What hefty government subsidies would they be Twin?
The only shipyard that received any kind of handout from Mrs T was Harland and Wolff in Belfast. And that had zero to do with their work and everything to do with keeping the loyalists happy.
The rest of British Shipbuilders was handed to its managers who in turn passed it on to asset strippers.
Swan Hunter on the Tyne, Camell Laird on the Mersey, Scott Lithgows on the Clyde. 80% of all ships in the seas were built by these yards.
They were at the cutting edge of the industry. Quite simply we built the best boats in the world.
The witch decided to cut the working week, and therefore the wages of workers at ports in Barry and Port Talbot.
Raw materials couldn’t get shipped to the steel works. This lead to the closing of the steel mills at Corby and Ravenscraig, amongst others, which meant the yards had to find other places to buy steel from. At a higher price.
This caused resentment between shipyard workers, steel workers and dockers all of whom felt betrayed by the other
This isn’t stuff I’ve googled Twin. I stood at these meetings.
Make no mistake. It was a deliberate act of Industrial sabotage. Solely to line the pockets of fat cat managers
In the meantime of course the Busan and Ulsan yards of Korea, PPL and Jurong in Singapore, who were getting subsidised, stepped right in there and took over.
Now they were of poor quality, but by $%&# were they cheap.
The industry wasn’t terminally ill then, nowhere near. And it isn’t now.
Those yards now are full of Drill ships, Floating Production ships, Drilling rigs, Production Platforms, Bulk carriers, LPG carriers, Supertankers, Super Containers, Mega Containers.
It’s also full of Jocks, Geordies, Smoggies and Scousers who work there and if you ask them they will tell you that they would prefer to build them at home.
But you do have to ask them before they hit the expat bars and all the girls come out to play.
