David Craig, on November 28th, 2024Thursday – Friday blog
In Chapter 13 of my book – THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS – I wrote about “The West’s Economic Suicide”. I don’t think many people really noticed when Britain’s last major aluminium smelter closed in 2012 with the loss of over 500 jobs. And if anyone did notice, few, if any, people seemed to be capable of joining the dots to understand why the smelter closed. The reason for the closure: aluminium smelting is an energy-intensive business and the company could no longer operate given the UK’s ever-increasing energy prices caused by our idiotic politicians’ abandoning cheap reliable fossil fuels and trying (vainly, of course) to replace them with expensive, heavily-subsidised, intermittent and unreliable supposed ‘renewables’ as part of our rulers’ Net Zero fantasies.
However, with some more recent acts of industrial self-harm in order for Britain to meet its ludicrously-unnecessary self-imposed climate goals, a few people are beginning to wake up to the disaster we are inflicting on ourselves.
When we were told that our government was giving the owners of the Port Talbot steelworks about £500m of our money to convert the site from blast furnace to electric arc production with the loss of over 2,000 jobs, our rulers told us that this would assure the continuation of steel production in Britain. What they possibly forgot to mention is that blast furnaces convert iron ore to almost any quality of steel you wish to make. But electric arc can only reprocess scrap metal into just a few types of low-grade steel. So our £500m+ and the loss of 2,000+ jobs would lead to a full manufacturing site employing thousands of people being converted to a ‘Steptoe and Son’ scrap metal recycling plant with rather fewer jobs. The main reason for Port Talbot’s demise – Britain’s ever-increasing energy prices caused by our idiotic politicians’ Net Zero fantasies.
Meanwhile in Scotland, the Grangemouth oil refinery is closing with the loss of about 500 jobs and the site will be converted into just a small import terminal for fuel refined in other countries. The main reason for Grangemouth’s demise – Britain’s ever-increasing energy prices caused by our idiotic politicians’ Net Zero fantasies.
And now we hear that the owner of Vauxhall has announced plans to close its van-making factory in Luton, putting about 1,100 jobs at risk. Stellantis, which also owns brands including Citroen, Peugeot and Fiat, said it would combine its electric van production at its other UK plant in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. The main reason for the Luton factory’s demise – Britain’s clampdown on internal combustion engine (ICE) car sales in the transition away from cheap reliable ICE cars to limited-range electric milk floats pretending to be cars caused by our idiotic politicians’ Net Zero fantasies.
Over at Ford they have announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs across Europe – including 800 in the UK – as the car industry frets over weak electric vehicle (EV) sales that could see firms fined more missing government targets. Ford said the restructuring aimed to create a “more cost-competitive structure and ensure the long-term sustainability” of the business amid “lower-than-expected demand” for its electric products.
VW are closing several plants in Germany with the loss of thousands of jobs. And car manufacturer Nissan warned that the so-called mandates covering the sale of non-zero-emission cars risked “undermining the business case for manufacturing cars in the UK and the viability of thousands of jobs”
Why can’t our rulers join the dots?
Surely we now have sufficient evidence that even our worse-than-useless rulers can see that they are wilfully dismantling what little remains of our country’s industrial base is an act of economic self-harm not seen since the Trojans gleefully dragged the wooden horse the Greeks had so kindly left them as a tribute to their heroism into their city with rather unexpected and disastrous results?
Meanwhile, our Chinese friends must be laughing their arses off at our stupidity as we de-industrialise and export all our manufacturing jobs to them. In fact, a conspiracy theorist might even be tempted to conclude that the whole supposed Climate Crisis is part of a Chinese Trojan Horse to weaken the West and ensure China’s economic, political and military world domination.
Of course, our benighted rulers – Tories, Labour, LibDems and SNP – tell us that these ‘old-fashioned’ manufacturing jobs we have lost will be quickly replaced by hundreds of thousands of new highly-skilled, well-paid supposedly ‘green’ jobs. Don’t hold your breath.
Our country’s self-destruction would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.
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In the meantime, all the companies that ‘offshored’ their production are raking in the profits (now kept abroad).
In the politicians world, the millions of ‘highly educated and skilled’ migrants/invaders will be available to do these imaginary jobs (at low wage), with he newly-redundant English left to rely on benefits (unless they can latch onto the ‘public sector’ teat)!
Tragic but sadly as per agenda 2030 which the UK seems to think is achievable and the rest of the world are just going to go along with it. If they don’t it seems their plan is to create wars.
All their plans are beautiful until they meet reality of course and all the flying around in private jets and shagging prostitutes on tax payer expenses at climate conference hits a brick wall when the people wake up to their plans. As is happening now with Trump being re-elected for the 3rd time.
Once again the message is clear. We must limit the power of politicians. They should have no power over the economy and trade. We need to let the markets work and importantly close down the central banks and their endless money printing. Debt more than anything has been a major factor in the collapse of every empire since the Romans. It was easy to see the coin clipping and devaluation of the currency but now we don’t see the counterfeit worthless notes. The politicians would have no job but the masses are equally a problem because they want certainty and that means they are being used by the powerful to move money from us to them.
I think that Ian is not correct. Send in production abroad where costs are lower should mean that we get cheaper goods. They are sold at the cost to produce here and the extra profit goes to the rich. It is nothing more than a money transfer system from the poorest to the richest.
Hang on you’re assuming that the politicians running us into the ground have brains…. Therein lies your problem. Miliband has been put in charge of DESNZ(an oxymoron) – if he had any more brains he’d be a half-wit but his zealotry knows no bounds.
Kemi Badenoch had it right when she said this relentless pursuit of net zero is unilateral economic disarmament.