The new government says it supports the same policy as the old government for the steel industry.
The main imperative is to cut U.K. CO 2 output. That means shutting down U.K. blast furnaces to make new steel because they need fossil fuel to heat and smelt. We then import the new steel we need. This adds to world CO 2 because of the diesel ships to get it here and maybe from higher CO 2 in the manufacture. This surely is madness.
As a consolation prize the aim is to get recycling plant put in instead. This can be fired by electricity . On a good day 50% of that could come from renewables.On a bad day it would be burning gas and wood that generated the power. Recycled Ā steel can be used as a replacement for some Ā uses.
The electric arc furnaces needed require considerably less Labour than blast furnaces so a lot of people lose their jobs with large redundancy costs. It may lead to a bigger benefits bill if there is insufficient alternative work.
It is also bad news for taxpayers as the companies considering putting in a recycling plant will only do so if they receive large taxpayer subsidies. Labour are dangling Ā£2.5 bn of taxpayer cash for electric arcs and blast furnace closures. The industry will probably demand more. The new Minister is sitting down with Port Talbot Unions to see what more can be done for all those facing the sack as the blast furnace closes. I do not expect any change of overall policy.
Why does this government like the last want to stop us making steel? Why do they think it fine to import it with no world CO 2 gain? Why donāt they see we need to make more here? Why don5 they see you need to be able to make your own steel for national security?
July 11, 2024
There must be a brain destroying virus in Westminster. Perhaps itās only potent at work events?
Iām afraid the political class have proven themselves unequal to the task of sequential thinking – left, right and centre.
Letās hope the Unions eat the āLabourā Party.
All over social media around the world on the geopolitical sites people are commenting on Starmer after his debut at NATO, the comments are not complimentary. One said āafter the disaster of the 14 years of 5 named PMs, imagine coming to power and saying āno changeā.
July 11, 2024
Fortunately there are now five MPs opposed to the net zero nonsense and ready, willing and able to speak up about it. Unfortunately Labour has the votes to drive through the continued destruction of UK businesses and industry.
July 11, 2024
The policy is patently insane yet Labour, Conservatives, Libdims, Plaid, SNP, the greensā¦ all support it. Only a tiny handful of people did not vote for the mad Climate Change Act including JR. Mayās net zero insanity was just nodded through.
CO2 is not a problem anyway in fact a bit more CO2 is a good thing we live in a dearth of atmospheric CO2 in historical terms.
CO2 the gas of life see the sensible Dr William Happer videos.
Most of the things the net zero nutters push to save CO2 do not do so, at best they just export it and destroy jobs, EV cars increase CO2 significantly, compared to keeping your old car.
Even if CO2 were a problem (& it is not) the UKās contribution is irrelevant given the vast increases in coal power in China, Indiaā¦
The world has had several ice ages with CO2 at more that ten times current levels.
Renewables are very expensive and intermittent and cannot be stored cost effectively. They are not even that low in CO2 terms either as they need loads of fossil fuels to build, connect, back up and maintain. Loads of diesel ships.
So many better ways to spend the Ā£ trillions net zero will cost and this while doing net harm for negative returns.
July 11, 2024
See Do the best things first Bjorn Lomborg – uncommon knowledge video. So many better ways to spend the Ā£Trillions.
Adaptation is far better than idiotically thinking CO2 is some kind of world thermostat.
July 11, 2024
Starmer made it clear he preferred Davos to Westminister. You should not be surprised JR.
Starmerās govt. pledged to stop Ministers using private jets after slamming Sunak for all his private flights. Of course this only applies to us little people!
Labour all flying around in private jets against their promises while Milibandās junior minister wanting more taxes on oil and gas! Lammy, Starmer and Healy all arriving in US by different planes!! Less than a week in office! Liars.
Starmer reaffirms Ā£3 billion of our taxes to corrupt Ukraine, of course wars have no carbon footprint. Boat people keep coming, they have no carbon footprint, we do not know who they are but can mix with all those released prisoners making all totally unsafe! Great plan!
Starmer courts the press for his close relationship with EU! Time for people to revolt. No wonder rogue parliament groaned at Farage yesterday.
July 11, 2024
Yes. Their party were unable to think strategically on not oppose those siting MP who were in agreement. As a result the number of Lib Demās shot up and the Greens doubled their representation.
If you canāt work out simple electoral strategy to benefit those who are in agreement with you, you will NEVER manage the more complex decisions of daily voting in the House.
July 11, 2024
And if you have an asset like Ben Habib and sack him ā¦. š¤Æ
July 11, 2024
Ed Milliband announces today no more oil or gas extraction in the North Sea. He should suffer the price of his lunacy obsessed climate change religion. Honeymoon over in weeks
July 11, 2024
Lynn Atkinson:
Your humorous notion of a brain-destroying virus in Westminster is a possibility however zany it may seem.
In 1854, physician John Snow found drinking water generated cholera in Soho.
In 2024, science might reveal why some politicians lurking nearby spout miasma in words to generate destruction.
July 11, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – steel workers lose their jobs and their Unions finance and back those that are causing it to happen. The only thing is that there are less Union members when they are out of work. What vicious malicious people have we nurtured?
July 11, 2024
Spot on Lynn
July 11, 2024
We can only hope Trump is elected as he with Farage will expose the WEF inspired suicide to the nation.
Germany and no doubt France will soin be in full astern mode after the crippling costs start to appear.
With the prospect of mass unemployment in the west due entirely to the political class, I forsee trouble on the horizon.
July 11, 2024
Steel making is already impossible in the UK now.
Worse still, almost all other manufacturing is also at risk – whether it needs high cost energy or not.
There are no measures at all in place to stop this continuing.
Conservatives were perfectly happy for our largest manufacturers to be bought up by overseas concerns, who then moved production overseas.
Kraft takeover of Cadbury is but one example. The HQ was shifted abroad to avoid tax and plants here were also shut, after promises this would not happen. Once the deal was signed the new CEO refused to appear to discuss issues over the takeover. Politicians were then powerless.
