Thursday 31 March 2016

It's A Steel

As Donald Trump plans to nuke Europe, why is that not being used as an argument for Trident?

It is not an argument for Trident. But why is it not being used as one, by the people who go in for such things?

Does no Permanent Member of the UN Security Council get by without an independent nuclear deterrent? Yes. We do.

Trident is possibly a matter of months away from being controlled by Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz or Donald Trump.

But no Permanent Member of the UN Security Council gets by without a steel industry. Does any member of the G8, either?

Renationalising steel would cost £1.5 billion per year. Therefore, we could run at the current loss for 30 years before it cost us the same as the RBS bailout alone.

Set that against the cost of putting entire towns on the dole forever.

Speaking of benefits, David Cameron, George Osborne and Ken Clarke already stood exposed as more right-wing than Iain Duncan Smith.

Today, they also stand exposed as more right-wing than Peter Lilley and John Redwood.

So much for "the centre ground".

I do wish that Trump would offer to buy even only one part of what was once British Steel, most obviously Port Talbot.

If that is losing a million pounds every day, then he ought to offer £365 million. To him, that would be the loosest of change.

Nationalisation would be offered instead within the hour.

And the prospect of such a buyer would preclude any nationalisation that was merely with a view to privatisation.

The Government is trying that trick on every state school in England.

But if we were keeping an eye on this, then we would be keeping an eye on that, too.

6 comments:

  1. There is no answer to that nuking Europe question except "No". No caveats, just "No, Never, Absolutely Not, Of Course Not". In the absence of that, Trump is the most dangerous man in world politics since the 1930s or even ever, since nobody in the Thirties had a nuclear bomb. No wonder the Holy Father says Sanders is the most Christian candidate out of the four.

    As for our own Loony Right government, they think as long as they do socially liberal things for the benefit of upper middle class people, nobody will notice how extreme they are. Those upper middle class people might not, but the rest of sure as hell do.

    They seem to have bought into the quaint little theory that left and right are either redundant concepts or no longer anything to do with the distribution of wealth and economic power, especially ownership and most especially public v private ownership.

    You wish, bitches. That is exactly what it's all about, what it's always all been about, what it will always all be about, and what it can never not be about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trump should try and set up an academy chain, that would kill the whole scheme stone dead.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Did you not notice this Government's forced nationalisation of all our schools will hand the state terrifying power and place all schools under the direct control of a future Labour Education Secretary?

    How left-wing do you want it?

    This is just positive ingratitiude.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We remember past Labour Education Secretaries...

      But of course we all know the plan here. "This didn't work, so over to Capita, Serco and G4S it is, then."

      Delete
    2. People like Anon 17:24 don't accept anyone is right-wing unless they hold the required views on their own personal obsessions. Anyone who doesn't is accused of being some kind of Leftist even if they are privatising the NHS. "No, no, it's all about" this or that. Make your own list, it's what they do.

      Delete