As I write, there is a lot of comment in the national press about whether or not the British government should try to save jobs in what is left of our steel industry.
Allowing our steel industry to close would leave Britain dependent upon imports of steel from other countries. We would have to accept what those other countries offered us in terms of price and quality.
I am not advocating a return to the days of state ownership, with its flair for incompetence. After all, how many people nowadays regard British cars from the 1970s as design classics?
Nevertheless I cannot see how a country which can afford to squander billions of pounds on vanity projects like HS2 cannot also afford to require that the steel used in constructing HS2 be produced in this country.
Britain has lost its coal industry. Money that was once spent on keeping the coal industry afloat is now spent on other things, and yet I cannot help but wonder if we are really better off for having lost our coal industry. If the coal mines were such a drain on our economy, then their closure ought logically to have heralded a new era of prosperity. If that happened, then I for one failed to notice.
Britain has yet to return to the low levels of unemployment last seen in the 1960s, and many people still queue for food banks. I wonder if that situation could really be improved by the loss of our steel industry.
Related previous posts include:
How important is manufacturing?
The end of coal
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