At least other European countries stopped that happening to their own firms. We just get mugged off all the time.
July 11, 2024
Good morning.
As you once pointed out some time ago, the high cost of energy forced the UK out of the aluminium smelting market. I consider smelting aluminium, which also consumes large amounts of energy, to be a strategic industry yet, it was allowed to go to the wall.
We are entering a period of de-industrialisation where, those ‘heavy industries’ we once were so proud of are forced to close.
Name me one MP that has a history of working in heavy industry ? Just one !
July 11, 2024
Or one with any real understanding of science, business, energy or engineering.
ALLISTER HEATH today:- The Tories betrayed Britain ā and too many still refuse to admit it
Labour is refusing to say when it will boost defence. Britainās enemies wonāt give us the luxury of time.
He is right they got everything wrong they promised what was needed in four manifestos but delivered the reverse. Labour are delivering even more of the reverse.
Heath details all the Tory failures extremely well but he misses off the Covid Vaccines, a scandal about 100 times worse than the Contaminated Blood Scandal. Yet Labour employ Patrick Valance as science minister. A man who made huge error on net harm lockdowns & net harm & coerced Covid vaccines even for those with zero need for them a man totally deluded on Net Zero too.
Heath quotes Milton Friedman who defined a libertarian as somebody who believed that āa society that puts equalityā¦ ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedomā. By that definition, the Tories werenāt libertarians, either. So what were they?
Yet Labour are set continue on this same misguided path of ever higher taxes, every more government, every more net zero and every more red tapeā¦
July 11, 2024
As soon as I read the piece I was certain there would be a Lifelogic post :-
āAllister Heath is surely correct in todayās Telegraph.ā
I just didnāt expect it to be so lengthy.
July 11, 2024
Indeed seems so.
Sir Keir Starmer do you prefer Davos or Westminster – Davos!
July 11, 2024
When I listen to the net zero nutters talking complete and utter drivel I often wonder are these people really so dim, scientifically ignorant and totally deluded that that they actually believe this drivel or are they just liars on the make & paid advocates. It is clearly one or the other.
July 11, 2024
Same for Sunak and the āunequivocally safeā Covid Vaccines and people like Sir Patrick Vallance. In these cases they surely are lying and not deluded or dim? The statistics are overwhelming.government are actively trying to hide this – but it will fail.
July 11, 2024
@Lifelogic +1
Although like Sunaks little thiefdom of a Party, Starmer has intimated that if he gets elected again in 5 years they will revisit defence spending. Just more lies to get elected.
July 11, 2024
This is fascism. Thatās what corporatism is. Luckily no country wants to attack or invade us. So the Chalkengers are not required. We have been invaded by an alien, earth-bound religion, but by individuals so that apparently does not count. The 4 members in the House might wake up a few MPs.
Vallance was not āwrongā, like Fauci itās much worse than that.
July 11, 2024
Excess all cause deaths in many countries are still well above 10% up. In the UK 7.9% up. See 2024 excess deaths Dr John Campbell video for details and references.
So is the government going to show the raw data of death by vaccination status, age, number and type of vaccine, cause of deathā¦ so we can see how much effect the net harm āvaccinesā have had? No it seems they prefer to hide them.
They have this date and could analyse these very quickly. I assume they have done a little investigation it look rather dire and preferred to close their eyes, stop investigating and hide the data. Any other explanations?
But it is all coming out from many places around the World and various legal actions.
July 11, 2024
“The main imperative is to cut U.K. CO 2 output” except exporting steel production overseas does not “cut CO2 output” it just exports it and usually increases it Worldwide. So what is the real driver of this total insanity?
Not that we should even want to cut CO2 which is a net good anyway on balance. EVs increase it too so what drives that policy?
July 11, 2024
Red Ed Miliband banns all oil and gas exploration today! The destruction of our country and economy starts in earnest. Starmer and Lammy full steam ahead to betray the nation to force lock step with EU against democracy and purpose of voting. We all demand a second election we did not like the result so want to have another- as did Starmer, Lammy, Cooper, Benn to overturn the Brexit referndum.
Well done pro EU one nation Tory party, you should all be ashamed of yourselves.
July 11, 2024
+1
July 11, 2024
MarkB
Never mind Mark we can expand the number of coffee shops, and sell more of that to ourselves.
Oh forgot we import that too,.
Still the charity shops may get busier as time moves on.
Other than our host and one or two other former Mp’s I have given up on politicians and clear thinking.
July 11, 2024
Having friends in North Wales, we’ve spent some time in the area. Anglesey Aluminium was just outside Holyhead and was a large employer in the area. I remember reading that it was closing down. What is interesting is that it was run for many years on nuclear power, so was actually ‘net zero’ friendly (if such a thing can be allowed to exist)
“The plant was powered from the National Grid and received most of its electricity from Wylfa nuclear power station 15 miles (24 km) away. Anglesey Aluminium was used as a base load for Wylfa and saved the grid the cost of keeping a power station on standby.” (Wikipedia)
I had a feeling that the the operation was moved to India with some kind of EU net-zero grant but I can’t find any reference to that if true….
July 11, 2024
Imported steel using 25% imported energy to make ….that can’t be made into tanks or ship …its dirty recycled steel
July 11, 2024
Good Morning,
To answer your last question, it’s because of the Climate Change Law and government’s Net Zero dogma madness. This law will bankrupt us, here is but one part of the cost of its insidious effect. This is why the CO2/climate change phobia needs to be challenged.
July 11, 2024
Indeed Net Zero is total insanity. Cost Ā£ trillions, benefits zero in fact hugely negative benefits and vast damages to living standards, jobs, defence.
Labour & Sir Patrick Vallance, now Labourās Science Minister and Labour is fully behind this madness. They have also employed the totally deluded Chris Starke (from the Committee for Climate Change as the leader of Starmerās mad clean energy taskforce.
