British steel- I'm being abit thick here. Please explain.

Personally I blame everyone on here who’s not a riding a steel mtb…

Only if the steel was UK made otherwise you are part of the problem 🙂

what’ll happen if we ever dare to challenge our neo-liberal order….not very progressive thinking.

Reality has a liberal bias.

Copa, your hatred of the military doesn’t half make you post some twaddle. On the points above:

1. Don’t you think that a commitment to military spending might be good for UK manufacturing?
2. The 2% commitment was wrung out of the government by the Americans, and even then it employs some smoke and mirrors to allow them to claim 2%. Why would you think they’ll increase it further?
3. The RAF are shutting bases. Is keeping Valley open and shutting Linton-on-Ouse in (Tory) North Yorkshire a dastardly plan to see off the Welsh? Where do you think Valley’s (predominantly civilian) workforce live?

1. Yes, of course it is. It’s what Dwight Eisenhower talked about in 1961.
2. Westminster politicians slobber over weapons, invasions and war – they don’t need encouraging.
3. The UK Gov can’t afford to save a steelworks which supports 4,000 but it can afford a £1 billion contract to safeguard 400 jobs involved in the training of people to bomb stuff.

@copa we can buy steel from other countries, we would be very naive to rely on others for our security.

From @ninfan’s link

Under Labour, steel production halved. Under Labour, employment in steel halved. Since I have been Prime Minister, steel production has gone up and steel employment has stayed the same. So before we get a self-righteous lecture from Labour, I would say to them, “Look at your own record!”

subsidised political ally flooding the market with cheap oil and driving prices down in a global recession hasnt done our oil industry much good

Yeah, but it’s done every other industry that uses oil a huge favour (along with people that drive cars, heat houses…).

From a Jambafact or ninfans drivel??? Are these from the same people who blamed Labour for the global recession?

I’m not sure the 70% rise in the unemployed of Aberdeen are seeing the brightside.
Or indeed the 15000 Tata employees no longer making steel for the UK O&G sector….

Capatalism for steel socialism for banks 😉

Very unfortunate for those involved but we’re an uncompetitive bit player in the steel industry. China has produced more steel in the last two years than the UK industry has in its entire history. This isfree trade at work isn’t it? If the government impose tariffs on imported steel to prop up the uk industry then it forces those that currently use Chinese steel to pay higher prices and therefore impact their business. Why should they suffer for the benefit of those affected by the steel plant closure. This is only going to get worse over coming years through the implementation of technology which renders a lot of traditional jobs non-existent.

@wiki how many job losses in financial services simce 2008? 200,000 ?

@PigfCe – factcheck.org

Might be cheap now, but how much will Chinese steel be when it hasn’t got any competition left…Isn’t that how capitalism works?

Only read page 1 but why not take over British steel and then use what’s produced for all the supposed upcoming projects like hs2? Sell the steel at a cost neutral price to build public projects?

I say this while watching the current mob destroy anything with the word public in it.

Might be cheap now, but how much will Chinese steel be when it hasn’t got any competition left…Isn’t that how capitalism works?

Surely at that point, another country comes along that can produce it cheaper than China is now selling it, like they did to us?

MrOvershoot – Member
The thing is its not just the direct jobs at the steel plants but all the tertiary companies that rely on the steel works for a large proportion of their income.
I’m not sure of the exact figure but I think it was for every one person working in the steep plant two more relied on it for their job.

Served my apprenticeship in the steel industry, 6 great years before redundancy, we where part of the GKN empire, 2200 people working there, then Shotton down the hill got almost closed down.all steel mking stopped, biggest single redundancy in europe at the time,12000 workers jobs lost, along with huge numbers odf contractors, drivers, local shops suffered, as did everything related to the steelworks, then we started getting made redundant, and the same happened, eventually we closed down, chinese bought the plant and sent teams of chinese workers to dismantle it bolt by bolt and ship it to Birkenhead docks, onto china by boat,then 1200 miles accross land to Chang King in China where it was all rebuilt.

Then there was Bidston Steel down the road from where i live now, they where privately owned employed about 600 workers and lots of contractors, they got closed and site is now a tesco supermarket, and tennis centre.

The closures if they do happen will be catastrophic for the local areas, for its people, their way of life and skills base, pound shops dont usually have vacancies for highly skilled steelworkers, then there is also the emotional side, families are destroyed, kids go off the rails, vandalism and aggression builds up, firms go bust, a huge circle being formed.

