horses killed by shelling and all eight million horses, donkeys and mules are killed during the Great War. Britain had over one million horses in service in November 1918, but lost 480,000 through the war. So that's, and you can see by looking at this, all the staging there, inherently dangerous. A lot of deaths, people falling off the stage into the day. The next one shows how especially in straight ship yards where you look at it closely, you can see outside. Anyway, if you look at it closely, the main road is running between the ship yard offices and the engine works. And the engine works can't go any further because the men plastered the wheel is behind it. So they can't go out to see the Spartans out to the river play. It's far too expensive. And you can see the current nature of the birth. In contrast, he was kind of down at the sand, built in a greenfield site 1972. And you can see the huge amount of ships are building at the same time in the dry dock. And basically, the welding together pre-fabricated searches. And that's the difference. The mid 1950s British shipbuilding faced increasing competition, particularly in the two growth sectors of international shipping, oil tankers and bulk carriers of increasing size in which to realize economies of scale. In these sectors, the industry at largely missed the boat. In Japan, the naval yard of Curie, on a Percocon rent, Daniel Ludwig, who retired as a billionaire, through his national bulk carriers company, had brought American emergency all-welded shipbuilding techniques to the building of bulk carriers and oil tankers. Post 1946, his yard acted as an industrial laboratory for other Japanese shipbuilders. So they learned all the techniques. Who embraced the building, doped method of construction, well-increased abrogated sections of the hull together as the ship progressed with suitable drainage above. This gave Japan a leading tanker construction, which was not relinquished. In contrast, Scott Greenock did not complete its first all-welded tanker until 1956. And at Belfast, Harlan and Wolfe were still incorporating significant amounts of riveting in liner construction up to the 1960s. But surprisingly, by 1965, British shipbuilding was failing the asset test of competitiveness, building for foreign countries. This is percentage shares of all the export markets that we can see in this country. And what you notice is Japan from a very low percentage of 48, was up to 38.8% in the period 61 to 65. Britain plunges. Germany goes up and down. Sweden again goes up. France was up. Yeah, but Britain from leading the world at that point is probably straight down. The declining market share was, however, compensated somewhat by continuing to build for British shipbuilding companies until those companies, including oil majors, began to deserve the industry for making sacrifices almost. This coincided with a bizarre system of government investment grants to build ships for the first 25% and then 20% of total cost. They respected whether these ships were built in British shipyards. All that was required to harvest these grants was a brass plate shipping company registered in London. Nevertheless, British ship owners have begun to deserve a home industry in terms of cheaper price, quicker delivery, and increasingly advantageous credit terms offered abroad. Unsturculous foreign owners, mostly Greeks, took advantage of these grants to build surplus tonnage in British yards. By 1970, the exodus to build abroad had become apparent. If there was a discernible rationale for these grants, it was to have modern British American. And this is ships delivered to the UK register fleet in terms of time launched. And we can see UK and foreign, again, 48 foreign is now by 70% to 74% of ships ordered by British ship owners about in foreign yards. A terrible diet for British shipbuildings, but they didn't care to get the cheaper ships abroad. Investment grants were abandoned in 1970, but there remained a lack of effect on construction and on a considerable amount of eligible contracts signed beforehand, as the following table shows. Again, this is not very clear, and I will read it out. Of the total by 1970, from 1967 to 1977-78, the total amount in grants spent was £609 million. Of that £475 million were for grants for ships built abroad, and £132 million for ships built in the UK. So we're throwing them away on foreign yards. By the early 1960s, British shipbuilding was relegated to fourth place in output by Japan, West Germany and Sweden, and thereafter remained under severe competitive pressure. Seven world-famous companies, all major employers in the respective towns, including J. Samuel White of East Cowes, built under the first all-worldly restorative, which was seagull liquidated, and this brought the government into play as the implications of employer work were in. These closures, given special limitations in these yards and the increasing dimensions of ships, were rational business decisions. But as usual, the workforces were the last to know of a pending closure. In the case of Denny and Dumbarton, the workforces turned up for work after the winding holidays in 1963, only to find the gates of the yards shut, and I noticed a voluntary liquidation between the two of them. Again, in these seven firms, I'll read them out. William Gray and Company at West Hartlepool in 1962, William Denny Brothers at Dumbarton, Harlan and Will Govan, and William Hamilton and Company at Pope Glasgow, all in 1963. In 1964, Short Brothers, Sunderland, and the Blythe Wood Shipbuilding Company at Scottsdown originally set up in 1920 as a tanker building yard, and in 1965, J. Samuel White at East Cowes. Post-1965, the Labour government believe that mergers and specialisation on the river's climb, time, and wear were the answers to the industry's ills. And post a shipbuilding required report in 1965-66, government set up a shipbuilding industry board to dispense grants and loans to the chiefers. It might as well have thrown a bunch of elephants, as the industry modernised far too late. 1970 saw the collapse of Camel Laird at Berkeley, handily, just before a general election, when it was said by a Labour government who then lost the election to Ted's Conservative Party. The Camel Laird, that still had a crane, and its fitting out dock, gained through reparations, consequent upon the Treaty of Versailles, after the Great War, which took 26 months to operate. According to one observer, the yard had industrial revolution technology, and it was very little worth saving. This was one of British shipbuilding's biggest six companies. In 1971, saw the collapse of uppercut shipbuilders, a consortium from 1968, initially composed of five shipyards. One of them, Yaro, through the Taliwan of the Crade, Sorrel, Yaro, as an aside when Taliwan died in 1838, met a niche as you put it said, I wonder what he meant by that. Yaro's friends in the Conservative Party government has been exited from UCS for a nominal one pound before the latter went into liquidation in 1971. Yaro had been the recipient of the only major item