Nothing ādirtyā about CO2 plant, tree and crop food!
July 11, 2024
@Peter Wood & @LifeLogic
Yes Laws that our competing nations don’t have, Laws that reward the Worlds largest CO2 producers. Laws that us minions/surfs/slaves have to fund with ever higher taxes. Possibly Laws that no one really actually voted as they were pushed through to make a virtue signal to the minority, noisy minority of the fringes of society that are not work productive – the taxpayer funds their time in bed
July 11, 2024
+1
July 11, 2024
Stark was being lauded for his “expertise” on appointment. Given his reaction when the Royal Society showed that the CCC calculations about the interaction between renewables and storage were completely inadequate was to bloviate rather than acknowledge the error we know that his talent is in running cover-ups, and his expertise in energy is non existent. As Feynman noted Nature cannot be fooled.
July 11, 2024
+1 alas many of the people can be by endless BBC and Government, climate alarmist lies & propaganda.
July 11, 2024
+1
July 11, 2024
What did Chris Stark ex of the Committee for Climate Change read at university, it seems to be rather kept quiet. He does not sound remotely like a scientist to me, though he is often described as a climate and energy expert. Seems more of a propagandist & paid advocate who understands very little about climate or energy to me.
Ideal for Labourās then:-
Chris Stark to lead Mission Control to deliver clean power by 2030
Secretary of State Ed Miliband appoints Chris Stark to head new Mission Control tasked with turbocharging UK to clean power by 2030.
First thing for Ed Miliband and Chris Stark to learn is that CO2 is not ādirtyā indeed it is clean, odourless, a net good and the gas vital for all life!
July 11, 2024
I finally found it Chris Stark read Finance and Law at Glasgow! I assume he was unable to get a place for straight law but perhaps not. Surely not exactly the right man āto lead Mission Control to deliver clean power by 2030ā Ed. Try and find a Lord Ridley or Peter Lilley type but perhaps sensible people would refuse such an evil job.
July 11, 2024
Red Ed Milpede bans All new oil and gas drilling today! The destruction of our economy starts in earnest.
July 11, 2024
Yes LL, total insanity. All pushed by the communist Milliband and Labour, what amazes me is the full bank of fools who run with the fraud, almost six hundred and the few with brains are drowned out!
My opinion is that we need to form an underground organisation to retake our great country back from the commies.
July 11, 2024
We NEED to be bolder and braver for OUR Britain
July 11, 2024
Sanctioned by 99% of MPs
July 11, 2024
Sacrifices must be made on the altar of the new religion of Net Zero. All else is immaterial especially freedom, reality and the truth. Submit or run the risk of being damned a heretic and cast into hell or in modern parlance, ‘cancelled’. The god is climate change and execution of Net Zero requirements the Eucharist, the sacrament. It cannot be any simpler than that.
July 11, 2024
YES
July 11, 2024
aSeems so.
July 11, 2024
George Galloway phased it aptly, two cheeks of the same backside. The party you were so wedded to created the thinking and allowed the destruction of the steel industry. Labour are only too happy to let it happen. Has it begun to dawn on you that letters to ministers or questions in the house were totally inadequate. Little wonder the electorate despair of the politucal classes.
Reply I remember having many disagreements with the last government
July 11, 2024
The Not-a-Conservative-Party didn’t create the thinking. It followed Orders, just as Starmer is.
Look at the WEF’s website. It doesn’t bother hiding what is planned.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/11/4-breakthrough-actions-to-decarbonize-steelmaking/
We are in the First Members Coalition. “The First Movers Coalition works with existing initiatives to build on and complement ongoing efforts to supercharge the race to net zero.”
Google “WEF First Movers Coalition” and you will find out exactly what is being implemented and why. Germany is also in the First Members Coalition, which is why its heavy industry is also being destroyed.
July 11, 2024
Donna, WEF and its advocates can push and promote carbon free steel (an oxymoron if ever there was one) all they like. The metallurgical facts are what they are and the idea hydrogen reduction will be able at scale, to do anything other than destroy economic steel making is for the birds.
Idiology is fine right up to the point when reality smacks it in the face.
July 11, 2024
Rhetorical question.
How can you ‘decarbonise’ a material that relies on carbon ?
Are these people stupid, or what ?
July 11, 2024
WEF has never hidden its agenda.
Remember when folk called it a conspiracy theory?
What I donāt get is thoughā¦WHY? Why do as they say?
Yes OK there is this outfit trying to tell us what to do all the time.
But what leverage do they have?
July 12, 2024
They’re not trying to tell us what to do. They ARE telling us what to do. It’s authoritarian, top-down Governance – basically Fascism.
July 11, 2024
Agricola you need to remember that many of us are instinctive and unrepentant Conservatives. We are the most aggrieved by their betrayal on all fronts. We are in mourning for our politics which has not had a look in for 35 years.
It would be helpful if you dropped the Farage-style cheeky chappie insulting by-lines. They have never won a political argument but I have to admit they do produce a modern political career. Ie one of no substance whatsoever.
Now if you tell me Farage is Mr Brexit then I ask you why his party got 4 million votes – what happened to the other 14 million?
I have received a letter from Farage signed āthe Leader of Brexitā – missing out the word āpartyā is a typical political stunt to make a false claim. But that alone reveals the calibre of the man. You are all going to be seriously disappointed.
July 11, 2024
I am not surprised Sir John, you are one of the five ex MPās I would trust.
July 11, 2024
Sir John, the logic in play regarding manufacturing of steel is the same logic that says, it is beneficial to import oil and gas rather than extracting our own from our own fields in the North Sea and in vast shale deposits on land in the UK.
It is the same logic that say it is better to import electricity from France which is 80% produced by nuclear than it is to produce our own nuclear plants in the UK.
The lack of state support for domestic job opportunities while at the same time supporting those very jobs in our competitor nations is a disgrace.
