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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

#91

Post by nephihaha »

flir wrote: post #79
traceroute66 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fishing holds similar role in the UK Indeed and ironically most British people refuse to eat the species commonly found in UK waters, e.g. mackerel etc. Because the Brits are so fussy, most fish eaten in the UK has always been imported, e.g. Icelandic cod. And the fact the UK fishermen were die-hard pro-Brexit is odd given they should have been aware that the majority of their regular catch was sold to EU buyers.

> most fish eaten in the UK has always been imported, e.g. Icelandic cod. Not always (Cod Wars). And our herring catch was once its own industry. > And the fact the UK fishermen were die-hard pro-Brexit is odd given they should have been aware that the majority of their regular catch was sold to EU buyers. They thought they'd have a monopoly on those fishing grounds post-Brexit.

The problem for them wasn't the sales, it was the catches. The EU was good for farmers, not so good for fisheries. The EU fishing rules meant multiple countries could fish the same grounds meaning overfishing. The UK was much stricter on net sizes than Spain was.

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

#92

Post by georgeecollins »

pydry wrote: post #67
mr_toad wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of all steel in the UK is imported anyway, and there are many places to obtain it. Unless the UK goes to war with most of the world at the same time, it’s not going to have trouble getting steel.

If there is a large war, those countries will prioritize domestic consumption and the UK will immediately stop being able to produce weapons. Domestic steel production is an essential element of being sovereign, as opposed to being the handpuppet of a larger power (like the US).

Really? There is a large war going on right now and the key material is chips. Drone don't use a lot of steel, neither do missiles or modern airplanes.

Yes you need artillery and particularly shells. But you are so much more limited by the capacity of your munition factories that how much steel you have would not be an issue. One of the main things you would need for a new munitions factory is trained workers.

The World Wars were wars of mass mobilization and industrial capacity. People went into the first thinking cavalry was important, the second thinking battleships still mattered. My point is I have no idea what the next great war might be like, but thinking the winner will be who chugs out the most tanks in five years may be looking in the rear view mirror.

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

#93

Post by traceroute66 »

nialv7 wrote: post #77
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…

what a bizarre article, completely disconnected from reality. in what world is manufacturing, a sector that has been neglected for decades at this point, having any sway on politics in Britain. why does The Economist have so much disdain of manufacturing and people who work in it? look at China, look at their manufacturing industry and what they are able to do with it. then look at the UK, who is struggling to build…

> look at China, look at their manufacturing industry and what they are able to do with it.

"look at China" what ? Have you seen the population size of China ? Have you seen the geographic size of China ?

Remember what is often said when Mr Trump talks about bringing tech manufacturing back to the US ....

Yes great idea Mr Trump. But even with the most generously optimistic figures, due to the lack of available workforce and space the US could only ever provide the capacity equivalent to one Chinese manufacturing town of which the Chinese have dozens.

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

#94

Post by gruez »

nialv7 wrote: post #77
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…

what a bizarre article, completely disconnected from reality. in what world is manufacturing, a sector that has been neglected for decades at this point, having any sway on politics in Britain. why does The Economist have so much disdain of manufacturing and people who work in it? look at China, look at their manufacturing industry and what they are able to do with it. then look at the UK, who is struggling to build…

>in what world is manufacturing, a sector that has been neglected for decades at this point, having any sway on politics in Britain.

Are you confusing the lack of effective interventions with "neglect"? Nearly every administration in the past decade had some sort of an industrial policy, but even though they failed to bring manufacturing back to britain, that doesn't mean "neglect". It just means the forces of globalization is too strong.

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

#95

Post by pjc50 »

gib444 wrote: post #66
n4r9 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I stopped paying the license fee because of how the BBC sucked up to the Tories in the lead up to the 2019 GE. From Newsnight displaying images of Corbyn that made him look like a Soviet stooge, to Laura Kuenssberg leaking postal vote ballot information, to Alex Forsyth saying that Boris Johnson "deserves" the election. People say that it's subject to complaints of bias from both sides of the spe…

> how the BBC sucked up to the Tories in the lead up to the 2019 GE > Laura Kuenssberg ughh yes so glad that era is behind us. Good riddance.

I don't know whether this is a joke or not, because she's still there.

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

#96

Post by graemep »

tikkabhuna wrote: post #82
graemep wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The annoying thing about the BBC paywall is that it is implemented by using different domains, so (for example here) people in the UK go to bbc.com instead of bbc.co.uk

Do you have that the wrong way round? In the UK, you go to bbc.co.uk (and bbc.com redirects to bbc.co.uk). From memory, in the US you get pushed to bbc.com.

I mean that, for example the link here is to bbc.com, and it does not recirect me to bbc.co.uk

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

#97

Post by lysace »

pjc50 wrote: post #87
nialv7 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a bizarre article, completely disconnected from reality. in what world is manufacturing, a sector that has been neglected for decades at this point, having any sway on politics in Britain. why does The Economist have so much disdain of manufacturing and people who work in it? look at China, look at their manufacturing industry and what they are able to do with it. then look at the UK, who is struggling to build…

The point is that manufacturing is a relatively small part of both the economy and the job market; AND the popular view of manufacturing (large plant staffed by a large number of men being the dominant employer of a nearby town or city) doesn't look anything like the reality of modern manufacturing (small run boutique high value stuff like satellites and turbines, highly automated and professionalized, relatively sma…

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/14/university...

Thousands of university job cuts in humanities and social sciences are creating widespread cold spots for languages, classics and theology degrees, the British Academy has warned.

[...]

The subjects with the biggest staff cuts were social work (-9%), English and classics (both -8%), anthropology (-7%) and linguistics (-6%).

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

#98

Post by jmyeet »

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…

The Economist is a neoliberal dish rag.

There is a completely made up number that is an increasingly large portion of GDP in OECD nations and that number is imputed rent [1]. This is a fictional number that owner-occupiers "pay" themselves to live in their own houses. So as housing prices go up, so does imputed rent. House prices have increasingly become the best vehicle for investment funds because the returns are esentially protected. But none of that produces anything.

The UK in particular has been described as buy-to-let economy.

It doesn't have to be this way. If you limit property speculation then capital will find something else productive to do, like manufacturing. Dish rags like The Economist present it as inevitable that Western nations become financialized. It's simply not true. Look at Germany. Also look at the fact that Germany greatly limits the collaterialization and speculation on property. That's not an accident.

[1]: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/02/14/10-or-gdp-is-...

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

#99

Post by timcobb »

pjc50 wrote: post #81
pydry wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a large war, those countries will prioritize domestic consumption and the UK will immediately stop being able to produce weapons. Domestic steel production is an essential element of being sovereign, as opposed to being the handpuppet of a larger power (like the US).

Now check where the inputs to steel production come from. The UK built a lot of refining to use local iron ore and coal deposits. It used those deposits. They are now substantially used up. Subsurface mining is uneconomic, and open mining is politically unthinkable. There is actually a really high quality government review of the whole subject: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/690b868714b04... Lots of d…

When there's a war and you need sovereignty how would open mining be unthinkable

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

#100

Post by gib444 »

pjc50 wrote: post #95
gib444 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the BBC sucked up to the Tories in the lead up to the 2019 GE > Laura Kuenssberg ughh yes so glad that era is behind us. Good riddance.

I don't know whether this is a joke or not, because she's still there.

She is not Political Editor of BBC anymore. She's just a talk show host as I understand it (though still on a HEFTY salary - £410k, fourth highest in the BBC).

Presumably a very difference sphere of influence.

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