of cattle expenditure in part of uppercut shipbuilders, a 1.5 million construction haul, and on leading were given a four and a half million pound more out of his fence, friends in high places to need. And now I can show you the last three passenger ways built in the UK, the QE2, built at John Brown at Clive Bank, and here is a cruise liner, built by Maya Weft at Papenburg in September 2017 for the East Asian gambling market, and basically just a big casino. Britain, of course, missed out on the cruise liner building that was normally left to build. And the wider economy, shipbuilding firms were dealt hammer blows through high rates of inflation during the 1970s, which at one stage reached 26%. And then with the organization controlling and exporting companies, countries in just recession in Western economies post 1974, which could triple the price of the oil to 12 dollars, and led to a collapse in the very last career market. Britain had a major customer maritime through carriers, which ruined overnight the profitability of a trio of yards set up to build crew carriers, the money cuts of Harlan and Wolf, that fast, Scott Biff go to Greenport last school, and Swannamund, at Walton, and Kinsley. The hope is a matter of survival, I've taken on contracts, fixed prices and inflation, the climate, which resulted in huge losses. And there's a new period of inflation, so I think you can see a couple of twins. Roundabout. In the late 1974. The old spot was attacked very large current market. The belt, a 250,000 ton tank up in two parts, on a slim client swapping concrete map, straddled by the crane is capable of lifting 225 pounds. It was completed one of the year. Japanese and Korean us could do six. And here's the other half. It was welded together on the special constructed off of them. And that's sold off. The shipbuilding industry was rapidly approaching meltdown, the specter, or depending on your political point of view, and the vana of nationalization became official labor policy through the two general elections of 1984. The second of which gave the labor government a majority of just two seats. In 1974, they were once again came to the rescue of a major shipbuilder court line, saving 8,000 jobs, mainly on the river where, but not the travel and leisure interest of the court line companies. They went into a very large number of package holiday makers to straddle the road. So no change there. We've come alert 50% owned by the state. The shipbuilders, a successor company to the whole flight shipbuilders aided by 35 million pounds of government funds for the own by the state, and court line shipbuilders and doctors and someone from the river Leah and Appleville. Again, all the state owned a substantial proportion of the industry was already nationalized. And here's a satirical magazine private eyes take on that in 1974 should build a nationalized and it says, then, over all, that refers to vipers fans gave their own space is titled the house was 1963 and became played Tony Ben, who was the minister of industry responsible for getting a nationalization project through in the first influence. As a slider flies, the port tense for nationalization. No other industry have failed to increase its absolute output in a period when world. No other industry, with the exception of the aircraft of this day, even more this was had received so much public finance and support and shipbuilding would continue to need that support. Few other industries have failed to modernize and reequip to the disastrous degree of shipbuilders. The writing was all, not out of the way from the means of the Persians, but specifically from the Japanese who held over 60% of the time and market. Almost the exact percentage of what British should enjoy in 1913. Interstage left or right, whichever political persuasion as from 1974 on was with the industry on its knees, literally. Then an ideological dogfight in parliament between the Labour government and the conservative political position. At its basis, nationalization, good privatization, bad. Chip building was not helped by the group of aircraft industry from nationalization. In 1913, the communes and the sclerotic house of laws, the paladins of Guano, the intellectual challenge and the term stupid and shot a parcel of roads and were considered. The country had a field day as the industry sank deeper into trouble. The future chairman of the nationalized industry, Brandon Day, with later comment that the conservative party of opposition behave atrociously as the industry sank into the enclosure. Only say by the Labour government guarantee to ship owners. Not many, but they've done the right contracts in the events of nationalization. One shipyard going up so we'll let go. Ted East industrial advisor with Scotland railed against nationalization stating quote, what a pure dead substitute is the phony paternalism of the giant operation. What hypocrisy will next be perpetrated in the name of public accountability, one quote. Let's go stated much earlier with a certain Mrs. Thatcher, the public interest is merely the sum of individual interest, and there was no substitute for the personally accountable to each other and called for a cultural revolution, presumably not in the chairman's model to save Britain. What we got was a giant. As a part of the industry tussle intensified a British shipbuilders organizing committee was formed in 1976 with a former controller of the Navy, zero commercial experience as chairman and a Canadian war managing director of the 1970s almost become a world. That great day as chief executive design. They asked 27 shipyards for their corporate plans. He got one. His own. They then publicly stated that his first priority would simply be survival. But he will treat you. The support us and throw the toys out cram and depart the organized committee by the end of 1976, leaving committee to including Britain subsequently a civil servant. In the final case, apart from his family, no one had ever heard of, and with no experience to the chief executive position, and a number of civil servants from the department of industry also joined the organizing committee. Here's a parliamentary struggle. This is going from 74 to 77 a number of ship repair firms were permitted from the legislation in the spring of 1977. The bulk of the industry may miss the money, but including the major engine builders employing over 86,000 workers in total, the many more multiple effect on suppliers and local commercial interest is considered on nationalize under the British shipbuilders and first of the line. Sweden, so often heroin as an example of model ship building techniques, also nationalize the bulk of the ship in 1977, going to disastrous foreign currency losses of two major firms. And you can see from that. So the first of July 1977 the shares of 27 companies and subsidiaries engaged in shipbuilding slow speed diesel main engine manufacturing and allied industries invested in the British shipbuilding corporation. The company's independent ship repair companies has to be nationalized close to life. The corporation were unhappy with this and brought in consultants in the hope that they would find that bringing in ship repair was a bad idea. The consultants, the end of the national jewelry reported against expectations and ship repair became the division of the corporation. The consultants rubbish previous consultants and tell the employers only what they want to hear. This is a real exception. And with later proved mutually costly for the corporation ship repair and always casualized. No work, no pay. However, under the corporation ship repair workers will pay an idle time allowance for being productive. The corporation one worship building firm, it was a ship building with three years was added in June 1978. By then as you can see the corporation accounted for 97% with its best shipbuilding capacity, 100% washer 100% was supposed to be diesel manufacturing and approximately 50% of ship repair capacity. In 1987 to March 1978, the corporation employed an average sum of 86,600 employees. 