THE redundancies at Worcester Royal Porcelain are not just tragedies for the people concerned.

Nor are these job losses just another setback for a city that has suffered casualties at Kays, Cosworths and also felt the aftershocks of the MG Rover earthquake.

Sadly, the china firm's crisis is all part of the haemorrhaging of British manufacturing as our industries bleed to death.

This country is facing an awful dilemma.

How do we employ our people to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay when there is always someone in another part of the world willing to do the same work for a lot less?

This is a process that has been going on for some time. But there is now a snowball effect developing whereby British skills, expertise and craftsmanship is being eclipsed by forces outside our control.

From cars to guitars, televisions to kitchen appliances, everybody's doing it cheaper than us.

But how does a country that has been dragged screaming to the civilised view that reasonable pay and conditions are a pre-requisite to a decent society react to the global reality that many areas of the world have no such convictions?

It is all very well for the Government to welcome eight more chronically poor member states to the EU and throw the jobs market door wide open. But what will be the effect of the "lower expectation factor" be on the British workplace?

The answer is that we will not be able to compete. Our democracy will start to develop cracks under the pressures of low-wage competition abroad and the growth of under-cutting here.

This is the real timebomb facing the next government. And one that is slowly ticking away.