The Infant Hercules by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Oi! Vera, Yes, you, Vera Baird! You listening? I know you still read this blog, I can see you logging in. You find time to comment on here to defend one of your chums, Lord Ahmed – how about finding time to defend your constituents? This piece is written by one of them, someone on whom you used to be able to rely on for a vote. Anything you want to say to him? Regards, Anna
This Infant Hercules……..
Middlesbrough was once famously described by Prime Minister William Gladstone this way, many years ago.
I wish I had the ability to write about this, it is enough to make me weep. This area has been the most tribal, dyed in the wool Labour voting area since the year dot. It has been held up to ridicule in the media for quite some time now, voted the worst place in England to live. If ever the Labour Party should stand up for some of its staunchest supporters, then this is the opportunity. Or will they lift their collective snouts out of the trough long enough to sniff the air and see there is nothing in it for them, and just carry on as normal.
“This is a dark day for British manufacturing,” said Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of the Unite union.
“Unite will do everything possible to prevent this closure from going ahead. The government must now act to save Teesside as decisively as it acted to save the banks last year.”
“The steel industry overall has suffered an unprecedented fall in demand in the global recession,” Lord Mandelson said.
“The government worked hard with all parties following the cancellation of the main supply contract in May to continue the agreement but a commercial solution could not be found.”
Kirby Adams – the Europe chief of Tata Steel, which owns Corus – confirmed the plant’s closure to staff on Friday.
He said that Corus had funded the business since May, and at one point, it looked very likely that the plant would close in August.
“Corus is not in a position where it can bankroll a loss-making business such as Teesside,” Mr Adams said in a press conference. “We are acutely aware that this will be devastating news for our employees, our contractors, their families,” he said.
“All four members of the consortium should look at this and hang their heads in shame.”
“This is a gut-wrenching disappointment after all the effort and the hopes won by the sheer doggedness of our workers,” said Redcar MP Vera Baird.
“I’m furious that, after our workers won months of export orders, Corus has not been able either to get a longer term contract or to clinch a deal for the sale of the plant.”
To paraphrase a famous piece of Norwegian football commentary; Stuart Bell, Vera Baird, Lord Mandelson.
Your boys have taken one hell of a beating!
Is there any chance of a government bail out then, Vera?
{ 16 comments }
My heart sank tonight as I heard on PM (Radio 4) of the closure of Corus. The thuggish heel of the competitive market could be heard in the background finally stamping a hole in the Head of the remaining industry at the Mouth of the Tees. Foot and Mouth
MkII you might say. And all the government can do is shake its complicit head with faux sorrow and blame China and Asia for producing what Corus produces, only more cheaply.
They make something known as ‘slab steel’ at Corus and it seems the market for UK-produced slab steel has run out since, surprise surprise, slab steel is used mainly for ‘flat goods’ such as cars (nope, we don’t make ‘em), ciruit boards (nope, we don’t make those either) and we haven’t made ships here either since that industry was allowed to trickle down the drain, and apparently slab steel can be made more cheaply in China, so why was I surprised?
Here’s the thing – I wasn’t surprised, not surprised at all. Fed up to the back teeth, but not surprised. The radio team only had to allude to China and Asia to explain that flat steel could be made more cheaply there and sage financial heads must have nodded all over the land. Natch.
Well hoo-bluddy-rah once again for our Labour Government. And yes, Vera Baird, you might think to take your lovely legal wig off for a brief moment, shake out your tresses in a bit of Redcar coastal air and wonder whether you’ve been defending the right people over the last year.
I declare my personal interest here and I am proud to say that I was born in a beautiful village on the banks of the Tees less than half an hour’s drive from Middlesbrough. To my mind there’s no better seaside walk along the sands than the one from Redcar to Marske (and back again before Pacitto’s runs out of Lemon Topping). You’ll know what I mean, Vera, if you really know Redcar at all.
The silly feminazi bitch is probably glad because ,after all most of the workers were white men and now they are unemployed they are more likely to be compliant state slaves.It would be an opportunity in her view, for them to give up their traditional role of breadwinner and get in touch with their feminine sides or some such other left wing bollox.
Ms Baird complained that Corus could have put more money into the plant to support it until orders picked up.
Perhaps Lord Ahmed could help: after all, he couldn’t spend any time in prison because it would interfere with his vital charity work, wouldn’t it? So maybe Vera will twist his Lordly arm towards raising a substantial sum towards a Corus Christmas. Just a thought.
The pattern of this Labour Government has been to exacerbate inequality.