Steel production and CO2 are inexorably linked. The need for steel in a modern society is absolutely essential as is the capacity for a major nation to have an independent capacity to produce the most widely used and important material used in a modern economy.
Closing down such essential national industries, is a huge threat to our defence capability. A sceptic might conclude that is the whole point of deindustrialisation that we have witnessed this past twenty years.
The question is why and who benefits?
July 11, 2024
In Britain, ‘Ta-ta’ is a casual way of saying goodbye.
Tata as the name of our steel producer signals it is going.
July 11, 2024
Rod
Agreed, and once it has gone it will be gone forever, as will the knowledge and skills to make it.
July 11, 2024
We don’t have any oil, it’s always sold to the prospectors so they can sell it wherever they get the best price.
July 11, 2024
P,
China and India. It moves wealth from west to east. That is the global plan. Reform is the only option we have to take back control. Andrea Jenkins made clear last night on TV the EU one nation Tories form 3/4 of the party- no change to pro EU Labour to defy the nation to leave the EU. Starmer is speeding up lock step to prevent divergence.
They are traitors to our nation. No other word for it.
July 11, 2024
Habib has just been removed from the deputy leader role in Reform. He is not very happy about it.
Allegedly
āThere were signs of earlier tensions shortly after Farageās return as leader when he flouted an agreement that Habib had been involved in brokering to provide support for candidates of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party in Northern Ireland.ā
Not sure what to make of it.
However, as TUV are one of the nuttier Unionist parties, it does make sense to give them a swerve.
July 11, 2024
BRICS countries, particularly China, India and Russia is the answer. Modi’s fawning visit to Putin illustrates that we carry no weight even having had a PM of Indian heritage who enabled immigration from India to reach 250,000 last year and have donated swathes of industry to India, with Port Talbot steel just the latest. Perhaps Sunak thought that Indians would be a counterweight to elements of immigration that are less inclined to integrate in the UK in the way that his parents did.
July 11, 2024
You think Sunakās parents integratedā? They were right not yo in my view and to inculcate their son with a knowledge and pride in his Indian heritage. After all, he had an Indian wife and Indian children in a country where most of the people he met were not India.
I writ in admiration.
July 11, 2024
Indeed what drives this insanity.
July 11, 2024
a key fact āwe cannot defend ourselves with
NO STEEL
July 11, 2024
Or no oil md gas, or now cheap reliable energy.
July 11, 2024
This is so.We don’t need to look at the damage it will do but rather find out who and why.Who wants control .
Who has been systematically downing GB since the 90’s.who hates us enough to allow the flooding of immigrants into the country and allowed them to take key positions… petrol stations , the NHS etc,The GPs in every town.
Who has taken over big industries ,big football clubs…..
Who uses and abuses UK staff and out- certificates the UK with supposedly higher education,then in reality cannot work at the high level they are certificated for.
July 11, 2024
“National security” is certainly a valid point regarding the Net Zero madness, but it’s not one which will inconvenience Labour much.
Just as in regard to ammunition and armaments which we need to replace because we have and are sending our stores to the Ukraine, nobody talks about how and what with we can replace those things, i.e. where all those fabulous electric arc furnaces are coming from. I’m not aware that we are building them here in the UK.
Moreover, this ‘new steel’ which we not even have yet has usage and safety restrictions. so will it be useful for building all those new wind turbines? Will it be useful for building all those hundreds and thousands of new homes? If not – are we using even more of taxpayers’ money to import proper steel while also giving tax money to ‘new, clean’ steel manufacturers?
But let’s not point the finger at Labour exclusively. i recall certain previous Tory PMs who were zealous in pushing this mad ideology of Net Zero.
July 11, 2024
Reply to reply
We are all too aware you did, however it was all contained within the cosy workings of Parliament. Nothing sufficiently radical, such as your now ex party leader or whatever his title, crossing the house. His constituents supported his decision. Now the shattered remains of your party are rats in a sack fighting over what they stand for and how they achieve it. They have two options, Reform or the Lib/Dems. Conservatism as demonstrated over the last 14 years has little appeal to the electorate. Who dares wins.
July 11, 2024
A,
Andrea Jenkins last night made clear 3/4 left are of the EU one party the others insignificant or will be ousted. Rees-Mogg stated they are not popular nor conservative. The chameleons have taken over what was the Tory party. They are gone, a dead parrot.
July 11, 2024
Indeed so. I was awaiting Sir John’s word for a 6, January U.S. style occupation of Parliament but he chose to continue operating within the law. A possible moment of history lost forever.
July 11, 2024
You are entirely wrong. You have lost touch with the U.K. or you have never understood the philosophy of Conservatism. Itās not the oldest political party on earth for nothing! It has been sustained by its philosophy. It was infiltrated and its philosophy suffocated. That is what the āfightā is about.
The Reform and Liberal Democrat Parties are the sort of shallow con-merchants that you throw a coin to on the streets. They are NOT players in the political arena.
You are impertinent and although you attack Sir John personally, you are attacking the best, most successful politics ever practised on earth and I resent it and you immensely.
Go and give Farage the benefit of your daily wisdom. Iām sure he will be delighted.
July 11, 2024
Not sure that is accurate. 9.7 million voted Labour. 6.7 million voted Conservative. They are the same party.
July 11, 2024
Why? Because that’s what their Overlords in the WEF have told them must happen.
What remains of the UK’s heavy manufacturing is to be outsourced to Asia. The UK is to be made reliant on foreign manufacturers and energy suppliers as well as food suppliers.
If you control the supply of energy, food and goods, you control the people.
And that’s the aim.
July 11, 2024
+1
July 11, 2024
Perhaps āTHEā main imperative should read āTHEIRā, as it is the errant governments who support idiocy, not those who think sensibly.
An alternative process needing less labour is a sign of efficiency. The Royal Mail needed less labour when they stopped delivering parcels nationally on horseback. However, if the saved labour switches from paying its tax into incurring benefits, that is both a loss and added expense on top.
We need our own steel for national security. That could be the greatest loss.