44,800 of which were employed on merchant and mixed naval destruction. The corporation on special warship construction, 8,500 ship repair, 5,600 in the Indian building and 7,700 in general engineering and public activities of the 86,600 employees, 24,000 in Scotland and the rest in mind. Given the fiasco of the organized committee, the continued parliamentary opposition up to March 1977, and the late cobbling together of a new committee, the corporation was initially set up with no common financial reporting system or court plan, save them, but it was there actually to force sectors, much shipbuilding, more shipbuilding, ship repair and marine and general engineering. Initially, with the exception of one of the industry and soft compensation for the shareholdings at 1974 share of values, its constituent companies will still be run by the same managing cadre who are presided over the near collapse of the industry under private control. The managing directors of two of the largest composite warship and merchant shipyards, Los Elks, Storm Lifgoe and Tom McIver, the small hunter appointed deputy chairman of the corporation. The advent of nationalization in British shipbuilding came as a relief to most firms. Many were hovering on the cliff edge of bankruptcy and closure. As a future corporation chairman, Robert Parkinson stated, quote, for all practical purposes, many of our subsidiary companies were insolvent on best in the in 1977, and others became insolvent later as a consequence of continuing the process. The decision by headquarters to treat the corporations subsidiary companies as individual profit centers under a decentralized management system was a cataclysmic error of politicians. Under the local management, especially the costly and wholly inefficient warship building firms, we merely been ripping off the British taxpayer throughout the century and we operated under conditions of imperfect competition to basically lower the center in the day-to-day rolling of their firms. On the outset, the warship building firms were only normally a part of the corporation and seemed to think that they could function independently and would encourage to do so by the Ministry of Defense who wanted to keep the chimera of competition alive despite political and terrorist take no value for money when it's such a government to do so. They are dealt exclusively with their own needs predecessor in Admiralty from 1889 to 1964 and why change now. Decentralization only reinforced the stance. Loans from the corporation to profit centers with attract interest paid back to it. It was agreed through the corporation marketing finance director that centralized banking would be undertaken. And also subsidiary companies should be met with cash balances to headquarters in London. Subsidymies such as Boss Performing Club, who like Viaduct and Vickers have fought hard against nationalization, had 50 million firms in the bank. Similarly, all other subsidiaries followed and this instantly made headquarters deeply unpopular. The director, Michael Haynes, attempted to highlight that those subsidiaries were no longer in control of their own destiny after all that was in nationalization taken and from now on investment decisions will be generated and approved centrally. One might ask why did firms have such large cash balances, and why they're not been largely dissipated private nationalization, particularly the private companies. This was in fact anticipated in the legislation to establish cooperation on 1974 onwards with forced interest in Parliament. Section 35 aircraft and shipbuilding initiatives that provided the compensation to the original owners via government bonds against the valuation shares over a relevant period of six months up to the general election on 28 February 1964. Section 39 of the act included a provision to make deductions from the base value of a firm and dissipated assets by declaring dividends in anticipation of nationalization or quote by the means. Similarly, only those firms still trading would receive compensation, hence the sheer scale of accumulated losses and over mind priority nationalization. Although profit centers were expected to pay dividends to the corporation. This is quite well abandoned by March 1978 as a recession and shipbuilding deepened. The corporation's chief executive Michael Casey increasingly saw the industry in a fight for survival. Shipyards were wide selling ships at well below the cost of producing. A great day later commented, written to the cricket where everyone else. The corporation attempt to the brilliance can stitch constituent companies under a standardized system of financial reporting and pose cash limits and monitor production through audit of individual yards, which was also. It was always necessary for the corporation to keep the financial limits imposed by the government. From the beginning, the dichotomy between centralization and decentralization led to indecision, duplication of effort, rising costs, and in appearance, particularly marketing, which should have been centralized. The complexity of the corporation's task to coordinate, organize, and reform a fragmented industry would take some considerable time amid the continued recession and shipbuilding. No industry would come with the scale. Originally based in Nitesburgs, London to the close government, the corporation's subject and where its headquarters to Newcastle time and the Jordan nation. However, most of the real decisions they have made in London and travel costs between the two centers of operation were considerable and too much use was made with the corporation's airplane. The increased demands of government, the supervision of surgeries meant headquarters staff grew as a toss, moreover many HQ staff were new to shipbuilding and hands away fast. But the corporation posted a profit in its first reporting year, given what has already been outlined, it would have been nothing short of miraculous. In the event of the financial reported period from 1st of July, 77 to 31st of March, 1978, the corporation posted the trading loss, as