Been working in Scunthorpe steelworks all day, lot of lads gutted. A lot of lads don’t think it will happen. Worse part people trying to get out of main gate and press hounding them
Yep - it would be silly to tag Labour with this situation, which has been developing since the early 80's, Thatcher and Ian MacGregor.
Controversial opinion but British steel and Tata steel have been holding the country to ransom for years demanding constant bailouts with the threat of moving operations abroad if the demands aren't met. I dread to think how many billions it's been over the years
Reason I flagged it up. When we don't have a steel industry we'll be buying it in. The world needs steel. Seems daft giving up on steel and buying it back for more money. If we don't produce it someone else will. What's more if we don't have it. People can charge us what they want for it. Seems very short sighted from the government. This government in particular as they are supposed to represent the working man.
Don't think Tories or Labour are to blame on this one. Trump is making tariffs high to try and bring more business to his own country, which will create more jobs for his own people. The more you can make in your homeland to be less reliant on things coming from abroad, the better.
I spent 22 years in the steel industry. Once we stopped being a core industry, and sold out to privatisation, it was all too obvious what was going to happen. Steel is sold on price only because differentiation on quality is not an option, as every steel maker in the world uses basically the same process. So we spent all our time trying to reduce costs by making people redundant. I finally got out in 1999, and never looked back, although I will always be grateful for the opportunities for education, training and experience which, ironically, were much sought after in the outside world.
Better than no production. I don't think people realise the ramifications of becoming a buying nation at the mercy of price tags.
Bit harsh mentioning Labour ‘presiding over it’. ‘British Steel’ - which is actually a trading name of Jingye in China - are chucking their toys out of the pram and trying to hold the government to ransom as it was ‘expecting’ a government cash injection of £1billion to ‘keep the business going’ - the government offering £500million. I’d say offering half a billion to a private, profit oriented company to keep it in business is more than generous. The unions aren’t fans of the government - to say the least - yet the general secretary of Unite has said it’s them trying to hold the government to ransom and using the workforce as pawns. Not blaming the government at all. I’m not convinced a billion represents value for money to us as taxpayers to save 2700 jobs - and likely for little more than three or four years before it happens again. I do wonder if it would be better to spend that or a bit more and take it back in hand, and actually recreate ‘British Steel’ properly.
He can **** off. Imagine moving countries just to avoid a small fraction of your unimaginable wealth being redistributed to help the less fortunate. Wanker.