July 11, 2024
Maybe we should get Gareth Southgate to run the steel industry. He has a knack for the winning late substitution and despite all the criticism, England are in a Euro final thanks to Torquay born Ollie Watkins!!
July 11, 2024
SG,
Southgate is more like what Napoleon called a ālucky generalā. He has no āknackā.
Watkins and Konsa are Brentford rejects. The most successful England penalty taker, Ivan Toney, is still a Brentford player.
July 12, 2024
Oh I see. As our industry is destroyed; decent jobs are outsourced and our defence and security dismantled we’re supposed to focus on “bread and circuses.”
Some of us – more than they realise – aren’t.
July 11, 2024
Political lunacy but read Jeremy Warner in the DT. The Tory government/MPs have a PHD in it
July 11, 2024
John, you are right again.
Net Zero strategy defies logic and competent analysis.
It is entirely about virtue signalling and the moral high ground.
Energy has been the foundation of economic growth. Even today fossil fuels provide 80% of our total energy needs. Why offshore the production of this resource to Qatar, US and other producers increasing global CO2 when we have abundant supplies of our own?
July 11, 2024
Perhaps the net zero zealots in government and society should be forced to use cardboard cars, bikes fridges and ovens if making steel is deemed to carbon unfriendly.
Government will not support steel making as gas and electricity prices are so high production will require massive subsidies. Much easier to hide behind the faux carbon accounting rules.
How have these carbon accounting rules not become the subject of ridicule. Greta once raised it but carbon accounting is the new subject that dare not speak its name. Perhaps we need a month dedicated to celebrating how wrong the public perception of it is where we all dress up in fetish costumes to highlight carbon is acceptable.
July 11, 2024
The Steel Industry in the UK has been in decline for decades and for MANY different reasons including our inability to compete with China as an emerging economy. And one of those MANY different reasons is that we over-focused on services at the cost of high tech / sophisticated manufacturing (and not forgetting all the high quality services around this – most of IBM’s revenue, for example, doesn’t come from its mainframe servers and high quality tech in general but from the services around them and IBM tech in general. But you need to offer the high quality tech first before you can charge for the sophisticated and high-revenue services behind them).
July 11, 2024
Sir JR. The answer to the questions you pose, is simple. …..Woke driven virtue signalling…..
July 11, 2024
At least it is Starmer and Milliband who’ll have to answer for the massive job losses and union displeasure in Wales and Scotland when they close down the steel and oil industries based on their net zero fantasy. It is also good that their “pledge” to decarbonise the grid has a date of 2030 attached to it which is basically within a single parliamentary term – this will make their abject failure to get anywhere near this literally impossible target all the more apparent to voters next time.
In reality to even make an attempt at moving towards the target by 2050 they they should be ordering multiple small/large nuclear plants this week but I suspect Miliband is secretly anti-nuclear too and will blather on about windmills for a few years first.
July 11, 2024
And so my point here supports why we need to focus far more on high tech and entrepreneurs in this including turning the UK into the world’s second Silicon Valley (IF Cambridge, and then Oxford, is a viable option here whilst also to a degree focusing on the high tech industry and sophisticated manufacturing in the North of England focusing first on the Manchester-Sheffield-Leeds area, as well as looking at how, one day, we could compete to a degree with the Germans in creating the Audis and Golf’s and BMWs of the future – but first focus on the high tech industry in general and how to help its entrepreneurs).
July 11, 2024
Quite frankly, I think that the Climate Emergency delusion with the Net Zero madness has turned the entire political class bonkers with a complete inability to rationalise their policies on energy, driving industry overseas, increasing the balance of payments and reducing employment.
July 11, 2024
Even Kemi Badenoch, the great Tory leadership hope of some people, supported the installation of job destroying arc furnaces at Port Talbot.
Neil Kinnock has ended up being right in accusing the Tories of wanting a warehouse economy. Heās popping up a lot now so someone should tell him how apt his observation now is for his own Party.
Evidence based policy is now completely dead. What is reality? Well, for Establishment reality just read The GuardianāsāThe Climate Crisisā section every day. Thatās the ultimate reflection of lazy attribution and value laden computer modelling to justify Net Zero.
July 11, 2024
Sir John
There is not much to say, shut down production, import the products at greater cost. How does that help the economy? It is nothing more than the backdoor exporting of the UKās wealth, its economy, its tax base.
It does nothing to CO2 other than increase it World Wide. So, with the increasing World-Wide CO2 production does that mean the UK has to cut back more? After all it is the UK Government that is forcing these increases on the World.
To rub salt in to the festering wound of the UK economy the Government has create and maintains Laws that none of the UKās competing Nations abide by, Laws that donāt affect all those Countries that we are forced o import from.
While all at the same time having to increase UKās Tax base, to fund the tax loss. More rubbing the salt into the wound the UK Government is then using taxpayer money to shut down steel production to compensate its removal with hundreds of millions of OUR not their money. Along with putting 100’s of workers union workers maliciously out of work
July 11, 2024
Sir John
The weaselly words used of changing to a recycling of steel production just doesnāt cut it. Recycled steel has very little use and is available at far less cost than the UK will ever be able to produce it.
Are they going to force the taxpayer to subsidies this type of steel forever, not forgetting these are not UK Companies that are getting UK taxpayer money but foreign Companies paying taxes elsewhere. All wealth removed from the UK is taxed elsewhere, all tax lost has to be paid by someone else.
The Tax domain of these Companies are the Worldās greatest polluters of CO2 ā so the UK government is rewarding them with our money, they (the Government) are Contradicting themselves and making us poorer.
The UK Government conveniently forgets that quality steel from other parts even recycled steel is produced by the use of cheap coal. Cheap production from the Worldās greatest polluters.
The UK Government mad Laws to Punish the UK and its people, they can achieve nothing else other than dish out punish ā the rest of the World is not dancing to their tune!
