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[Gonnagle]

Dear Hopeless,

OK, Gonners; people have been trying to change the steel industry in this country for 15 or 20 years - seemingly without success much of the time.  The only time it has worked has been when someone has started producing specialist steels for different specific purposes - but I believe that there is a limit to the variety of specialised steels industry needs.

I am a simple soul ( some would say simple minded ) necessity is the mother of all inventions, the people whose jobs depend on the steel industry, the communities who depend on the steel industry, ask them.

Gonnagle.

[jeremyp]

Dear Hopeless,

I am a simple soul ( some would say simple minded ) necessity is the mother of all inventions, the people whose jobs depend on the steel industry, the communities who depend on the steel industry, ask them.

Gonnagle.

So we should save an uncompetitive industry out of charity, should we?

I think it would be better to concentrate on saving the people who formerly worked in the steel industry. We should support them while they find other more economically productive things to do.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Jeremyp,

So we should save an uncompetitive industry out of charity, should we?

Charity, such an emotive word, well no not charity, but if you want to use emotive words lets try empathy, compassion, what about walking a mile in another man's shoe's, or in the words of our glorious leader "we are all in it together"

I think it would be better to concentrate on saving the people who formerly worked in the steel industry. We should support them while they find other more economically productive things to do.

Ah the old model!! A man who has worked in the steel industry all his life buying a knitting machine and selling jumpers or turning his hand to embroidery and selling little hankies to tourists, why not just turn this little island into one big theme park for the tourists.

Trouble with the old model is it takes time, years sometimes decades, and we still have communities today trying to readjust after the mines closed, no, lets look at the steel industry and see if we can adapt it for the 21st century, ask the very people who work in the steel industry, maybe a way forward is using the old model and saving some of the steel plant.

But lets not just walk away, wash our hands of the steel industry, that would be the uncharitable thing to do.

Gonnagle.

[Harrowby Hall]

Dear Hopeless,

I am a simple soul ( some would say simple minded ) necessity is the mother of all inventions, the people whose jobs depend on the steel industry, the communities who depend on the steel industry, ask them.

Gonnagle.

Indeed.

You could take it one step further: ask the market.

Get Honda or Toyota or Nissan to build two sets of identical vehicles, one set from British-sourced steel and one from China-sourced steel. Then place a vehicle, bearing a price that reflects the cost of the steel used, from each set in dealers' show rooms.

Then let customers decide which vehicle they want to buy.