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Britain’s lack of industrial strategy has been laid bare for all to see
The PPE shortage scandal scratches the surface of our industrial decline, but unions can fix it, says GMB Scotland secretary GARY SMITH
Britain's inability to produce its own PPE – despite an NHS drill predicting the shortage in 2016 - is an indictment of the destruction of our manufacturing sector

COVID-19 has ruthlessly exposed the many deep and underlying problems in the British economy. 

From the exploitation of front-line workers to the impact of a decade of political austerity on the effectiveness of our public services; and from in-work poverty to the explosion of foodbanks, it has taken a global pandemic for many people to see things as they really are in modern Britain. 

At the point of crisis, the private sector, as expressed through the dominance of unregulated markets, and the service and finance sectors, was left wanting. 

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