you can see on the slide, of 108 million for tax after crediting shipbuilding intervention from moneys. Unsurprisingly, a substantial part of that loss, parts of the million pounds, arose from contracts taken before the nationalization. It's a pretty grim picture. It might not seem a lot given the huge corporate losses today, but these were really substantial losses at the time. Given the perilous market situation, in terms of the shipbuilding intervention fund, originally intended to be a temporary solution, it went on for years to bridge the price gap between East Asian competition. The first tranche in February, 1977 65 million pounds was raised to 85 million pounds in 1978, subject to annual negotiations with the European community. Remember, we enjoyed the 554 million, we did join the European government. With the aid of the shipbuilding intervention fund, the corporation broadly concentrated on survival by attempting to weather the storm of international competition. And reduced demand and the whole demand would once again pick up in the early 1980s. This was almost exactly the position taken by the European Commission, up to and throughout the 1980s and beyond. However, the commission subsidizing the hope and improving market, while simultaneously reducing capacity in the expedition. As both staff noted, the two positions were mutually patterned. It was the emphasis on change over time from the first to the second. It's a meeting with Chief Executives in July 1978, Michael Casey surprisingly noted that many of the corporation's problems thus far were as a result of resistance to change. Change was inevitable for the industry, which was done from the background, were to regain viability. In October, Casey decided to place members of headquarters staff on a non-executive basis on the boards of subsidiary companies. And letters to Chief Executives, he stressed that this would largely assist communications in the broadest sense and would improve headquarters perception of the problems of subsidiary shipyards. And in consequence, the center would be better informed on taking decisions that affected them and the responsibility. The view of subsidiary firms is not, and this is not common, but of past attitudes were in the game. Acceptance of corporation members or boards would be a best-look one and more prolifically out of the present. In essence, what was needed was more of them to buy time and to have the Polish ships over. In December 1976, when the bill to establish the corporation was still in dispute in Parliament, the Prime Minister, by the folk, James Callahan, and his Polish colonist counterpart issued a joint communique to build ships for Poland and British shipyards. It was a good idea to announce this before our colleagues signed. Wait in 1977, negotiations were at an advanced stage between the corporation and the Polish government, about another 22 cargo vessels and two cranes ships worth around 100 million pounds. To secure the business, the British government agreed to give a subsidy from the shipbuilding intervention fund of not more than 20 million pounds. The operation provided finance to the joint venture company, not with public funds, but with the aid of Hamgo's Bank, by borrowing on the commercial market, a euro dollar loan of 65 million dollars, approximately 35 million pounds. No British seaman would be applied, and as part of the deal, 10 of the engines and all the chains and anchors, propellers and shafts would be manufactured in Poland, with decks supplied by no-bridge firms. Majority in the old company, Anglo-Polish ship adventures, then with the incorporated Poland, were set up, and the ships would eventually trade in Baltic Sea on the 15th of Charter. However, despite the grievance with the confederation shipbuilding and engineering unions, the Polish deal was threatened by an overturning ban in support of pay parity, with borrowers imposed by 1,700 members of the outfit trades at Swarman-Humpton. We have to promise several of the Polish ships. The cooperation was in precondition to placing the Polish order in the various snapshot yards, required trouble for production. Workers of Austin and Pickersdale on the river here in solidarity with the Italian counterparts have refused to accept any reallocated ships in Swarman-Humpton. In the end, after a 12-week delay, hoping that the Swarman-Humpton situation would be resolved, government shipbuilders, the success of completely developed Polish shipbuilders, agreed by February 1978 to take the reallocated ships after government trade union charged deals, and those have been appraised with confederation of shipbuilding and engineering unions policy. At a mass meeting of 3,000 workers, only four were dispensed. So much for what the solidarity shipbuilding. Subsequently, government delivered 30 Polish ships in two and a half years, despite these ships not all the size of their facilities, which led to losses due to underdevelopment over the period. The Polish deal highlighted just how bad the situation was for the cooperation. It was the secretary of state for industry, very validly stated, quote, what we have done is wall of disaster, but we have not yet found a cure. Had not the Polish order been secured, then yard closures and subsequent unemployment would have been inevitable, and with a sunk nationalisation before it really got to the ground. The Poles certainly got to the good deal. Underlying the industry's problems was its abysmal record on productivity. That is efficiency in the production base measured by the rate of output per rate of input. British shipbuilding, there have been no growth in output since 1955. And the industry subsequently performed purely in terms of international policy. All British shipyards are paired management structures, and very few of any production planning departments were there in the name. The only real measure of productivity was the ship service with the standard method of productivity. The output per man per steel ton in all construction. Given the huge levels of self-contracting when the ship was being looked at, overall productivity measures, taking this part of the production process into account were extremely difficult to achieve. Under the nationalisation bogus productivity deals to get around government pay-to-stay policies were widespread and throughout the corporation's history, including a one-day survey, which found that 3.5 per cent of the standard eight-hour working day wouldn't already be productive. The search for productivity gains mirrored that of the old rail and was just as elusive. Given the dire market situation, the workforce were hardly left with the work themselves. The bottom of the pale is usual. There you go. Sweeten up the top. And again, I'm going to reiterate Swedish shipbuilding was nationalised in 1917. Just as the Labour Party promised the nationalised shipbuilding its two general election manifestos in 1974, then the Conservative Party ought to predictably did the reverse in the 1979 general election manifesto. According to the