Home > Off Topic > Tata Steel Port Talbot steelwork given £500m by UK governm' |
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LR Nuts Member Since: 10 Aug 2022 Location: UK Posts: 1105 |
Tata Steel Port Talbot steelworks given £500m by UK government
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66819458 Wake up and smell the PG Tips !! |
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15th Sep 2023 10:40am |
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Rashers Member Since: 21 Jun 2015 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3497 |
The way these large businesses play Governments is nothing much less than blackmail.
UK treasury has given Millions to the UK steel industry, and most of it is now shut with Government loans written off. I get the Government is between a rock and a hard place, and Unions would crucify them for not stepping in, but it does make you wonder whether these loans do create / maintain jobs or whether the money would be better given to smaller businesses? |
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15th Sep 2023 7:22pm |
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west4x4 Member Since: 23 Jan 2010 Location: Rutland Posts: 140 |
The issue is always it’s harder to provide new jobs than it is to keep existing ones. If they shut the plant the effects and cost would be huge to the area and affect many other businesses in the area. You only need to see coal mining villages still affected by closures decades later or the loss of manufacturing in places in Yorkshire or Lancashire. It’s also a loan to improve the steelworks to allow it to continue and be greener it’s not just cash thrown at them to keep the place going it’s helping them make improvements
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13th Oct 2023 7:46pm |
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Procta Member Since: 03 Dec 2016 Location: Sunderland Posts: 5163 |
Sunderland really got hit with closures of the mines and shipyards, If it wasn't for nissan coming into sunderland, Sunderland would be smashed to pieces a long with the surrounding areas.
Nothing wrong with bringing jobs back to the uk, We can stand on our own two feet, we did it before and we can do it again. Defender TD5 90 ---/--- Peugeot 306 HDI hatch back Success is 90% Inspiration and 4 minutes Preparation # you can make it! |
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15th Oct 2023 1:07am |
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Procta Member Since: 03 Dec 2016 Location: Sunderland Posts: 5163 |
Thanks pal The UK has been stripped of a lot of things, its about time stuff come back here. Uk will have Pride again. Defender TD5 90 ---/--- Peugeot 306 HDI hatch back Success is 90% Inspiration and 4 minutes Preparation # you can make it! |
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15th Oct 2023 1:09am |
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macfrank Member Since: 05 Nov 2015 Location: somewhere in the north Posts: 1073 |
German news just reported about plans to reactivate Cornish mines to dig for tin and lithium.
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15th Oct 2023 8:25am |
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Rashers Member Since: 21 Jun 2015 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3497 |
I agree with support for industry, but, at what point are these (normally) large companies just taking the pi$$? Large company decides it will build new, or improve its factory. Journalists are primed to release stories that **** thousand jobs will be lost without help from the British Government (remember, that’s us tax payers) who are, quite plainly being blackmailed. I’m sure Tata could afford to do it themselves, but why should they, if they can get the British Tax Payer to partially pay to improve their facilities? It’s really rough luck for those people (and their families) who work in these industries and I appreciate what you say, Procta, about ripping the heart out of areas that are affected. This is why the Government step in, but I feel very uncomfortable about the way Tata and many other large companies play the blackmail card. I don’t think there is a solution, but it worries me that ten years down the line, Port Talbot will be shut and all of that money was sent to a highly profitable (foreign owned) multi-national for nothing. And still there will be thousands unemployed. It’s an expensive gamble. You mention mining, Procta. Without opening up still very upsetting wounds in those areas affected, I often wonder what would have happened if the Miners Strike and battle with Maggie Thatcher had never happened? In the world we live in now, there would be very little mining required as coal is now a very dirty word (unless you are a steam enthusiast, and we conveniently stick our heads in the sand, and tell ourselves that the coal they burn is very minimal so it’s ok ) How would the mining communities of Wales, the Midland and the North have coped or managed as the mines ran their course and closed. What I am getting at is everything has a life, a time limit. Nothing lasts for ever. I have changed my career and if you had told the 16 year old me, I would not be doing now what I did my for my apprenticeship nearly forty years ago, I would have never have believed it. My dad was a newspaper compositor. He is nearly 80. That job doesn’t exist, and hardly anyone buys papers anymore. In Norwich, our main employer was Norwich Union. Every other person in Norwich worked there. Although they still are a large employer, they don’t employ nothing like the number of people they employed 40 years ago. Any Government (be they Conservative, Labour or Liberal Coalition) have an amazing difficult tightrope to walk making these decisions. Let’s hope they gamble on the wining horse, and not one to be shot and dragged to the knackers yard! |
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15th Oct 2023 3:10pm |
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Bluest Member Since: 23 Apr 2016 Location: Lancashire Posts: 4206 |
I think we do need to retain some intrinsic capacity for things like steel manufacturer. COVID and the war in Ukraine have shown how perilous relying on international supply chains can be. We had a lot of easy years where all “we” wanted was cheap goods from abroad and we sold our industrial base to get it. We are where we are now. I suppose the other alternative is nationalisation, but that hasn’t worked out too well in the past either. 2007 110 TDCi Station Wagon XS
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15th Oct 2023 5:48pm |
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90 Dreamer Member Since: 13 Jul 2019 Location: Oop North Posts: 2147 |
Amazing how many large corporates need bailing out…..
Why not give them the £££. But actually retain shares or some other actual value unlike pretty much every thing we do which is simply to line th pockets of overseas shareholders / companies |
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15th Oct 2023 6:17pm |
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Rashers Member Since: 21 Jun 2015 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3497 |
I agree we need to do something for industry and manufacturing, I am just afraid that we shovel good money into bad. It sounds like the staff at Port Talbot are bracing theirselves for job losses, no matter what happens.
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15th Oct 2023 6:37pm |
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Procta Member Since: 03 Dec 2016 Location: Sunderland Posts: 5163 |
I would have thought the mines would have closed down due to less demand on coal, but the ship yards would have still been in action. Saying that about careers, 20 years ago i studied ICT essentials 2 and 3, PC diagnostics and Networking, then Microsoft. It was supposed to be the thing to get into, laugh is, it got me no where at all. ICT jobs what i wanted to go into, were very hard to come by, and through the last 10 years i have seen practically every computer shop vanish from the high street, in sunderland. If i could go back in time and say Andy, go into the automotive production, which is where i have ended up. Id have sacked off Asda as soon as i passed my test, and gone into where i am now. Defender TD5 90 ---/--- Peugeot 306 HDI hatch back Success is 90% Inspiration and 4 minutes Preparation # you can make it! |
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17th Oct 2023 5:00am |
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