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Littered as it is with such expressions as, “without precedent ”and “unparallelled”, the latest CIPS manufacturing snapshot of the UK economy in November is an X rated document if ever there was one.

Output, new orders and employment all fell at record rates for the monthly survey, now in its 17th year, while the influential Purchasing Managers’ Index dropped like a stone from an already depressed 40.7 to just 34.4 points, on a scale where anything below 50 represents a decline. Each of the past three months has tested the bottom with new lows, making any positive feature difficult to spot.

With sterling on the slide the normal expectation would be to find some encouragement from export sales but at just 37.1, the orders index in this category fails to deliver with respondents noting lower levels of new work from both the US and East Asia, as well as mainland Europe.

In these circumstances, the employment figure was hardly likely to impress and indeed the rate of loss accelerated to a new record for the widely quoted survey.

Only the last paragraph breaks the gloom to a degree with the acknowledgement that input prices fell for the first time since July 2005. But the reasons for this drop are only too clear with demand at such unprecedentedly low levels.

UK plant frozen out by Indesit

Examples of the recession’s impact are only too easy to find and Italy’s Indesit provided a perfect one with the conclusion of fridge manufacture at its Hotpoint plant in Peterborough. Although it had been signalled earlier in the year, the axe still represents a blow to polymer, equipment and component supply alike.

It does not seem long since the Indesit chief was extolling the virtues of UK manufacture in the FT and backing it with investment. Finishing manufacture at Peterborough will be particularly unwelcome for RGE Engineering, the low profile but successful moulder which has committed investment to dedicated moulding operations to supply the company.

Ancillary makers spot an opportunity

Conair Europe has always suggested a victory of presentation over substance, its actual level of penetration across the processing sector rarely matching the scale of new developments for which full details were soon to hand. Probably the greatest success came with US transplants for whom the parent was a key supplier back home and a familiar emblem in overseas territory.

Nevertheless, the demise of the business is a shock, recently strengthened as it has been with the addition of the Rapid range. Providing service from the US looks unrealistic and already local competitors are eyeing the potential.

One of the few remaining jewels in the UK’s petrochemicals and plastics crown moved into foreign ownership this week when the owners of Lucite International agreed a $1.6bn offer from Mitsubishi Rayon. 17 November 2008

If petrochemicals was a more glamorous sector, Ineos a higher profile company and other sectors not capturing the daily headlines, the company might well have found itself more fully in the media glare. 10 November 2008