article: Thousands upon thousands of local council jobs look like getting the axe due to the spending squeeze, yet 270 jobs rolling steel slabs get a task force, all hands are on deck to find a buyer, while the opposition calls for nationalisation. It's not hard to see why. Nostalgia is part of it, these being the remnants of a once great and noble industry, around which large parts of Lanarkshire was built. It's partly because Clydebridge and Dalzell are symbolic of the impact of globalisation, forcing transition on workers and communities at a local level as the price of enriching the broader economy. Other parts of Britain and Europe feel the strain of in-migrating people. In Motherwell and Cambuslang, the concern is about out-migrating jobs. But it's also because there's discomfort that the new economy and the new labour market is unplanned and haphazard, buffeted by market forces and lacking in the security of big plants with jobs-for-life. It is not always easy to appreciate that Britain has grown quite successfully in recent years by retreating from the making of things. The service sector makes up 75% of the economy, and while it ranges from high-value finance and professional roles to burger-flipping and care homes, it lacks that noble quality with which the old heavy (and dirty) industries are seen in hindsight. There is widespread agreement that Britain needs to think again about manufacturing. On the freer market end of things, George Osborne coined the evocative ambition for there to be a "march of the makers". The rhetoric hasn't always matched the policy outcomes. Industrial policy at Westminster now consists of a push towards a more technically literate workforce, and incentives aimed at 11 chosen sectors, ranging across aerospace and automotive to nuclear and wind power, life sciences and professional and business services. There are also 'catapult centres' for propelling ideas towards the market in robotics, synthetic biology and better batteries. If you want to see what British manufacturing looks like these days (under German management and with a lot of robots), I'd highly recommend 'Building Cars Live' on the BBC iPlayer for two more weeks. We could do worse than make it required viewing for all secondary school pupils, particularly those with a bad experience of work placements. Meanwhile, the recent success of Jeremy Corbyn in winning the Labour leadership points to a desire, in some quarters, for a more interventionist government, willing to take control of strategic industries to serve a social purpose in addition to the shareholder one. So is this time to think again about an industrial policy? Even the Confederation of British Industry, which was closely aligned with the free market orientation of recent governments, wants to see a lot more intervention. Without it, Mr Osborne may find the makers are marching backwards. Wood Mackenzie, the economic consultancy based in Edinburgh, this week issued its projection of future manufacturing sectors in Europe. Largely because oil and gas is in decline, it showed Britain as one of only two countries, with Italy, where production is on track to
summary: There's a retro vibe afoot: the planned mothballing of two steel plants in Lanarkshire brings back the 1980s as if it were... well, 30 years ago.