Reputative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher subsequently grossed mediocrity in a hero's garb, proposed as a Conservative, but in reality is a 19th century liberal, quote, more nationalisation with further impoverishments and further undermined our freedom. Freedom is always a big role for the Conservatives. But they don't believe me. We were offered to sell back to private ownership that recently nationalised aerospace and shipbuilding concerns, giving their employees the opportunity to purchase shares. The latter was linked to the establishment of a massive political contract of a property or a democracy by giving British people, quote, the right to buy, town and city council and social housing. A gross act of political gerrymandering, which this is for which Mrs Thatcher was never able to count. Over one million council tenants purchased the council houses at a significant discount, leading to a disastrous shortage of council houses in future years, and leaving the poor of selections of the population to the average of the population. In other cases, right when I want to imply that rent accommodation and to unqualified councils and housing associations on huge salaries. As to shareholdings and what were previously on nationalised concerns, the chimera was the small investors. The vast majority of members of the public who subscribe to shareholdings and newly privateised companies would actually have a say in how they were running. When shareholdings were dominated by institutional investors, banks, insurance companies, etc., who were given preferential treatment and the volume of share offers prior to the sale to the general public. By promising to reintroduce private financing to British shipbuilders, the election will conserve the government in May 79, one of the more fragile, heralded, innovative sea change for the industry. Initially, however, policy really much of the economy before, as at this stage, there was not much point in privatising a large-scale industry. However, a change at the top of the population was imminent. In a break with the past on the labour, the chairman, Agra Griffin, the chief executive, Michael Casey, left the corporation the 16th of May and 30th of June 1988, respectively. They were replaced in both roles by the more hard-known as Robert Atkinson, then chairman of the chef and steel firm Aurora Oldings, who was appointed on 6th of May, 1988. Atkinson had been a former engineering director of a woman doctorate in science shipbuilders and engineers in Sunderland from 1950 to 30 in 1961. But in later life was highly critical of that company and shipbuilding management in general. His later observations made of doctorate management may have, and probably did, give him a prior job dispute of what it means in taking the chair of the corporation. Quote, this is about the doctorate. There was a lethargic lot in charge who really behaved disgracefully. They lived the life of balance, the life of luxury, but did nothing intellectually or financially to push the country forward. Atkinson usually docks from the well, in my opinion, highly relevant to the interests of the last priority and last administration. The redundancies of yard closures were now firmly on the agenda as the corporation attempted to weather the storm of interruption. Voluntary redundancies with state compensation have been ongoing and was decided that all workers over 65 years of age would become possibly retired. The nationalization in 1977, Camel there had, wait for it, 800 workers over the age of 70. Accordingly when they left the yard, so too did a huge part of the institution in memory. From industrial relations from July 1977 to the end of 78, the industry was subject to a golden mark of 168 separate collective bargaining agreements on wages and salaries. In January 1979, it was subject to one with a single negotiating date for a marketable achievement, but one which also reflect the gravity of the competition. Atkinson, in agreement on low compulsory redundancies, negotiated with Blackville, did not last long. Atkinson, after excoriating the current management, attempted to reorganize the corporation by taking two of its huge loss-making yards, kind of a layer of spot work, to a new offshore division to build the semi-submersible drilling rigs. An area of activity not subject to ship-building intervention from its listeners, in which they were jointly very ill-equipped to be successful, and so proved. Atkinson, in agreement with one semi-submersible rig, Ocean Alliance, proving to be the most disastrous conflict ever undertaken in British ship-building, and so on. With the reelection of the Flatcher government in 1983, privatization of the corporation's remaining shipyards, particularly its warship division, was now firmly on the agenda. Atkinson later related with permanent secretary of the Department of Industry, Sir Peter Willoughby-Carrie, told them that Mrs. Fatcher wanted rid of ship-building. Moreover, the utterly useless secretary of state, Norman Lannet, despite his French attire and his name to Lamont, the Scots-Galloch and the Loman, always seemed to be happy when told of impending yard closures and redundancies. Stating to another corporation director, quote, Margaret Wood, happy. He had, by this stage, prioritized monetary policy to control inflation over the control of employment, which peaked over 3 million souls, paid largely by North Sea power taxation. Scotland got the derivative from all the revenues, and got the power tax in 1989, one year ahead of people in Wales. And here's the unemployment slowness. The first one, yep. And we can see during the FATCH, and there's unemployment, never returning to its 1979 life. And 84, 85, 86, 83, usual levels of employment. But that's not the real figure, the real figure is something but over 5 million. People just don't understand. Next one. And here's the ship-building in Europe comparison. And we can see from that, 73%, where the UK workforce disappeared in 1975 and 1994. And surprisingly, given continuing heavy losses, Robert Atkinson gave way to Green Day, where it will be recalled and left the Organizing Committee in 1976. Day's brief was simple, privatized the warship firms in May 1986 at the latest, which he achieved. The attempt to privatize the remaining mercantile firms, all of which were huge loss makers. Ironically, the first privatization was that of the corporation's biggest loss-maker, Scott Lifgoe, sold in March 1984 for £12 million to Chifal Beckham's POC, owners of the canal and shipping line, the conservative party support of the Marshall newspaper, The Daily Express, whose headquarters in Fleet Street was known as The Black and the Blyatka, and numerous other businesses, including hotels, and headed by Margaret Thatcher's favorite businessman, Matt Brooks. Scott Lifgoe closed for good in 1990, the canal was sold for £1 to Thickers, and subsequently had nine clients, and much reduced, is still with us just. A little over a decade, the industry had gone from private to state control, and largely back to private control again. The privatization