Martin Kelly writes:
On Thursday's Question Time, broadcast from Middlesbrough, the actor Tom Conti asked why the steelworkers of Redcar weren't going out to seek orders for their plant.
I'm sure that he didn't mean to be patronising - but for a steelworker to have replied that for them to do so would constitute a grave breach of industrial discipline likely to result in their dismissal, with loss of their imminent redundancy, would have made electrifying television.
Such is the way of things in the world beyond the footlights; sadly, it's not like it is in the movies.
As it happens, I spent a lovely day on Teesside yesterday, finding it a land of proper scampi, proper chips, proper beer, proper cake and proper tea. Everything that New Labour, in all parties, most hates. Including the high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs of people who contribute to national sovereignty, cultural identity and sustainable prosperity by making things.
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