The Tories are doing the unthinkable to save Port Talbot steel

Ministers from 34 countries met in Brussels this week in the vain hope of a quick fix for the steel crisis that everyone blames on dumping by China — which responded, through a state news agency, by calling its critics ‘lame and lazy’. Our own Sajid Javid, desperate to avert the fallout from a closure of Tata’s Port Talbot steelworks before the referendum, claimed to have observed ‘a very positive step forward’ in Chinese attitudes, but perhaps someone had locked him in his hotel room.

Meanwhile, Greybull Capital completed its purchase of Tata’s Scunthorpe plant and Liberty House took over two Tata mills in Lanarkshire — confirming my view that specialised elements of UK steel have life ahead but Port Talbot’s blast furnaces, despite talk of a management buyout, probably don’t. What’s interesting is the way ministers are positioning themselves to co-invest in a Port Talbot rescue — which would mean part-renationalisation. Such Canute-like use of taxpayers’ money to avert bad newsreel footage (very different from part-nationalising RBS and Lloyds to save the banking system) ought to be unthinkable for a Tory government. Watch out for some fancy rhetoric about the unlevel global playing field that makes steel a special case.