of the only profitable part of the corporation, the firms in its warship division, to which I have been added, two small, vastly undercrafted-worth firms, Group Marine at Lowestoff and Hall Wilson at Aberdeen, left an unprofitable lump of mercantile firms, all of which, with the exception of north-eastern shipbuilders limited on written wear, were subsequently privatized by 1990. The north-eastern shipbuilders only closed after a succession of blatant lies by the Conservatives and Ministers of Parliament, as to their true intention, that after the corporation remained as a shell company to deal with its human spirits. Some £2 billion had been expended by the state through a succession of industry Ministers, seven from 1970 to 1989, with plainly, much like the current law, went up to the job, and were only interested in rescaling the reason for political thermodynamics. The legal arts horse, and yet the death of Prime Minister and current narcissist in post. As the Ministers responsible for shipbuilding, as the old political bruiser, Dennis Healy, remarked of one Secretary of State, Sir Keith Joseph, who provided Margaret Thatcher's intellectual balance, quote, he was a mixture of hammered, who are spitting on top of Cooper. With our international audience, Cooper was a fair-swearing comedian, and still a magician, who continually brought magic tricks wrong in his act. Another set to a state of Washington privateization, the change of the state had no intent, a former airline pilot and union negotiator for the British airline pilots association, so no irony whatsoever when in government they condemned restricted practices, which he had previously reported with the story. Another law, the young of Raffin, was given the name of the law suit, or the satirical magazine, and was just useless. And they all go on the bikes, and paired with all the cliff, in this way with a new better off, as with the nation. Privateization of the warship funds meant one form of dependency was replaced by another. They remained utterly dependent on the decreasing level of ministry of the firm's warship contracts. Taken together with a mark falling off in the export market for warships, this influenced the prices prospective buyers of the warship funds were willing to pay. Recall the way the corporation was 248 million pounds for the sale of warship funds, and shot the book value of net assets at the party. In summation, the industry and private plans prior to nationalization, apart from the whole the inefficient costs of warship films, narrow costs of reform and vehicles, performed disaster, disaster, against whether international competition, particularly from Japan and unlawfully from South Korea. By 1988, eight Korean shipyards were building as many ships as a total of 67 shipyards in the world. Most British shipments would not have survived if not from nationalization, which only prolonged the agony of an industry on a one-way ticket to political value. Industrial Darwinism was not contemplated as employment considerations one act over economic reality. Nationalization, plainly, did not work, and neither the subsequent privatization, which eventually ushered in what the Ministry of the Friends had always fought against, and one of the way supplier of some of these portfolios, the systems. By 1990, British ship building up to a statistical level of relevance. The winners, the Japanese and South Koreans, understood the nature of the capitalism better and recalculated the stain in the market. The idea by the respective governments, despite huge losses, would eventually eliminate competition. And when the upturn in the market came, they would be best placed to exploit and so on. To finish with the observation of a former British shipbuilder's director of corporate planning, Martin Stockford, applicable to the entire period of nationalization. He later noted that he had to come up with a plan and incorporate some argument to explain why the cooperation had failed to deliver previously and to show scenes of improvement. In the yard he noted that, quote, the yards that perennially send us a lot of rubbish about the performance next year. They never did perform in that way, because they were in the market where they could not. Thank you. Right. Thank you very much and thank you everybody in the room and at home for your patients with it with the technology which I think we're getting the hang of and this is where it really comes into its own, because people in the room can ask questions and the technology will follow the voice. Yeah, and you at home, you can put up your hand, and you can ask a question, and you appear to people in the room, it's the it's the new age. I wonder if, you know, while while while we're starting, well, could I, I'm going to take chairs chairs here. Here you didn't disappoint we all expected you to tell us exactly what you think, and you did that very well. What I'm seeing here is is is is is private firms that didn't work and nationalization which didn't work and then reprivatization which didn't work. So, I'm wondering if there's a what in other words is the is should have happened. In other words, I mean I know that Korea and Japan are held up as examples I don't know if was that a realistic model to follow, or was there another. It wasn't realistic in the sense that we haven't all done it was too late. Those seven firms which part of them between 1962 and 65. These were rational business decisions, especially considering jobs ships and will be able to increase in dimensions. They didn't want to pay for more. You know, in the one force but they didn't get them because it's casual, so you know, and I had to wait. Now, my view as the entire industry. They could only mean the information is kind of look at what is registered. See how many ships. You can't over all just come out. And as Martin Stoltz says, they were in the market. What the government then was basically prioritizing. Okay, now I jumped in front of you so. Yes. Well, thank you. I'm glad to make your personal use. We might have been in some doubt. No, I, as a matter of fact, I just going to make this very point that I think you just lost answer in about employment, if the government is prioritizing employment. You're describing the situation where in the 1950s, it was there to sport and industry to keep people in employment and surprise, surprise the investors or owners. Well, we'll have a bit of that. And, you know, they are actually in self interest writing, just, you know, the story of any kind of government and they kind of kind of business. Oh, the industry. The government fell for every time. Yeah, it goes back to the 1920s and 1930s when you have the Old Assisted Areas Act was basically means areas of employment. And so it wasn't the one, but the lower clay that was so these funds got two and a half percent regional employment premium. Yeah, on the thing. And the other big trick and chip building, of course, was to factor in strikes. And so you had that couple of months that the current justice of demarcation is standard. Now you can claim