Clearly it will be some time before the full implications of the pandemic are realised so of course the sooner we can all do our bit to help the recovery the better.

In a way it seems a shame that we have to be encouraged to and reminded of the importance of our local businesses but it made me wonder how local is local and should we not also be considering the U.K. economy as a whole. Also of course, the opportunities it provides for a reset of the way we behave in regard to the environment.

For example, is it a good idea to support a local travel agent for one's travel arrangements so that we can spend maybe thousands of pounds supporting the economy of another country and also helping to pollute the atmosphere which ultimately will be bad for all of us? This government has claimed in the past to be greener than any other, but now want those people quite happily and effectively working from home to go back to wasting their time sitting in traffic jams, wasting fuel for the pleasure and creating and breathing in polluted air so that they can do the same job somewhere else. Does anyone understand the logic of this?

Another example might be the support of a local car sales team when all they are selling are cars made in Germany perhaps or even Korea. What is the advantage to the local economy if every sale they make means sending tens of thousands of pounds to support the car industries of our competitors and add to the already huge trade deficit we have with Germany? Does it really make sense to bring vehicles half way around the world just because they are a different colour to another make of vehicle that will do exactly the same job i.e. keep us warm and dry while sitting in a traffic jam.

In view of the way this country has become so dependent on China it surely begs the question as to whether or not we should be far more discerning about what we are buying even if in the short term it appears to benefit local business. Furniture is a good example. Quality furniture at an affordable price is a perfectly reasonable slogan but if it is supporting Chinese manufacturing is it a price we can afford?

In SNJ July 18th under the Love Local Business heading two pages were given to "fashion and accessories" which made me wonder how many of the clothes shown were made locally. Were they made in the recently highlighted sweat shops of Leicester (made in the U.K.) or in Bangladesh or some other far distant land. We know the people of Bangladesh desperately need our business but as we just want cheap clothes and there is always someone happy to exploit cheap labour they don't get a decent wage.

In view of the fact that successive governments have been quite content to see all our manufactured goods produced abroad it makes it difficult to find anything about being British to be proud of. When James Dyson set up his "local" factory, many must have been proud that we were providing local labour to produce a world class product. Now he is supposedly the wealthiest person in the U.K. with ten thousand employees not in the U.K. and just announced the redundancy of several hundred British workers. So, do we support a local business selling Dyson products or Dyson's wallet via Singapore manufacturing and yet another product transported half way around the world to get to us?

Howard Price

Nailsworth