Chinese porcelain vase sold for £43m

A colossal sum (and probably a few begging letters) for the seller but a drop in the ocean for the trade deficit

Doing the math, we need about a hundred of these auctions a month - according to the latest trade figures for September, the trade deficit for “goods and services” was GBP 4.6 billion - so even though GBP 43 million for a porcelain vase seems a goodly sum, it is only about 1% of the current monthly deficit

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=199

It could be assisted by reducing the consumption of imports - if we didn't need them there is a chance we might not buy them

In the not too distant past the government made the deficit worse passing legislation that directly resulted in billions being spent on imports

I wonder if anyone in Government ever considered or calculated the cost to the balance of payments when they introduced the legislation requiring the phasing out of analogue TV broadcasts and a switchover to digital TV broadcasts?

As a result every UK household had to have one or more digital boxes and/or digital televisions to continue to be able to watch TV – and pretty well all of them have had to be imported at a cost of many, many billions.

We cannot afford all these “must have” new toys when they just add to our trade deficit - In a relatively short time we have gone from 4:3 conventional televisions, then 16:9 conventional widescreen televisions, then flat screen televisions, then flat screen HD televisions, and now we have 3D televisions.......