Aside from the pointless arguing over bank bailouts, what I find interesting is that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we are told we must take the long view, that we cannot predict the future, and that unknown threats may arise which make it a strategic necessity to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on them. Yet when it comes to having our own capability for making a material that is a cornerstone of an industrial society, we are told that it’s ok, we can import it, we don’t need to make it ourselves, and that some other country will always be there to supply us with it no matter what may happen in the future. Seems to me the word ‘strategic’ is used only when it suits.

Aside from the pointless arguing over bank bailouts, what I find interesting is that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we are told we must take the long view, that we cannot predict the future, and that unknown threats may arise which make it a strategic necessity to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on them. Yet when it comes to having our own capability for making a material that is a cornerstone of an industrial society, we are told that it’s ok, we can import it, we don’t need to make it ourselves, and that some other country will always be there to supply us with it no matter what may happen in the future. Seems to me the word ‘strategic’ is used only when it suits.

Nailed it.

Finally when i was doing my apprenticeship bought a hammer from the local market, with a sticker on it saying made in China, foreman saw it asked why id bought it , isaid because it was cheap and all i could afford, STANLEY where 3 times the price, foreman took it off me and asked me to follow him to the loading bay of the Cupola, large iron melting furnace in the Foundry, he threw it in the molten iron.

I was gutted.

As i walked back with him he said you work for a british steel making company and yet you buy a foreign cheap tool, heres a chit for a new stanley hammer from the stores, treasure it, and i still have that hammer now.

Yet when it comes to having our own capability for making a material that is a cornerstone of an industrial society, we are told that it’s ok, we can import it, we don’t need to make it ourselves, and that some other country will always be there to supply us with it no matter what may happen in the future. Seems to me the word ‘strategic’ is used only when it suits.

Worked for a senior manager of unilever who was from South africa, his job setting up new plants round the world, i asked why detergenmts where not all made abroad but all round the world, expecting him to sy if the boat sunk it would cause huge pollution of the seas, he said in a war or some other catastrophic thing happening they needed a supply in most countries to still make a profit for the company, EG NO STOCK NO PROFIT.

nickc – Member

Might be cheap now, but how much will Chinese steel be when it hasn’t got any competition left…Isn’t that how capitalism works?

The Starbucks model in essence. Run at a loss until you put our competition out of business, then you can do, and charge what the hell you like.

Have the usual right wingers ever noticed how those of us who’ve actually witnessed first hand – in my case the miners in the 80’s – the scorched earth decimation that follows to these communities, are the ones most vocal that a government shouldn’t sit idly by and watch it happen, while doing nothing. Those of us who know from bitter experience what PT has got coming, wouldn’t wish it on anyone

Ever watched heroine use get a grip of a community who until recently had jobs, and a decent standard of living, who now got nowt, least of all any hope, and are now living on the poverty line? There’s possibly more depressing things to witness. Possibly…?

I haven’t read every post so apologies if this has already been said. Part of the problem for UK steel was high electricity prices/carbon taxes to reduce CO2. But the global CO2 is not reduced if instead of making it here we buy it from China where the furnaces are powered by coal fired electricity. We are just transferring our CO2 output to China.

EU Taxes and Regulations Killed British Steel Industry

dazh – Member

Aside from the pointless arguing over bank bailouts, what I find interesting is that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we are told we must take the long view, that we cannot predict the future, and that unknown threats may arise which make it a strategic necessity to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on them. Yet when it comes to having our own capability for making a material that is a cornerstone of an industrial society, we are told that it’s ok, we can import it, we don’t need to make it ourselves, and that some other country will always be there to supply us with it no matter what may happen in the future. Seems to me the word ‘strategic’ is used only when it suits.

The rare valid point, spotted in the wild.

Yet when it comes to having our own capability for making a material that is a cornerstone of an industrial society, we are told that it’s ok, we can import it, we don’t need to make it ourselves, and that some other country will always be there to supply us with it no matter what may happen in the future.

that’ll be the swedes, always neutral and going by the previous big one no qualms on who they sell it too 😉

Plenty of less sexy industries have all but disappeared such as textiles and shoe manufacturing from areas such not too far from Binners,

Romantic for mining? you can even have a go at the 150,000 tonnes of coal reserves up the road here. http://www.minersadvice.co.uk/hill_top.htm

Whether PT can or should be saved is probably going to get lost in political rehetoric, single industry towns are always going to be vulnerable. My preference is that we keep it going but only if there is a decent plan, the lack of anything beyond “intervene” and nationalise doesn’t change the business model

except our government blocked attempts at the EU to scrap the levy cap only last month

