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British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

bbc.com

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Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#51

Post by traceroute66 »

derektank wrote: post #42
traceroute66 wrote: post #32

This reminded me of an article in The Economist published last year, April 2025: "Zombie politics: how Dead Man dominates British politics"[1] Two prescient paragraphs related to today's news: If British politicians worship voters who are no longer among the living, it is natural that they do the same to a version of the British economy that has long departed. “There are people in this country who love to talk down o…

It’s only possible for Dead Man valorizing politicians to be elected because much of the electorate worships the same. They all have parents too, naturally.

> much of the electorate worships the same. They all have parents too, naturally.

Well, yes. But not many of them worship the generation who were mostly responsible for voting in favour of Brexit (60% support among those aged 65 and over at the time of the vote).

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#52

Post by jarym »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #22

It's probably not a bad idea. Steel is one of the things that an industrialized country needs to produce to protect its own sovereignty. Letting it shut down and just hope you'll always be able to import enough steel from other countries is a bad long-term strategy. You'd be left unable to fend for yourself.

Yep, same can be said of manufacturing capability in general. If you don't have a manufacturing base then inevitably when there's a war you may find yourself unable to build defense components.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#53

Post by 1970-01-01 »

0x3f wrote: post #37
Deukhoofd wrote: post #22

It's probably not a bad idea. Steel is one of the things that an industrialized country needs to produce to protect its own sovereignty. Letting it shut down and just hope you'll always be able to import enough steel from other countries is a bad long-term strategy. You'd be left unable to fend for yourself.

You can make this same argument about a great number of things. Why is steel any more critical than food or vaccines or the like? Indeed we got caught short of vaccines recently, and had some nontrivial consideration of running a military op against NATO member over it.

Steel comes from iron, which you can't grow. It's more critical than food, which you can grow. Same for vaccines.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#54

Post by jingpostmedia »

msuniverse2026 wrote: post #18

Interesting how they haven't repeated in this article earlier claims that the Chinese purchase of the steelworks was a strategic move to slowly destroy the blast furnaces by letting them cool under pretext of low demand.

[flagged]

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#55

Post by carterschonwald »

one of the most hilarious examples of how the current wh admins false protectionism, in my mind, is the crucible steel bankruptcy in jan/feb 2025.

its a technological tragedy because it was the only facility im aware of globally that could actually manufacture steel based carbide alternatives at commercial volumes. idk if the relevant equipment is being operated by anyone post bankruptcy. powder steel equipment is a bit less destroyed when turned off, but i think the key blocker is that heat cycling a 3k centigrade furnace will age the material and cause cracking thatmakes it hard to resume the powederization flows

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#56

Post by patall »

I assume, ultimately western nations will have to adopt what already exists for agricultural goods for production as well. I am afraid it will end as a per-worker subsidy analog to per-area-of-land for lack of a better metric but in the end, that is what will be necessary if one wants to keep any industrial capabilities.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#57

Post by jarym »

mr_toad wrote: post #39

The government is forced to sell steel at a loss, because all the buyers for whom this is a such a vital supply would otherwise buy cheaper imported steel, every single one of them . And ultimately all the ore and coke used to make the steel are imported anyway.

2 things: a) Government plays a part in the cost of things - especially years of mis-investment around energy generation has sent British prices to the stratosphere and employment taxation levels greater than those 'cheaper' producers. b) The 'cheaper' producers are still _producers_ and thus have control - if they need to hoard their own supply they will, or if they need to leverage it for some political gain they might.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#58

Post by 0x3f »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #44
0x3f wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make this same argument about a great number of things. Why is steel any more critical than food or vaccines or the like? Indeed we got caught short of vaccines recently, and had some nontrivial consideration of running a military op against NATO member over it.

Food tends to be a lot easier to produce, and many countries do often subsidize their food production, as well as have mercantilistic policies to ensure food production is kept locally. Vaccines is a more interesting one, and would be something that might indeed be of interest to a nation. On the other hand I don't think many governments are that concerned about another pandemic, sometimes the discourse regarding it…

I don't really care for farm subsidies either, but even ignoring that: it's quite a different level of intervention than compulsory purchase. Same with the vaccines. We didn't respond to that crisis by nationalizing AstraZeneca.

My rhetorical point is just that steel gets special treatment probably because it's politically expedient. There are large, politically-relevant parts of the country that are still emotionally tied to the idea that we're an industrial nation. People under the age of 30 still go on about Thatcher and the miners.

There's no real shortage of steel around the world that I know of. We could just stockpile it instead, for example. And in the hypothetical tail-risk scenario this is all supposed to insure against... how do we even get the raw materials for making steel anyway?

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#59

Post by patall »

mr_toad wrote: post #39

The government is forced to sell steel at a loss, because all the buyers for whom this is a such a vital supply would otherwise buy cheaper imported steel, every single one of them . And ultimately all the ore and coke used to make the steel are imported anyway.

The same is, as far as I can grasp it, true for butter, bread, milk and eggs. Only there, it is already established.

Re: British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply

#60

Post by bell-cot »

One can argue whether, in abstract, this was a good idea.

Back in the real world - any government or large org can do a genuinely good thing so badly that it would have been better if they'd done nothing at all.

And it's been many a decade since the British gov't had much of a reputation for competence.

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