Its not a UK Government it is a WEF Government, a Uni-Party Government
July 11, 2024
Did someone secretly sign a remunerative agreement to basically hand over all manufacturing to another country? Remunerative for several people maybe?
I canāt think of any other reason for doing this.
The madness makes me feel literally quite ill.
July 11, 2024
All sanctioned by both houses of parliament under the policy of net-zero, as directed by the climate change committee ā¦..and Iāve seen no change in direction from any party apart from reform
July 11, 2024
This is indeed madness. Steel making capacity is one of those strategic things that every country should have; like growing your own food and having a reliable source of electricity generation and other supplies of energy. The idiotic dash for net zero not only impoverishes us, it puts us at the mercy of the rest of the world upon which we will be reliant for essential supplies.
July 11, 2024
Thanks Sir John, deeply depressing flawed uni-party philosophy on steel production completely ignoring the dreadful impact on jobs and local communities. Hereās the insanity of Net Zero for all to see. And many in whatās left of the Conservative Party still do not understand why more than four million people voted Reform?
July 11, 2024
As you will be aware, I’m in total agreement with you’re comment!
But, if I could draw you’re attention to an issue;
“insufficient alternative work” ? None at all!
There are People still suffering from the deindustrialisation of the 80’s!
We did need to do it, but the Alternative work, in Wales, does not exist!
The Self Employed does not get any support, with Labour (Mostly) Councils work actively against these People, and their self determination! As does Devolution, with 25 years of Welsh Labour!
Individual Wealth Generation is so poor, with little or no, support!
The Wales Business Bank requires large deposits, matched funding, and with very little funds available!
Not, that many People can save, with the cost to live, being so high!
What the Welsh Labour fanatics are doing is destroying the last source of High Valued jobs, in S Wales!
They say there are Green Jobs! There aren’t any! Just lies!
And, I believe you will find that Unite and Community Unions are being forced (Labour Fanatics) to accept the need to change, when they know the truth about the extra C02 being produced overseas, the dirty cheap steel being imported, and the loss of high value jobs and investment, unnecessarily! In the longer term, company’s will realise they can’t get a supply of Virgin/Primary, good quality, Steel from the UK, and they will need to import it. They will move their investments nearer to the source! Germany, France, USA? Britain will no longer be a Manufacturing base!
BR
RDM.
July 12, 2024
German manufacturing industry is also being destroyed. They too are signed up to the WEF’s First Movers Group and a commitment to de-industrialise and promote Net Zero . Google it.
July 11, 2024
Why?
Because both the Communists and the WEF Feudalists wish to destroy our prosperity, security and democracy through de-industrialisation and ensuring dependence on other nations for our food, energy and goods.
There is no need to impoverish ourselves to zero our 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions because catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) caused by burning hydrocarbon fuels is a hoax to provide a reason for the suicidal Net Zero Strategy. P95 of the IPCC WG1 (āThe Scienceā) states doubling CO2 causes a mere 1.2 degrees C of warming (physics professors Happer & Wijngaarden calculate 0.7 degrees C). This is because there is already sufficient atmospheric CO2 to absorb all the available IR radiation as described by its IR bands and the earthās IR Planck distribution curve, a phenomenon known as IR saturation, so additional CO2 adds miniscule amounts of additional greenhouse warming. Furthermore, Table 12 in Chapter 12 shows no signals for climate change other than some warming leading to some loss of ice and snow. We have been much warmer in the past with no disastrous consequences for the planet. In Greenland DNA has been found of mastodons (mammoths) from 2 million years ago showing temperatures were 10 degrees or more higher than today and in the warm period of the Middle Ages Icelandic Norsemen colonised Greenland for several hundred years prior to the coming of the Little Ice Age requiring temperatures 5 degrees higher than today. There is no CO2, let alone anthropogenic CO2, explanation for these, and many other, historical facts such as retreating glaciers exposing 7000 year old tree stumps.
July 11, 2024
Hi sir John
Steel train lines made in this country last longer because of the quality of our steel
The imported ones warp which means they will have to be replaced more often
causing more disruption on train services
British industry has always been years behind when I worked in the car industry in the 80s we were using machines from the war time while other countries had modern machines CNC and robots
There always been a massive lack of investment in Britain
poor management and governments with no future planning
Just look at HS2
The company I work for for over 30 years has now gone to poland
we are now having to import the parts from Poland
Leaving a empty factory and people out of a job maybe labour will knock it down and build houses on it
July 11, 2024
Doesn’t that sum up everything to do with netzero!
The only rational answer as to why they are destroying our manufacturing capacity, with steel as a prime example, is that it fits in with the overall plan of removing our industrial base.
If we don’t make steel supplies from abroad will be more expensive in every possible way, but then when the netzero requirement to halt imports and exports by stopping ships operating, that will mean we will no longer be able to supply any surviving factories, and everything will go into a complete decline.
Perhaps we should discuss, here, in detail exactly what the HMG netzero requires to happen – some people simply do not understand how conclusive it is.
July 11, 2024
There are a great deal of official UK documents that plot the netzero route, including this one:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6194dfa4d3bf7f0555071b1b/net-zero-strategy-beis.pdf
But the one that defines it in more detail and tells us exactly what we will be losing is:
file:///D:/%23MYDATA/Politics/CC%20Absolute-Zero-online.pdf
But if the supply of steel and raw materials is lost how will we even build anything?
July 11, 2024
Darn – I messed up that link – The PDF is entitled Absolute Zero
from UK FIRES – please see: https://ukfires.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Absolute-Zero-online.pdf
July 11, 2024
Where’s a Union when you want one?
July 11, 2024
Welcome to the wonderful world of net zero.
Buckle up, it’s going to get much much worse.
We are governed by loons.
July 11, 2024
I am less than clear about the national security aspects to which some refer.
In the event of a shooting war, any steel plant could be obliterated in short order by an enemy with commonly-enough held sophisticated weaponry. In any event we are reliant upon imports of iron ore, transportation of which during war could also be hazarded.