that there was a head of a shower, you claim a force of your event and say, oh, we could be working. There was a slight breeze. Anything to explain what. Is there anybody out there in the cyber world would like to test you and to test the technology by asking a question. Right. I'm going to ask Dean, who I'm going to allow to talk. Now, Dean, you can also turn on your camera, if you like, if you'd like to be the very first. And you might have to deem you yourself. Yes. Okay. Dean interrupt us whenever you think you are able. Because I believe I've done all that I can. To give you the permissions that you need. What's what. Is there a way to set the whole set is more than not just the new. Okay, so I'm going to turn this point up, but I am worried because we have that testing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so he sent his apologies. And this is a nice note. And there's one. Now, Neil or Nile, if you'd like to, if you'd like to, I mean, you will answer that question, I'm sure, but if you'd like to participate and mute yourself and turn on your camera, you're welcome to. If you're talking about the corporations overall losses, that would include under recovered overheads, lost provisions, which they weren't taken to put back to the profit and loss account for four years. Wages in British ship, but they were not that great. So it wasn't what we're talking about is losses for late delivery penalty clauses. That that was the major factor. They're quite simple for one fountain was 25. Simply because there was causes penalty causes in the original country. I think Dean is asking a question this way because he's done the technical problems on his own, which aren't ours. They have covered already, but the cyclical nature of shipbuilding in the UK. And how do you see us in the UK cyclical challenges and opportunities for pipelines on fleet needs. And shipbuilding has always been subject to bulls and slumps of demand. In the biblical term, seven years of peace and seven years of family, it was inherently a cycle. The point was to survive. I can't answer the question of pipelines only to say that parliament and wealth have been resurrected to develop fast to do type work for a gas storage facility. That's all I can say. Yeah, I think I put your Dean's question phrase came in bits of apologies for that. And yes, Stig, you are there and it is very good to see people here. I'll just say, you know, the moment this is a this is a trial physical audience in the in the future. I'm hoping we'll be able to have the full lot of people here and and at home, but you're participating. And that's the aspect that's mine. And that's when you have a state or should think and which is now the fourth largest ship. They've even bought a couple of them. And Russia, of course. And if you've got time and I'll do Russia. Can someone walk by the book. Okay. You might wonder why that's there. I'm going to tell you. Russia for strategic reasons can't shipbuilding industries and type post the collapse. And the bulk of the industry is now under the state enterprise United ship. Both members are under sanctions by the United States. Just how much the Russian court talk or say is interested in shipbuilding was recently highlighted by Putin's press secretary. Then 90 year old daughter Elisabeth. In a flat. Amazing what we can do. Mr. St over his study marketing Paris, then supports the department. There gave a speech, which was manifestly uncalled to do to a group of workers. Mission year in Russian. Miss Escova, this town's nose and nose. of individual liberty, Churchill at the invitation of his dictator, Ramzan Kaderov. The dress she wore at the Sevastopol shipyard in the middle of the two salty-looking dunes was designed by Kaderov's daughter, the advisor who worked together with Dejo. A couple of quotations were surprised to highlight Miss Peskov's blinding insight on shipbuilding. Quote, I don't know a single person who would even imagine that there are people who build ships. And this is generally, younger Russians needed to be taught that shipbuilding, quote, is nothing to be ashamed of. As Curtin's foremost critic, the known carcelator Alexei Navalny as observed, quote, a new star has finally appeared on the horizon of our government's feudal person. Thank you. Very good. Now, I don't know if we want to try Dean's question again, but what you're going to have to do is, I think the best thing for you to do is to start from there and scroll down. Yeah, okay. You can read it or summarize it. With value, although you may have already covered the cycle of nature of shipbuilding in the UK. Yeah. And how do you see the US and UK cyclical challenges and opportunity to pipeline some fleet needs, which is where we left you and attracting your talent on engineering? Well, I'm going to say, unsurprisingly, I'm going to do a bit critical on the United States. IE, the health of nautical and naval engineering supply chains for talent understood and does 3D modeling capability, that is computer modeling, engineering, help on speed to needs for production. Sorry, Dean, I think I can help on that. Shipbuilding knows unrecognizable from what it was. Computer generated modeling ships. You can visualize the entire ship, the sequences of the ship, the employment needed for certain things, the whole inventory, everything this can all be done. It used to be done by just one manager looking at ship and telling people what to do. But now all this is done, the algorithm in some cases isn't a problem. So shipbuilding has moved on. And now when you see, in this instance, say, BEA systems, when they're thinking they're building a new ship, we'll give you this wonderful model. It's best in relation to what they actually built, but it looks good. And it gets government money. But America, in terms of shipbuilding, is always protectionist, high cost. And basically, through the Jones Act, reserve all cavatage, which is post-boyshiping, to be built in American shipments. In terms of Britain, what we had a few years ago was the Ministry of Defence, actually all the ships from South Korea in shipments. They were fleet replacements from the tankers. They were a huge feriori over that in the 70s, but it barely passed the muslin. And actually the Koreans deliver them in time. Yeah, exactly. But this has always happened because it's the difficulty in building a broader ship operation. You know, how did you, I think, sympathize with the language problems, those currency problems, there's a whole crash. The whole point of the building in Britain is people dealing with sterlet, right? If you're all doing the ship and say France, the currency goes against it. They're looking at huge losses. Whereas in Britain, the most of them are being affected. That really has a question. There's another one here by Andy. I must say, you cyber people, you people at home, I'm disappointed by your reluctance to try out the technology and to speak and to turn on your cameras. I'm assuming this applies to you, Andy. So I will read out your question, but it would be much better if you asked your questions directly, I think. That's just a general comment to everyone else. Was it a decision to decentralize under nationalization informed by the experience of other nationalized industries like coal and the frustrations with centralization? That's the question. No. No. Right. And I'm going to invite you to read all of your comments in succession afterwards. Thanks. Okay. I mean, even if somebody out there wanted to thank you personally by unveiling themselves and saying so with their own voice, then I would be happy. Who would like to do that? Just raise your hand. Okay. For some people, they can't. Okay. Steve, can't they? Dean is trying again. Yeah, I apologize. I just think I'm having some block, but I'm happy to say thank you. Although I missed some of the lecture, I was really appreciative that you guys allowed me to Good. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. My question is how did successive governments manage to pull the European Commission on the platform in the same day? You're talking about the shape of the European Commission. That was actually a big commission on the European Commission. We had four year old, four other sources. So each individual country had a winner. Yeah, I wish we could go over. But in the case of Britain, by the 1980s, the Shetville Intervention Fund was hardly used because the Shetville abroad was so much cheaper it wouldn't have been. So it wasn't used. Originally, it was a good idea. And the European Commission agreed that it could Britain have no growth and output at all since 1955. Other countries expanded the Shetville thing. So Britain could really say, well, it's under the policy machine, they're penalizing us and they didn't. Okay. Yeah. If there's something else I can come back on. Yeah. I think early in the I meant this year, but I think you've said that there was some sort of national Shetville Intervention Fund. Yeah, the standard Shetville, the standard Shetville can't create that chapter when the wealth say that. Was that a merchant ship? Yes, a merchant ship. Well, yes, in the sense of 10 months. It was a 10 to 15th-century creation of the online factories and they were sent there to be assembled. Yeah, they didn't want a ship before the end of the world. That's the great deal. It was then sold to, excuse me, it was then sold to the modern ship of the company after it was sold to Fairfield Shipbuilding and became a branch building. There were two other national ship nodes, Portbury and the other different styles. The idea was, you know, we're going to have to build more because of the beautiful shape of the ship. You think the British and my companies are pretty skilled and they put them in the factories. And there was an intervention from them to increase their prices. Well, normally, they would increase the prices. There wasn't any sort of coordinated supply to, of course, inflation at 26%. The prices are going up on a daily basis, basically. Yeah, how can you plan ahead? Yeah, you know, this is an example of when Poland built to Poland, the Polish shipyard actually built to claim Ferries. Because you had to turn them under European Commission rules. What they didn't tell me was they had a huge amount of shipplay left over from communism. So they used that and it cost them next to nothing. So that's why they could undercut them. And shipyards were generally, you know, I pretty love to keep large stocks of ship plates. In the old days, when they were just rusty as hell, then the oil major said, oh, let's have short lasting of plates because that will make it easier to pay the problem, etc. And the shipyards had a lot to do with that short lasting, etc, etc. But you had to really drag them to be an interface which would improve how they did things in the past. They were really largely stuck in the movement. And then Japan, of course, had far more agrargy and supply in the shipyards, but around here they were lucky to have two shipyards and they were longer than they were, of a cheap price. You know, they also had people who were treated in this, especially in this. Right, that's close to me, but I'll probably say that some yards were less worse than others. If they'd come to the dissent, no naturalization, those sorts of things. Good point, M.T. I love it. There was a small input, a small quote, that one day, one day was the right one, some of the industry was the right one. No, not in the American terms. On the warship side, because it's a perfect competition, the government based on other bills and more. And from 1972 onwards, it was playing in the Aero, Vospa, and Vekos, were the preferred builders, which really left hardly any world, swung on time, and scored worth going to the coast. They eventually started building royalties and all this stuff, I don't know what to share. To American terms, it was warship style, it was more complicated than the standard warship ship. So that could be worse. And there were the main people, Vekos, Vospa, and the Aero, who opposed national lines of issue. Well, they wouldn't. But by 1990, it's called, they were basically left as ferocious and poor guys, a very small American town builder, only able to build ferries and up or down there. No. And the Carmelel, that comes from Carmel, that was very quick demise from leading the world in 1913 to what sort of. Okay, I think we need to wrap things up. There's a comment here by Dean about incentivizing young naval engineers along the model of a U.S. Corps of Army engineers. And there's another comment here about British private firms remaining highly decentralized, which in the 1990s meant that they're dept at chopping themselves to be passed between diversified and glamorous and depressing sort of comment. But rather than replying to those publicly, I think we'll just, you know, thank you for that. Thank you at home, I guess, although next time I want better from you, I want some less shy participation from the online lot, please. But thank you for coming in such numbers for what is actually, you know, quite an important first lecture, not just because it's the first one back in person of a sort, but because this is, as I said at the start, the first Peter Davis Memorial lecture. And to me, that's very important. The next seminar was planned always to be an entirely online one. So in two weeks' time, we have some McClain on the 10th of February. And on the outline of papers that I circulated, I said something very strange. It was very strange this morning when I read it again that this seminar will be delivered remotely from Canada, which it will. Though it may still be attended in person at King's. And I think I imagine people coming in here and seeing a paper delivered remotely. And that seems like a mad idea. And we won't do that. So that will be entirely online as we've been doing it. And then on the 24th of February, we'll have mindset Edwards, where we'll do this again. And I'm hoping that as many people who can fit into the room will be allowed in. But more importantly, it's time, I mean, thank you for a wonderful start to a new era. Thank you.