When British workers needed to be competitive on price what did Labour do? Introduce the minimum wage. Load up taxation on everyone. Burden business with red tape. Pretty much everywhere you look they increased the cost of living or did nothing to offset such increases. Food keeps getting cheaper. Clothes keep getting cheaper. To counter this taxes go up, fuel duty goes up, portions are dictated to be smaller, etc etc. Strip out inflation from the last 10 years of ‘growth’ and have we even stood still?
Maybe inflation was the plan. Inflation is what gets reckless borrowers out of debt quicker. Deflation brings a drop in prestige in the league table of economies. I think that lead to a paranoid avoidance of contraction. Chancellor Brown bravely lead from the front – he started borrowing billions more than he was taking from us in 2002 or thereabouts and hasn’t stopped.
If Teesside closes and if the government don’t act to bail it out, it should put the final nail in the coffin of the idea that the Labour party works for the working class.
Most of us have concluded that Labour have been in bed with the financial markets before they came to power, but rank-and-file Labour voters, especially in the North have taken a good long while to realise.
The loss of the 10p tax rate was the final straw for most, but the preferential treatment of the banks compared to the lack of support for working-class industries such as car making and steel show where the alliegances of the Labour Party executive really lie.
The state should not interfere in business. Steel is only able to be manufactured in advanced economies where that steel is of high value added, and for specialist uses. The market should prevail.
The banks are in essence the same issue. They should not have been bailed out. The depositors – not shareholders I stress – should have had their deposits guaranteed, but a business that cannot compete should go to the wall, and if that is a giant bank, so be it. The viable bits would have been snapped up.
In Japan, I read recently, they have a steel firm which makes reactor vessels. They built on the long history of fine sword manufacture, and are apparently one of the few firms in the world who can make those vessels. They also dominate in a number of speciality areas of engineering and electronics. That is what we should be doing here. We are the best in some areas, thats what we need to be. Our wages are many times those in third world countries. Trade is liberalised, we cannot help basket cases.
High value added, high skill, hard for cheap producers to copy.
The burden on the productive sector of the economy placed by taxes used to shore up dead businesses makes all industry uncompetitive. Cry no tears for Redcar, but punish your government for RBS bonus payments.
Socialism does not work. Let the market determine which businesses survive.
this just further proves what I was saying the other day. There is no manufacturing worth note in this country anymore. The corrupt politicians see it in their interests to bail out their friends the banks. But nothing else. The population of Britain is going to the dogs courtesy of New Labour (Stasi Version) plc and we, the population are paying for it!! Bastards!
Also, since when has Gordon Brown – economist extraordinaire – been a scientist too?? Flat earth deniers – who the fuck does he think he is???
Corus has not actually asked for a governemnt bail out. It has been trying to get new orders in to replace those lost by the consortium reneging on the 10 year contract they had agreed. It managed that successfully for most of this year but will run out as the year closes.
Vera Baird has been involved since the very day the consortium walked away, first trying to get them back to the plant and then trying to support Corus to find alternatives. As soon as the announcement about mothballing was made on Friday she went to Corus and offered a Pro Act scheme (i.e. the workers go onto short time working and the government pays a wage and training subsidy). Corus declined her offer.
Why don’t you have a go at someone who deserves it? What use is criticising someone who’s trying to help?
Ah Anon! Always first out of the trap at the mere mention of Ms Baird’s name!
Such an unusual name, and so many connections to Ms Baird. Fascinating. Almost, but not quite, as fascinating as the number of times Ms Baird’s IP address appears in my logs.
As is the idea that expecting her to answer to one of her potential voters as opposed to coming here to stand up for her friends is in any way ‘having a go at her’.
I guess we wil see you again next time Ms Baird’s name is mentioned.
Why are people choosing to attack the MP right now? She won’t want her constituents to suffer and will be fighting as hard as she can; being distracted by these attacks launched against her on Teesside will surely only make it harder for her to work with the government and/or Corus to find a better solution.
Quite right, Joe: we should far rather shut up and know our place while our betters get on with the job!
If she didn’t read the blog she wouldn’t be aware of our mild rebukes, would she? Perhaps she gets someone else to read the comments for her (she does get someone else to pick up her dog-pooh, after all).
Of course you can criticse, I am just simply suggesting that it isn’t necessarily productive to attack someone with the same goal (to save our steel).
I think you’ll find that Ms Baird’s only goal is to keep swilling at the public trough for as long as possible.
“You know what,” he says. “We’d be better off with our own Teesside political party. Get five or six good guys, and stand against the government. The people of Teesside would back that.”
Steve Gibson, Chairman, Middlesbrough FC.
I think you may have something there Steve.