The crisis at Tata is a consequence of laissez-faire industrial policies that have prevailed for 40 yearsThe elimination of Britains steel industry in a matter of weeks – the reality of Tata’s statement that it wants to shut its UK operations – is,by any standards, shocking. There will be efforts to save something from the ruins, and but the financial and trading truths are brutal.
This has not happened,however, in a day, or even over the past few years. Rather the plight of British steel making is the culmination of 40 years of refusal to organise economic,financial and industrial policy to support the generation of value. This is done in the laissez-faire belief – contested even in economic theory – that any such attempt is self-defeating. commerce secretary Sajid Javid personifies this view. In fact, he is surely the most ideologically driven and least practical politician to hold this key post since the war.
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Source: theguardian.com