In response to Patrick Benham-Crosswell: Blame lack of state help, not capitalism, for British Steel’s troubles,
Barry Sheridan wrote:
An excellent article, one of the best I have read here. While reluctant to consider bailing out industry with taxpayers money, Britain has dreadful history in this regard, there is a solid case for finding a way of preventing the closure. That of course requires interest and vision from the government; as the author notes, this is in short supply these days. As with the aluminium industry, energy costs are a significant factor in steel production these days as scrap is reused by melting in an electric furnace. If this is the case here perhaps a way can be identified to reduce this overhead, which has increased thanks to Britain’s government obsessing about climate change.
