the German government fight hand and fist to keep manufacturing in their own country
Just to add a little balance.
Remember that when the government helps out a failing business, it does so by taking money from a successful business, or other taxpayers like yourself.
And when international companies look at setting up a company, they will look at the tax rates on offer.
There is no such thing as free money, you can argue that it's better to let them fail, and you can argue it's better to subsidize them, but it's simply silly to brand a government as uncaring or splurging money on either solution.
Such a shame to see all the empty factories, personally I think the lack of manufacturing in the country is a big part of the problems we are suffering.
Manufacturing is no longer a large employer, and never will be again in this country. The only way it will be is if our economy goes tits up.
High tech goods require few (but well educated) employers, low tech goods (and yes I include electronics) require low wage AND mobile workers, by mobile I mean workers that will live in the factories, or move 100s of miles to find work, and can be hired and fired with relative ease, something only "poor" people are willing to put up with.
As to our manufacturing
Manufacturing has been going up year on year, but now only employs approx 350 thousand people.
When we are only employing 350k people in total, we are never, ever going to employ the 2.5 million people on the dole in manufacturing jobs, unless we get rid of the minimum wage, require that people move to where the jobs are, relax employment laws, and lower national insurance and corporation tax (remember that with national insurance your employer also has to pay a larger amount than you do in your wage).