Kwasi Kwarteng is the top business minister.
A right-wing Brexiteer, he once co-authored a book that labelled British workers as “among the worst idlers in the world”.
But he bids fair to be the worst idler in a lazybones Cabinet.
In the wake of last week’s Budget, he abandoned the Government’s industrial strategy – such as it was.
The move was greeted with dismay, even by employers in the key manufacturing sector.
Now, Britain’s newfound independence from EU rules about state intervention is being put to the test in a key basic industry: steel.
The collapse into administration of a financial backer has put a question mark over Liberty Steel, part of the GFG Alliance metals group owned by Indian tycoon Sanjeev Gupta.
5,000 jobs are at stake in 11 plants, including Rotherham steelworks, Stocksbridge near Sheffield, Newport, Coventry, Hartlepool and an aluminium smelter in Scotland.
They’re at the cutting edge of technology, making “ greensteel ” from scrap, components for aerospace and hi-tech aluminium supplies for Jaguar Land Rover.
Closure would be a calamity for UK plc. GFG says that “as a whole” it has “sufficient funding for current needs”, though some capacity is loss-making because of the pandemic.
Workers fearing for their future are entitled to ask what is the Government doing? Not enough, is the simple answer.
Normally, Kwarteng has a mouth as big as a drop forge. He loves being on the telly.
But he’s silent during this industrial crisis, despite “emergency talks” with GFG. He has the profile of a harvest mouse.
Perhaps he’s too busy faffing about with likely changes to his Whitehall empire in Boris Johnson’s long-awaited Cabinet reshuffle.
This is a poor reward for working-class people in the industrial heartlands who voted Tory to “get Brexit done” and allow our Government to support our country’s key industries.
But what do you expect?
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Boris Johnson’s lies don’t come cheap. He’s lashed out £2.6million on a theatre for his spin doctors to parrot the official line. The official lie comes from the despatch box during Prime Minister’s Questions.
I was a member of the secretive Westminster lobby in the 1990s, when Christopher Meyer and Gus O’Donnell were the Downing Street spokesmen. These discussions were off the record, but we were professionally briefed. The Boris Footlights will be a media circus, with telly correspondents desperately seeking celebrity.
It’s already happened with the No10 Covid press conferences, where point-scoring show ponies compete to humiliate politicians.
And we are none the wiser.
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The Bishop of St Alban’s, the Rev Alan Smith, wants a fish and chip tsar to save the fishing industry. I know why. He started his priestly career in Skipton, home of t’best fish’oles around, and never looked back. In cod we trust!
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Dozy council officials in Devizes, Wilts, have banned the sailing of toy boats on a local pond. They fear someone might fall in and drown while trying to hook out a child’s yacht. Of course, boaters might also be struck by lightning, or get run over by a bus while walking there. The obvious solution is to drain and concrete over the pond, and then close the park in case someone trips and breaks his neck.
Whatever floats the jobsworths’ boat.