The threat of coercion through diplomacy remains but how would that work and would it not extend well beyond and likely perhaps bypass steel? If there is a competitive market for raw steel and products made from steel in must be doubted any producer’s government would resort to using withholding supply as a diplomatic lever. Supplies of food and energy would be use before steel surely?
July 11, 2024
As a separate matter, I do acknowledge there is the issue of what activities we undertake in this country to generate wealth. Buying and selling homes amongst ourselves at every increasingly prices and thinking we are rich is of course a sad illusion but is sustains a feeling od well-being except amongst Gen-Z who do not participate.
July 11, 2024
An insightful interview on GBNews USA, with Suella Braverman and Steven Edginton, one of my favourite interviewers. The revelations about Sunak and the former cabinet are shocking. The Conservative government was never working on behalf of the British people and had no intention of stopping the boats or reducing immigration. The party deserved to be destroyed and hopefully will be replaced with Reform in the near future.
July 11, 2024
The Tories (and Reform not must better – and the other parties even worse) just reflect how dysfunctional our country and Western World has become in general. We need to return to traditional Conservative values (by working more with people in the churches, media, arts and education to promote such values). Values such as:
1) Love of family (including relying on family instead of state)
2) Love of community (including just being more friendly towards neighbours)
3) Love of country (patriotism)
4) Love of work ethic (including love of entrepreneurship)
5) Love of taking personal responsibility for oneself (developing ourselves in lots of different areas of life)
If not, there’s going to be chaos within a few years.
July 11, 2024
Todayās announcements from Labour in the Media
āJarvis: Strength of UK economy āfundamentalā to size of defence budget. The strength of the economy is āfundamentalā to the process of increasing defence spending but the UKās commitment to Nato is āunshakeableā, the security minister has said.
Errrrā¦.. isnāt that what is meant by having something as a percentage spend based on GDP?
How about the State itself having a budget that is based on a percentage of GDP? To many double standards coming from the Uni-Parties continued rule. Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak and now Starmer all cut from the same cloth and should not be in charge of anything
July 11, 2024
This is all driven by the completely false understanding of what CO2 is or does, or more importantly cannot do. Until that error is recognised commonsense will take a back seat. It was the same with Conservatives so there is little hope with this new administration.
July 11, 2024
Octopus Energy wants the Chinese to power the UK’s electricity grid in a new deal they have constructed. We get to import from the polluting Chinese (that don’t have our NetZero laws), from their coal fired steel works, coal fired production facilities then dragging their products halfway around the World causing more CO2 emissions.
Next expect the UK Government to use our money to support the Chinese in their efforts to remove our wealth from the Country.
This is not a direct criticism of the Chinese, they do it because they can, it is criticism of our Government for having punitive malicious Laws for no other purpose that to stop the UK moving forward, becoming resilient, safe and secure – something all governments have promised to do.
July 11, 2024
‘Why don’t they see you need to be able to make your own steel for national security?’
Adam Smith wrote ā…defence is of much more important than opulenceā when stressing the importance of Government spending on a standing army.āAnd despite his normal stance against tariffs, Smith was in favour of tariffs against foreign ship builders so the nation’s own ship building would stay strong.āSmith saw the risks of depending on other countries for producing the means of defence.āIt’s called āThe Wealth of Nationsā for a reason.
Recently, France seized this country’s vaccines; tomorrow it could be air-defence missiles when they’re in short supply.āSmith’s opulence is today’s pointless COā targets; an ostentatious display of Green credentials.
(I picked the Adam Smith quote up from Prof. Tyler Cowen’s free-download book discussing the greatest economist of all time.āIt’s an okay book, but useful to me because it has a chapter on Friedman, Hayek, Malthus, … so I quickly learn about each from the same author with comparisons. https://econgoat.ai )
July 11, 2024
More wasted soundbites, nowadays from Starmer, formally from Sunak, but the same spin from the Uni_Party. āKeir Starmer approves use of British Storm Shadow missiles inside Russiaā
This is a partnered manufacture of a product emanating from France and Italy. Was it for Starmer to approve it on their behalf? That would be silly, he is another hypocrite. Britainās Defence Industry has for the most part been sold off. Another reason Defence spending is dire, it means buying Foreign with UK taxpayer money – the money doesn’t get to go around creating a UK economy.
The steel, the metals needed and used in all our defence capabilities now have to be imported. Warship structures have to be imported from Poland and Spain, tank barrels from Germany. All because the UK imposes malicious Laws of UK production that these supplier countries do not have to abide by.
Our(the UK’s) defence is controlled by others, our media distorts the truth, recently the sale to others of the so-called Eurofighter, the Typhoon, was blocked by Germany, that was downplayed as it was an embarrassment because it recognized we had hocked our defence capability.
July 11, 2024
Steel, quality steel is fundamental to the defence, security and resilience of the UK. It is bad enough that what little UK Production we have had was forced into foreign ownership, but now the people of the UK have to lose their jobs and the taxpayer is forced into paying these foreign companies to shut it down. It is whole communities wrecked on nothing other than ‘personal’ political vanity.
Never forget these same companies that the taxpayer is now giving its hard-earned money to, to shut down will be removing that money and paying taxes on it in another domain. These are the same companies that are not constrained by punitive UK Laws elsewhere, they are also the same companies that will be supplying the same steel the UK government and its Laws have blocked from being produced in the UK. We still need this steel there is no alternative
Our legislative body has created UK Laws designed to punish the people of the UK and increase World CO2 exponentially. So you have to ask were did we find these numpties, why were we forced to vote for such country wrecking people. Our whole legislative body, the HoC has brought itself into disrepute. Then again the greater majority never voted for any of them they were disenfranchised by the Uni_Party.
July 11, 2024
I hope your last three questions in today’s post are rhetorical ones, SJR. We should know the answer perfectly well by now, after all: because the key decisions affecting Britain are not taken by people that anybody in this country voted for. For the International elite decision-makers, it doesn’t matter if we don’t produce our own steel, grow our own food, or pump our own oil. We can just buy it all from foreigners. While the City of London arranges the finance. That’s the idea behind globalism, I thought.
