Strange title... manufacturing has not been hit - it has grown at its fastest rate for 15 years. what has happened (according to the article) is that export orders fell slightly, whether this is as a proportion of the new larger manufacturing sector, or compared to the previous months is not clear....

might it also be that improving domestic demand has reduced exports..?.

"Strong pound!"
If the pound is seen as strong the past 3 months then I'm a banana.

There is some fetishism about a strong Pound
I advise re-reading dear old Agatha Christie about pound value in the 20's

UK is no more a protected island.
It is a place, somewhere squeezed between Big Brother USA and the tumultuous Europe.

we float or sink together.

Oh well it won't matter as long as the Bankers keep making money.

Manufacturing can just go off and continue to die quietly, there is little of value left for the capital to strip now anyway.

As for the figures. It just looks to me like we are in a depression. So the UK has seen a little recovery (something like inflated prices seems far more likely), but we are not isolated from the rest of the world. The world is in a depression, we will continue to suffer.

It is not like we can ride out the recession with cheap credit and increasing property sales, like we did the last one. The banks won't lend (which is odd, because a lack of capital never stopped them before) and the property market is now so overpriced no one will risk buying in case there is a sudden crash. Besides we are all hocked up to our eyeballs as it is.

This country is a joke. You'll note that not a single monetary value is reported for any manufacturing, whether domestic or export. The fact is that the real economy (manufacturing) is of such little value compared to the false economy (financial services, resellers) that it is almost irrelevant now.

In the short term we are doing better than the US, but in the medium term the new government has put paid to continued growth.

What is remarkable is how little effect the global recession has had on the UK: I mean, it is pretty amazing in historical and comparative terms.

You only have to look at the state of the States (homeless middle class all over the place), or the rioting in Greece, or the Thai Red Shirts battling with the government with live rounds: the UK has calk-walked this baby.

I also imagine much of what the Coalition is giving us is all sound and fury signifying nothing. In true British style, nout will change and people will just whinge their way into a lovely autumn.

Enjoy the summer!

So.....if the manufacturing sector in the UK employs only 13% of the workforce.....how relevant is a small increase or decline in manufacturing then?

At election time the pound was about $1.46 reflecting the market's view of the possibility of a hung Parliament. Today it is nudging $1.60. The pound is also rising against the euro.

So what the market is saying loud and clear is that the new government is at least on the right economic tracks. In that respect, things can only get better if the government keeps its nerve. Where I would suggest the government change tack slightly is in infrastructure investment. It seems to me that the concept of payback is completely alien in the public sector. There must be literally thousands of capital projects, ranging from the quite small to the mighty, where capital investment would pay back in a very short time period indeed. So what I would like to see is a Treasury team given the remit of identifying projects which really will give hefty paybacks (to start with say 2 years or less) and make funds available for those projects. In short, let's make sure that the baby is not thrown out with the bath water when the swingeing cuts are announced.

And can we please nail this complete myth that a devalued pound is good for the UK economy because it makes our exports cheaper. In today's world, what a devaluation of the pound does is to import inflation and make our balance of payments worse. Even if manufacturing makes up 13% of the British economy, not all of those firms are reliant on the export market but they almost certainly rely upon imported raw materials. So in reality a devalued pound 'benefits' a very small minority of British firms.

We must of course do everything to benefit British manufacturing but devaluation is a very shaky crutch on which to rely. For the larger firms the obvious answers are technology and quality along the lines of the German model (which used of course to be the British model). For smaller firms, the answer is a mix of Labour's excellent policy on capital allowances together with a rollback of Labour's disastrous policy on employment taxation and other impedimenta on small firms, not least the overwhelming bureaucracy on employment.

We're living in economic la-la land. Supported by huge borrowing still, and low interest rates. I doubt we produce enough wealth as a nation to actually recover. GDP figures showing 'growth' included 200 billion printed and 155 billion borrowed, 200 bill being 10% GDP (what negative GDP would that produce).
Heavens knows what the future is for the UK. These ridiculous house prices do not reflect the true state of the economy. How much longer can the charade continue. How much longer can the welfare state suck out the country's life blood.
Surely the economic laws will kick-in sometime, and the truth will really hurt.