Buying local could still be buying foreign

There's an appealing simplicity to buying local when times get tough.
Why, when people on your own doorstep are having a hard time, would you want to be putting money into the pockets of foreign firms?
Appealing as the argument is, it has its flaws.
Number one is the fact that foreign firms have put a whole load of money into the pockets of you and me.
They provide jobs at factories and offices they have set up in this country. Think Capital One, think Toyota.
They put money into the chains of local firms that tend to provide them with goods and services. Toyota even put money into a training academy in Nottingham.
Their success tends to spread the word about the UK being a good location for business. Nissan was followed by Toyota was followed by Honda.
So, as understandable as it is to want to help your nearest and dearest first, those nearest and dearest may infact be foreign as well as British.
Number two is the fact that economic nationalism has a long history of unpleasant side effects.
The worst of these is that other countries can play the same game. If they see us thumbing our noses at the goods they produce, they can do the same to British exports.
That's no laughing matter when you live on an island which has to trade internationally. Boots, Experian and Rolls-Royce are international businesses.
It also means you end up putting off unpleasant truths: if people are buying foreign-made goods because they are cheaper or better, what does that tell us about the quality of our homegrown products?
This kind of approach was responsible for the long and unnecessarily slow death of several British industries, leaving the economy throwing money at lost causes when it could have been building up new ones.
Economic nationalism also played its part in the rise to power of people history will never allow us to forget.
But it's an entirely understandable reaction when times are tough and it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.
Neither is there anything wrong with pointing out that there are plenty of homegrown alternatives to spending money on goods or services from overseas.
You only have to look in farm shops or the local produce sections of supermarkets to find foods which are, frankly, far better than many of the bland, tasteless alternatives that routinely line the shelves.
Similarly, clever, innovative and quick-thinking entrepreneurs have proved on more than one occasion that industries long seen as lost to foreign climes can infact still succeed in the UK when they are done differently.
The global economy will never go away – indeed, it probably holds the key to climbing out of recession.
And a global economy means that local is further away than you think.