July 12, 2024
+1
The Globalists are rapidly advancing their Agenda. Brexit and the (first) election of Trump seriously rattled them. The scamdemic was part of their process, as is the ramping up of mass immigration which is now having the same effect in Germany as it has had in Sweden, France and the UK.
July 11, 2024
Until the madness of human-caused Global Warming/Climate Change and Net Zero is properly challenged, we as a nation will go nowhere. It is not difficult; several books are now available that show what nonsense it is.
Why do our MPs not read them and start using their brains? Water vapour and oxygen make up 91% of our atmosphere, and harmless CO2 is just 0.4%.
The Conservatives and SNP were both given a severe lesson in the GE last week. Are they prepared to learn it, do some hard thinking about their own failures and start doing what their voters want?
Labour is going to find it hard because they have no clue how to run a modern economy, and that will become evident. Then the voters will give them a severe lesson as well.
July 11, 2024
Your party had fourteen years to repeal the Climate Change Act but failed and thereby followed the flawed logic of CO2 created elsewhere not being counted.
To pretend that making steel from scrap is equivalent to making it from the base material, pig iron together with scrap, in which its constituents can be controlled to form the different types of steel needed in a process which is partly exothermic as the oxygen introduced oxidises impurities in the primary phase, is simply untrue.
How can an industrial process dependent on a consistent supply of large amounts of cheap electricity with one hundred percent dependency on whether the wind blows be viable?
For fourteen years the Tory party purported to believe this nonsense and now we have the Labour party which introduced the Climate Change Act in power again thanks to the FPTP electoral system which consistently yields governments with objectives that only a vociferous minority want.
July 11, 2024
Managed decline. Pure and simple.
Those who’ve just picked up the baton are more incompetent than the last lot, but what they lack in competence they certainly make up for in enthusiasm. A set of people full of hatred for this nation and its people, and too dim to realise that when it’s gone, it’s gone.
Did those steel workers vote for Labour? If they did, then the bed is made so lie down and no whining.
July 11, 2024
‘The main imperative is to cut U.K. CO 2 output. ‘ – ignoring World higher CO 2 as a result of importing…..idiotic.
‘Recycled steel can be used as a replacement for some uses’ – yes but only SOME and no critical uses!
‘people lose their jobs with large redundancy costs. It may lead to a bigger benefits bill ‘ – Labour used to be alarmed, knowing Unions would used havoc.
‘make your own steel for national security’ – Recent Governments have pretended to seek security, when everything they have done weakened our strength and position.
July 11, 2024
Surely the real reason that Port Talbot is switching to arc furnaces is because arc furnaces will only produce steel from scrap which is less energy intensive than producing steel from iron ore and does not involve coal/ anthracite. The costs t of power/ electricity is uncompetitive in the UK.
July 11, 2024
The political class are hell bent on destroying this country
July 11, 2024
Here we go – “Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on drilling in new North Sea oil fields in a decision that overrules Energy Department officials and risks triggering a wave of legal action.”
For what reason? personal ego and self-gratification? Labour as with the Tories want the UK back in the dark ages by seeking its destruction. Even if there was a good reason and no one has yet come forward with one, any sane human would first have in place a viable alternative. Sending UK wealth overseas in not a viable alternative to buying in the same as its replacements, it is one individual trying to do catastrophic damage to the UK economy.
July 11, 2024
In their own words: climate alarmists debunk their own science
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/05/in-their-own-words-climate-alarmists-debunk-their-science/
July 11, 2024
We give them business,but they are not desperate and can use the continuing supply of steel against us at any stage.
July 11, 2024
Have you seen these fabulous low cost, steel framed houses which can be erected/ built in no time.?
July 12, 2024
My son recently started the house-buying process. Turned out it was a steel-framed house built in the ’60s, which wasn’t immediately obvious to someone not trained in the construction industry. The “old-school” surveyor told him not to touch it with a barge pole, so he didn’t. Caveat emptor.
July 11, 2024
The problem is there appear to be very few juicy, creative entrepreneurial thinkers in the Tory Party at moment.
It’s all right-wing or left-wing Tory ideological stuff or left-wing or right-wing Tories reacting to what’s in the news and trying to appear on cue. Stuff like that.
We need to start getting serious about really developing our High Tech Industry (1. Helping to create the world’s second Silicon Valley in Cambridge / Oxford area perhaps 2. Developing Leeds-Manchester-Sheffield area here 3. Helping to build up a car industry to try and rival Germany’s Audis / BMW / Golfs). Something like that (not forgetting that some of the best and most lucrative and interesting Services are based on the High Tech brands they support).
Whilst doing something drastic (in a positive way) to take millions out of psychological depression / trauma that is making them unproductive and so why we have to important so many workers into this country.
Do this well and immigration and taxes TUMBLE. But this requires deep thought / planning and hard work. Not THOUGHTLESS ideology and THOUGHTLESS slogans.
July 11, 2024
I don’t think your analysis of this issue is up to your usually high standard.
It is not HMG that has decided to stop steel manufacture from ore in the UK; it is TATA.
Tata has existing plant. If it can run them at a profit it will continue to do so. But it can’t, because of the vast cost of energy in UK
If HMG (whichever party) wants to keep blast furnaces it must offer affordable energy. IF Labour is willing to do so it may not be too late.
But if, as I believe, they are not, stop wasting time on it.
As a post-industrial state we produce more steel scrap than we consume new steel. We can make all the steel we need from recycling. We will STILL be exporting used steel. There are some grades that can’t be made from recycling but the technology is advancing.
July 12, 2024
What I want to know is why is John Redwood not leading the re vamp of the Conservative Party.
They will not get back disillusioned voters unless someone like him is called on to Lead.
July 12, 2024
THIS IS IN THE WRONG PLACE