Redcar Steel plant

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KarlMac said:

And at the other end of the scale we have the '30 years service, man and boy, can't teach me nowt' union member gobste that would rather a company go out of business that work with 'management' to change or improve, because he pays his subs every month.

Britains industry is in the pan due to its ingrained lack of a willingness to change, commodity manufacturing is rife with complacency and 'it was better in my day attitude'. All the while other economies have been giving the customer what they want and winning the business.

Its everyones fault. The government, management, unions, workers, the general public. The lot of them. But no, lets play the Unions favourite blame game.

to a point, you are right, you only have to look at the stupidity of Unite at Grangemouth to see just how dumb they can be.

Now, with steel it's pretty clear what the issues are:

1) cheap Chinese steel being dumped
2) stupidly high energy costs in the UK, double the costs of France and 5-6x the cost of China.
3) paying stupidly high business rates (TAX)

we can't do much about the first (although I can't see why we cannot slap import tariffs on them?), but we can deal with the second and third TODAY, not go begging to the EU with our begging bowl out...



will the government do anything? no, just the usual platitudes and shuffling around.

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hornetrider said:

FiF said:

1000 more to go tomorrow in Port Talbot.

This will devastate the local community

so much for Carwyn Jones assertions (during his debate with Farage)

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Esseesse said:

I agree that there is a strategic significance but don't think we can do anything about it while in the EU. I'd like to be proved wrong.

which beggs the question why we cannot just give them UBR tax reductions NOW along with carbon tax exception, etc etc and argue the toss with the EU later?

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jmorgan said:

Blast furnaces are a tad difficult to mothball and re start.

this ^^^^

same deal with Redcar, it's gone, period.

the costs of re-starting this stuff makes it impossible.

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crankedup said:

Another idea bites the dust Government need to keep the plant alive, at least until the E.U. question has been answered. Use some of the money we give away to Foreign aid, think about the U.K. first.

it's not about actually needing aid money, it's about stopping taxing the st out of it.

as a side point, why are the EU not invoking anti-dumping taxes on Chinese steel?

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TEKNOPUG said:

crankedup said:

Scuffers said:

as a side point, why are the EU not invoking anti-dumping taxes on Chinese steel?

Likely because China have had so much economic power the E.U. have been nervous about an intervention. Agree about the taxation, said today that if the business tax was stopped today it would still not help the plant.

Took the US 45 days to do it. Hence why the Chinese our now dumping all their steel in Europe. EU expect to take up to a year to organise tariffs. Chinese steel currently being produced at $35 loss per tonne....

and that's the point, the EU are totally f**king useless.

if several months ago we had actually done something, we would not be here now crying about it, this has not just suddenly happened.

Our politicians are quite simply useless idiots who seem only to be able to come up with pointless soundbites.

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markcoznottz said:

Quite often we blame the EU but it's our goons that want things how they are. Same with the floods, the EU directive DOES allow dredging if homes are at risk, but it's not discussed on the BBC.

it appears to be worse than that...

David Cameron accused of 'betrayal' after blocking action to help UK steel industry

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron...

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FiF said:

Seen the work of a Chinese construction company in Sweden. Scaffolding made from bamboo poles. I kid you not. When picked up on this and a zillion other transgressions by HSE equivalent the response was "F*** you" and the company walked off the job leaving the site a total eyesore for ages.

and CMD wants them involved in building nuclear stations?