Once again people’s lives hang in the balance with the mothballing of the Redcar steel works. Seventeen hundred people now have no idea what the future looks like and countless others will obviously be impacted locally as well.
When big industry sheds jobs on a scale like this, the impact on ordinary lives is cruel; so too can be the apparent apathy of those the same people turn to for help.
During the miners strikes of the 1980s, what was most apparent to me was the almost brutal disregard by the establishment for the impact the outcomes would have on everyday communities and their people.
The economic arguments seemed to suggest that we did not need coal so we shut down communities en masse…and then imported all we needed…to keep feeding giant plants like Redcar.
A battle to the bitter end, waged between two intransigent leaders, crushed the little people in the middle. Scargill and his cronies were okay…thousands were not…as Thatcher inevitably won the day.
The same “logic” will doubtless be used to justify what looks like an inevitable long-term closure here with empty promises of Government help to retrain skilled workers into call centre operatives and burger flippers.
Business Minister Anna Soubry said: “Despite everyone’s recent efforts to help SSI this is very sad news and a big blow for the workforce and their families.” She said a taskforce had been set up to support workers. (BBC Website)
And that will be that!
The arguments around the pressure of collapsing world commodity prices will be trotted out against the case for Government intervention but is it that simple?
This is not the local chip shop that can reopen in a month or so; we seem to abandon our manufacturing base far too easily in the UK.
And is spending £15bn on Crossrail to allow London to function a subsidy or not for the City slickers?
Likewise the luvvies blow the budget at the Tate but that’s okay too?
More people work in the media than manufacturing, producing nothing but the hot air that could power Redcar for free where real jobs are being wiped out forever.
London dazzles as a model of a super city so who needs grimy Northern jobs? Look beyond it though and it’s a giant money laundering machine for the same dodgy people that will now sell us the steel we need “velly cheap”.
And once those fortunes are made there’s always a home for that money – no questions asked Sir – over here.
They talk fancifully of a Northern Powerhouse yet billions flow into infrastructure projects down South against a trickle here.
HS2 will soon start in London but I will be amazed if I see ground broken here before I am breaking it myself, pushing up daisies.
Once again we lose a part of our manufacturing heritage and go further down the line of a chronic dependency on Johnny Foreigner; can you imagine the French or the Germans letting this happen?
Instead it’s cap in hand we go to the Arabs, Chinese, Russians and anybody else with a fortune to park somewhere safer than they made it?
Great Britain indeed.
A Failure Of Our Kids
Meanwhile, my old school Hanson, rebuilt a few years ago under the smoke and mirrors cloud of the Private Finance Initiative, continues to be passed from pillar to post.
And as the politicians continue to **** up the education of around 1,600 kids nobody seems to give a stuff.
Here We Go Again!
The Brain’s Trust was sat in session at The Scruffy discussing our wide range of topics. This week we were focusing on relationships, or largely my complete ineptitude at them.
For the last few weeks we have also been mourning the sad loss of Young Heavenly, a pretty thing that brought bright light to the gloom of our weekly contemplations, sat in the corner, awaiting the curled up sandwiches, dusty pastries and the excitement of Mick’s Quiz.
It feels like a night out with Jeremy Corbyn at the moment; dark corners full of old men with wispy beards talking bollocks. One day we will be those men.
Young Heavenly has been replaced by a feisty older bird who goes to my local gym and can bench press twice what I can so moaning about a few bubbles on the heads of our pints has become a hazardous business.
Gone are the days when Young Heavenly would bring pots of creamy ale straight to our table leaving Big Al in a bog-eyed state of wonder. It’s like having Norah Batty behind the bar now.
Clearly bored, Big Al was enquiring as to the state of my perilous love life; I casually mentioned that it was time to dip my “rod” into the murky pond of DesperateDates.com again in search of something to ward off the winter chill.
Safe in the comforting love of Luckless Linda, he looked aghast at the prospect. The last thing he chatted up was in the paddock at Pontefract races before it came in three furlongs back from the rest of the field blowing out of its arse, sent off to become dog meat.
Luckless must have been sent from Heaven.
I was trying to explain the brutal reality of internet dating as Patch listened intently, knowing Mrs P’s spending will surely bankrupt him at some point.
Not only do you have to try to sound charismatic, romantic and worldly-wise as you plough through grainy pictures from many moons ago, there are also some very awkward questions to field. Try a few of these?
“If you were a car, what would you be?” I suppose rusty and clapped out is not the ideal answer.
“Why no kids?” Admitting to being allergic to them is also probably not a winner and, after the intervention of Dr Khan’s scalpel a few years ago, a late start is not on the cards. The pipes of peace are not being reunited here.
“How come your longest relationship is only three years?” No quick answer there other than this may not be my strong suit and I should really take up something else in winter.
Patch helpfully pointed out that I had actually been in a relationship much longer as my cat Gladstone and me were together sixteen years.
I wiped away a tear at the thought of my long gone friend – as a few of you reading this will surely do too – how could a woman possibly replace the old warrior?
Gladstone was terrific at scaring women witless, jumping on them in the middle of the night, half-dead prey in his salivating, blood-splattered mouth, manic look in his eyes suggesting “…this is my bed, on yer way!”
Alone again, he looked across the duvet at me, licked a paw, winked and we both knew who was boss.
There is a moral perhaps lurking here?
At a certain age we are what we are; you may call it set in our ways; you may call it stubborn; you may even deem it a fear of anything to upset the flow of normal life.
If you still want to jump off a mountain past the age of fifty then that’s okay, as long as you realise bones break a lot easier and no temporary thrill will be anything other than that.
Gladstone had it pretty sussed and to the end the combination of food, drink and his regular haunts seemed to work for him. Spot the common thread?
Live life in the moment…because that’s the best it gets today…tomorrow will take care of tomorrow.
HS2 – The Northern Line Started?
Driving into Leeds the other day it was impossible not to notice the carnage being inflicted on the roads by another nutty publicly-funded project – the cycle superhighway – paid for by you and I.
At a cost of £30m how the idiots supposedly in control of the public purses can justify this is beyond any rationale thought.
Just as a few decades ago they introduced the “2+ lane” onto one of the busiest routes into Leeds – causing one very, very long queue instead of two very long ones – now they think that just because we won a few cycling medals, the roads will be like Amsterdam.
Take a look too at the width of these lanes being created presumably for a fleet of Tuk Tuks.
For those unlucky enough to have to sit in the traffic queues daily and try to spot a cyclist consider this. It would have been cheaper to buy all three cyclists a helicopter each to get them in on time to attend their council meetings.
One more glaring example of no matter how bad the mandarins at Whitehall are, devolving powers to the lunatics in local control would be a complete folly.
Have a cracking weekend and…come on England!!!
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