Barry
The World Economic Forum website has the latest Global Competiveness Report which I recommend you have a look at. From the report the WEF has produced 'The Global Competitiveness Index rankings and 2007-2008 comparisons' which places the UK 12th overall out of 134. This doesn't seem too bad to me. My concern is that those who don't know you might see your posting as an attempt to discredit what appears to be a fairly good set of results as you have only selected one of the judgements out of a possible 116; I know that you would not be seeking to do that.
The report starts with this quote:
"The United Kingdom, while remaining very competitive, has dropped by three places and out of the top 10, mainly attributable to a weakening of its financial markets."
The following are selected (by me) from the report and show the UK's rankings out of 134:
GDP valued at current prices (hard data) - 5th
Public trust of politicians- 35th
Judicial independence - 18th
Wastefulness of government spending - 76th (at a score of 3.3 is where the mean is 3.5)
Transparency of government policymaking - 38th
Reliability of police services - 32nd
Ethical behaviour of firms - 17th
Strength of auditing and reporting standards - 17th
Protection of minority shareholders' interests - 15th
Quality of overall infrastructure - 24th
Quality of roads - 24th
Quality of railroad infrastructure - 20th
Telephone lines (hard data) - 8th
Inflation (hard data)- 35th
Life expectancy (hard data) - 22nd
Quality of the educational system - 28th
Internet access in schools - 15th
Local availability of specialized research and training services - 9th
Extent and effect of taxation - 81st (at a score of 3.2 where the mean is 3.6)
Financial market sophistication - 9th
Legal rights index (hard data) - 1st
Availability of latest technologies - 10th
Mobile telephone subscribers (hard data) - 10th
Internet users (hard data) - 14th
Personal computers (hard data) - 5th
Domestic market size index (hard data) - 6th
Foreign market size index (hard data) - 8th
Extent of marketing - 3rd
Capacity for innovation - 14th
Quality of scientific research institutions - 7th
Company spending on R&D - 12th
University-industry research collaboration - 9th
We're not off to hell in a handcart just yet!
It's not the most exciting read but the full report is available at:
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm
Mark