Wednesday 30 March 2016

Iron Cross

We certainly are.

Recall Parliament. And then consider why it is on holiday so much, that there need to be such frequent calls for it to be recalled.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ought to organise a joint bid to buy Tata's plants in Britain.

After all, it is highly likely that, this time next year one of them is going to have control of Trident. Why not of what was once our own steel industry, too?

In fact, if they want Trident, then they can pay for it. Between their respective networks of corporations and foundations, they probably could.

And if they couldn't, then they couldn't have it.

The EU would never let it happen, but the sight of a Conservative Government's so much as discussing the renationalisation of steel is simply magnificent.

That an Indian company owns our remaining domestic steelworks, while most of the steel used here is supplied by the very Chinese State, throws into sharp relief the consequences of privatisation for great tracts of our national life, several of them made out of steel.

Once this debate starts, then, with any luck, it should not stop until it was well and truly over.

French, Dutch and German state railway companies may overcharge us in order to keep their fares low at home.

China may be building our nuclear power stations for the French State. The "Royal" in "Royal Mail" may now refer to the Emir of Kuwait.

But never mind. At least we still have the earth-shatteringly important Falkland Islands.

If America wanted them for a base, then we would just kick their population onto the next boat to wherever, just as we did to that of Diego Garcia. Certainly under this Government, as under the last one.

But these days, it goes beyond even that.

If the Chinese, or the Saudis, or more or less anyone else at all, simply wanted to buy the Falkland Islands, then this Government would let that potential buyer have them, at least if enough money would up in the right accounts.

Look what and where else has been allowed to have been bought up by more or less anyone at all. For a start, London.

2 comments:

  1. The Tories renationalising steel because the State had to have control of strategic industries in the national interest! I might actually die laughing! As you know if they had ever really believed in things like national sovereignty, they would always have taken that view. But if they ever did, they gave it up a long time ago.

    They gave only token opposition to most of the nationalisations but they fought steel tooth and nail and they even reversed it, the only time before Thatcher, in 1953.

    To see them renationalise something they had privatised twice because they had accepted the Old Labour argument would be surpassed only by the sight of right-wing Labour MPs going along with it, the heirs no more of John Stonehouse, Woodrow Wyatt and Tony Blair.

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    1. The nationalist Right, which is very much on a post-Thatcherite journey at the moment due to the EU referendum, would have to take control for that to happen.

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