I thought the reason the government (along with other countries) didn’t support the EU proposal is that it coupled derisory action on imported chinese seamless pipe, heavy plate and hot-rolled flat steel steel with additional controls that would have impacted advanced steel products of the sort made in the UK and which are currently profitable? i.e. the proposal was poorly thought out and whilst giving negligible relief to one part of the steel industry would have simultaneously made another sector unprofitable. As I recall it the EU wasn’t willing to uncouple these two things to enable rapid action to be taken on the controls where all countries were already in agreement.

project – Member

Finally when i was doing my apprenticeship bought a hammer from the local market, with a sticker on it saying made in China, foreman saw it asked why id bought it , isaid because it was cheap and all i could afford, STANLEY where 3 times the price, foreman took it off me and asked me to follow him to the loading bay of the Cupola, large iron melting furnace in the Foundry, he threw it in the molten iron.

I was gutted.

As i walked back with him he said you work for a british steel making company and yet you buy a foreign cheap tool, heres a chit for a new stanley hammer from the stores, treasure it, and i still have that hammer now.

Nice sentiment but Stanley are an American company!
At the time you could have bought a Britool hammer but then they were bought by the French company Facom & in a twist of fate they are all now owned by Stanley Black and Decker.

The rare valid point, spotted in the wild

Or just a sixth form emotive straw man argument.

Newsnight has had a bit more time to come up with a (hopefully) better piece than last night now

Edit: sadly not so far. Time to switch to Bear Grylls? (Bllx a repeat. Must be time for bed)

Only read page 1 but why not take over British steel and then use what’s produced for all the supposed upcoming projects like hs2? Sell the steel at a cost neutral price to build public projects?

We’re not allowed to do this, no-one in the European Union is. As unpalatable as it is in this instance it does in theory give UK firms a bash at supplying infrastructure projects in other EU countries.

Nice sentiment but Stanley are an American company!

Yes but produced here (and AFAIK run almost as a separate company).

enfht – Member

Or just a sixth form emotive straw man argument.

I like the way you countered the argument in detail there and explained its fallacies and weaknesses, very compelling.

For the record; it’s not a straw man, it reasonably summarises many of the arguments in favour of keeping nuclear weapons and the similarities to the arguments for keeping critical industry. It’s not an appeal to emotion either, clearly, there’s no justification for that claim. But your “sixth form” ad hom was definitely an ad hom

The definative word comes on Newsnight from the incredibly grounded financial journalist from The Times….

They all need to move to London

So that’s that then.

All sorted!

Phew!

Surely at that point, another country comes along that can produce it cheaper than China is now selling it, like they did to us?

Except for the fact that the second that happens the Chinese state will subsidise their export steel and impose tariffs on imported steel to collapse the competition.

Capitalism is a game that only works when everyone plays by the same rules.

It sounds like bad news for the Chinese taxpayer that apparently there’s a state policy to subsidise every steel consumer in the world, but good news for everyone else.

They all need to move to London

Parking might be a problem…

They all need to move to London

now where have I heard that before ?

As i walked back with him he said you work for a british steel making company and yet you buy a foreign cheap tool, heres a chit for a new stanley hammer from the stores,

I dunno how long ago that was, but he might have been a bit horrified to find that Corus’ (and I believe it still operates under Tata) sales division had no requirement to buy and sell their own steel. It operated more like city trading house.

post deleted

UK agriculture receives around £3.6 billion per annum in government subsidies (little wonder land is £10k) yet no mention of that getting cut in the budget? All depends on who is receiving the true benefit when it comes to subsidies…

Northwind – the point is making is not a critical industry. Its a low level, bottom of the technical/manufacturing food chain business. The future is “value added” manufacturing and/or design and technical innovation – exactly what the Germans have focused on and what they are very good at. We need to face the fact they have been a lot better at it than us From what I’ve read a lot of our steel usage / requirements is in construction. Its not high tech making steel girders or reinforcing mesh for concrete. As the Welsh Unite representative said, the construction insdustry won’t pay extra for higher quality British steel. Our manufacturing future is more like Hope Technology or our leadership in building Formula 1 cars.

I appreciate the controversy of “get on your bike” but we cannot ignore the reality that people are prepared to travel half way accross Europe to get a job in the UK. Steel manufacturing has been in decline for decades, my father got out of the business in the mid 1970’s

Parking might be a problem…

More importantly though, theres a plentiful supply of affordable housing, so I’m sure it’ll be fine

And the retraining from steelworker to City trader or web developer in a funky Hoxton agency is a quick and painless one

And theres always this