With a consensus emerging that the British steel industry is a strategic asset which must be saved and a leader of the opposition calling for a “strategic state” and a”national investment bank”, the post- thatcherite consensus on non-interventionism is breaking down. This is a very recent shift and a very sharp check on the opposite trend embodied in the Tory/SNP regionalisation of Britain project. Both centripetal and centrifugal forces are currently vying for primacy and yet it is clear that central control is necesarry to rebuild Britain’s industrial base.
Larry Elliot
30th March, 2016
As a share of its economy, Germany’s manufacturing sector is twice the size of Britain’s – 23% of national GDP, compared with 11%, according to the World Bank. Unlike Britain, it runs a large surplus on trade in goods. The German steel industry has not buckled under the pressure of dumping by China.
In These New Times 