After a century of industrial iron-ore production in South Wales, the last-remaining blast furnace at Port Talbot’s (Indian-owned) steelworks was — at midnight on the 30th September — switched off. More than 2,000 skilled British industrial workers have now been made redundant; their lost livelihoods, exported to India, where Tata Steel (at variance with the supposed international drive for green energy) is building new blast furnaces. 

As the machinery ground to a halt — forever — no politician was present to shake the hand of any worker; and no statement came from either the United Kingdom’s Labour Prime Minister — or the Labour First Minister of Wales. A way of life passes, unremarked upon, uncommemorated.

Similarly, on the very same day, the country’s last coal-fired power-station (situated in Nottinghamshire) was decommissioned — the Government trusting, instead, that networks of windfarms spread across the coasts and countryside of Britain will provide for the needs of our burgeoning 60-70 million population.

In the light of the state drive for de-industrialisation, we ask the powers-that-be: can Britain truly rely upon Tesco and taxi-ranks; coffee and mobile-phone shops; City traders and ‘the digital economy’ to sustain our economy and standards of living, commensurate with a ‘First World’ country?

Stuart Millson

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