Ssi Steelworks At Redcar

[mrs_overall]

This is more of a rant than a reference to a specific media article.
Living in North Yorkshire on the border with Teesside, I am sick to the back teeth of this subject being talked about by all and sundry.
Fact: Corus sold this steelworks to Tata as it was making a loss year after year
Fact: Tata sold this steelworks to SSI as it was making a loss year after year
Fact: SSI have gone bust as this steelworks was making a loss year after year.
Yes it is sad that 1,700 people have lost their jobs but the Government has pledged £80 million to support these people. If my maths is correct, that is around £470,000 per worker. This is money supplied by you and me as taxpayers.
There are howls of outrage that the Government are not doing anything to save this steelworks. My argument is that it is a privately owned business so why should the Government step in? If my local corner shop went bust, would the shopkeeper expect the Government to step in? Why on earth should taxpayers money be wasted on throwing good after bad? Redcar Labour MP Anna Turley is shouting from the rooftops that this should happen.
Stories abound of how all the families will lose their homes and the kiddies will be sitting in the street with no food or shelter on Christmas day, while the evil Tories look on and laugh.
Is anyone with me on this one?
I will now go lie down in a darkened room with a stiff drink.

[tonyav]

Yes there are some around, DT.


Thanks Togo.

[Canary42]

Mrs O:"I am sick to the back teeth of this subject being talked about by all and sundry. "

So why provide an opportunity to set it running again ? Pot/Kettle springs to mind ;-)

[Retrochic]

Yes I was thinking the same thing canary . Poor soul having to read all this doom and gloom from her Whitby mansion ;-)

[EDDIE51]

What age are you tonyav?
I was 58 , now I intend to start looking for part time work again after I reach 65 to supplement my state pension, I think the job market is better now and I will do anything.

[tonyav]

Will be 60 in Jan, EDDIE.

[Baldric]

Mikey,

///But don't forget...we are all in this together !///

see Tonyav's post at 1904

[DTCwordfan]

tony, if you need help in polishing the cv up, am here......well off line from here!

[jourdain2]

Heck! tonyav and mikey, so sorry. This is what happened to Mr J2 and is why he went to France in the first place (his late wife had reached pensionable age and they could just afford to live there then - it's dearer now). Horrible for you both, bonne chance and try to plan a bit. :0) x

[jourdain2]

^^ I'm with DTC about help in polishing up the CVs

[jno]

the reason for supporting steel is that it supplies other big industries (cars, aerospace, arms); corner shops don't do that. Nice if you can now buy it cheaper from China, but what happens if foreign prices rise again and you no longer have a domestic industry to fill the gap?

[mikey4444]

jno...very well said ! And this is exactly what will happen. It was said on the radio this morning, that Britain actually exports steel back to China, but in the form of Jaguars and Land Rovers. But what will happen when the steel price rises and, as you say, we no longer have the wherewithal to produce the raw material any longer ?

I have said this before...when we import cheap steel being dumped on us by China, we are importing mass unemployment...again.

[Togo]

This article exposes the shameful policies that have destroyed our steel industry.

//This stems in large part from one of the last decisions made by Tony Blair as prime minister, when in 2007 he signed up this country to obtaining 15 per cent of all its energy from ‘renewable sources’ — wind and solar — by 2020.

According to the then chief scientific adviser to the government, Sir David King, Blair was supposed to limit our pledge to ‘electricity’, not energy as a whole, but there were ‘very tired people in the meeting … people just took their eye of the ball’. What a shameful admission.

The result is not just that household bills must be at least 15 per cent supplied by expensive and inefficient wind and solar power (what do we do when it isn’t sunny or blowing a gale?), so must high-intensity users of energy such as steel producers.//


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3278597/

[andy-hughes]

jno - //Nice if you can now buy it cheaper from China, but what happens if foreign prices rise again and you no longer have a domestic industry to fill the gap? //

Unfortunately, business works on what is happening now, and what can be predicted with an acceptable degree of certainty in the foreseeable future.

Neither of those situations encompass keeping a loss-making steel plant in production with no market for its product, and no assurance that steel-making outside China will ever be a viable proposition again.

[tonyav]

DTCwordfan
tony, if you need help in polishing the cv up, am here......well off line from here!


Thanks DT, will watch what happens over the next few days or weeks.