Now comes a thundering haymaker in the form of a steel crisis that threatens to dump us all on the canvass.
You don’t need Angelo Dundee in the corner to work out how we turn this fight around. Our steelmakers, burdened with extortionate business rates and soaring energy prices, can’t go toe-to-toe with Chinese rivals kept artificially pumped up on state subsidies.
It is, as steel industry leaders have stated, like trying to fight with ‘both hands tied behind our backs’. David Cameron must now throw his hat in the ring and loosen the binds, fast.
Ministers have the power to bring down business rates that are five to seven times higher for UK mills than their equivalents in Germany and France. They have the clout to speed up proposed compensation on energy costs for energy intensive industries like steel. And they have the power to put some more balls into their negotiations with Brussels on Chinese steel dumping. Sure the EC sets the level of duty on imports heading for our shores. But Cameron and Osborne have the ace hand as they negotiate our future EU membership: let’s make steel dumping a red-line issue.
China’s President Xi would surely appreciate the colour, if not the connotations, of such a move. And while Number 10 has the pens and paper out, the Cabinet team would be advised to take the time to sketch out a value stream map for UK manufacturing.
It shouldn’t take meltdown to realise that the fate of our steel mills is inextricably linked to that of car plants, component manufacturers and everything in-between. UK manufacturing is a family. We stand and we fight together. As evidenced by news that BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Babcock International have stepped in with £30m in loan support for stricken steel firm, Sheffield Forgemasters. That shows a fighter with the heart of a lion. Seconds out, round two.
