threegee

Free markets require that there's a level playing field, and that's always the job of governments. This government is failing lamentably in that. The Gordon Brown/Blair governments just screwed the country over in a different way. They are all obsessed with things that - in a historical context - will be shown to be fads, and have neglected the fundamentals. The present glut in steel won't last, but it will last beyond the time-horizon of our politicos. Way back all political parties would consider the long term national interest - the near certainty that a foreign power would use dominance in this or that to hold us to ransom. A government would maintain strategic stockpiles to give us breathing space whilst the country worked on the supply problem. Presently our politicos struggle to see as far as the next election let alone past it! When you dig into the subject of present day strategic reserves things can become quite disturbing, and it's a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. Does that sound to you like a free market situation? Yet, our globalising elites have allowed this to develop for whatever reason. It would be wise not to dismiss absolutely all of the conspiracy theories without giving them some thought, and it's not hard to imagine the likes of Tony Blair flitting around the world in his private jet having a finger in the pie somewhere. The point I'm making is that losing our steel industry - whoever we concede control to - if a fundamental error of government. It's not just about the last 18,000 jobs, it's about leaving our country wide open to being exploited for economic, political, and even military purposes. Not an issue of free markets, but a clear issue of defence of the realm.

Looked at that way the Germans (only a tad over 2% of world output) and indeed the entire EU might as well pack it in. We've 18,000 workers still left and any government with an ounce of foresight would draw a line in the sand right now! It's a strategic industry; which means that without it we have none of that mythical "influence" that politicos are so keen on parading before us. Sooner or later there will be a monopoly supplier to put the squeeze on us, and the politicos who let this happen will have either gone into hiding, or be sunning themselves at their dachas whilst contemplating their memoirs! We'll need to stump up an inflation adjusted £40 a copy to read about how other politicos in their party (totally against their earnest advice) got it all so horribly wrong.

Merc's comment prompted a bit more research. It seems that German steel is preponderantly specialist steel (stainless etc), and Chinese is the basic stuff. So, we are mostly talking apples and oranges there. Chinese imports to the UK have quadrupled over the last few years, and are set to drive even higher. They of course have the advantage of low energy prices - largely from new coal-fired power - whilst we are stuck with Miliband's wind mills. Even if wages were similar we still couldn't compete. But the real clincher is huge Chinese subsidies to their industry to maintain full employment whatever it costs. We shouldn't be accepting this and need to retaliate, if we don't retaliate we are sending the message that we are an easy touch on this and other things too. Of course the USA has retaliated in a big way - which makes our own situation even worse. The problem won't go away as the Chinese have huge stockpiles of finished products they need to liquidate and those stockpiles keep on getting bigger. So long as we provide the prospect of an open door they have an excuse not to cut back, and if they can entirely trash what's left of our industry that's another reason to keep on overproducing. So the unions are dead right and EUCam needs to do something. What both they and Cameron won't accept is that the only thing we can actually do is to ignore EU directives. Inside the EU we'd face huge fines for doing that, so once again the only lasting solution to a major British problem is OUT! Interesting that even Ronnie Campbell has been forced to this conclusion, and has recently joined Kate Hoey's Labour MPs for Out campaign. He's written to pal Corbyn urging him to allow a free vote. I assume our own Lavery is simply too dumb to think this one through, but one can always live in hope. How about showing some real solidarity with British working people Mr Lavery? You could easily show us that you aren't actually the fully signed up party place-man that everyone assumes!

You are venturing into Nick Clegg la-la land there Maggie. What he always failed to mention is that 95% of Brits moving to the EU are retirees that are past the end of their working life. Rather than take local jobs they create them. Rather than shipping money out of the area, they move their retirement funds and pensions in. They pay local and national taxes on that retirement income to boost their host country. They take residency but retain their British nationality, and the entire point of them moving abroad is that they mix with the culture they chose to adopt. They don't generally leech on the health services in those countries because the NHS still pays (another plus for the hosts), or they have private health insurance. And, if their numbers were ever to get to the stage where they were in any way threatening the local culture, they simply wouldn't want to go there. Oh, and they generally don't want to bring their entire large family, and other relatives too, or indeed out-breed the local populace. Because of all this they are almost always universally welcome. And, yes, most of them do their best to speak the local lingo, whilst providing the locals with a valuable and valued opportunity to practice real English. In short: it's not a two-way street. Brits generally give a lot more than they take!

Quick, start a "Corbyn's Cat Must Stay (deport Corbyn instead)" petition on gov.uk! I can easily code a bot which will produce the necessary number of up votes to force a HoC debate, and I doubt that this would even be illegal under the present rules.

I'm tempted to offer £10 for every immigrant which EUCam deports because their English isn't good enough. He knows he'll be gone by the time any case would even need to be considered. And, you can be damn sure the European courts will have the last say on this; any such deportation will be ruled against human rights, and leave us clutching huge legal bills for our trouble. Meanwhile the extra £20M of taxpayer's money he's throwing at the problem is just another instance of the squandering of our national resources by main stream politicos. It's further proof that the claim of unselective immigration being cash positive for our economy is an outright lie. Australia demonstrably has this about right, and we should learn from our Australian cousins and their century of experience. The fools who control the undemocratic EU will never learn from anyone, and are once again destined to learn the hard way!

Raymond was one of the first people i ever voted for, when i was eventually permitted to vote. I can't remember exactly what he stood for, but what he didn't stand for was the mindless status quo! Yes, paternalism was the ticket in those days, but don't knock the totally genuine concern, and place it in historical context (as I'm sure you do)! Your sentiments that "it matters not one jot what your political affiliation is, it is simply pride in where you come from" are exactly mine. But, if you think that Bedlington has moved well into the 21st Century you've not read too many of the posts here. There has been a major awakening, but sadly it's still far too easy to buy into the likes of Lavery's mantra of victimhood, state dependency, and that the world owes us all a living. Because of this most Bedlingtonians with get up and go still do, and everyone is poorer for it! "Ranting" is what I do best; but I'm steadily working towards making myself a historic curiosity - just like my dear old grandpa! John's talk about cycles earlier on this thread is interesting, but I'm not sure that he has all the background quite right.

That could easily be true, but you need to argue that with the unions who are demanding government action on Chinese imports depressing world markets. The unions must know that the government can't do the necessary within the EU framework. So.. both the Tories and the unions are either kidding themselves or kidding us - you choose! This is currently labelled as one of those "wicked" issues to which there is no easy solution. But it's certainly not one of those; like the resurrection of our fishing and other "strategic" industries there is a very straightforward solution: leave the political EU! Trade and politics do not mix, and the Common Market was sold to the British people as a free trade area. It's time to call the politician's bluff and get back to fundamentals. As you imply, we have a trade deficit with the EU, and they depend on our contributions to keep the whole political project afloat. We call the shots here, and if you meekly accept the EUphile's argument that we are in any way dependant on the EU for survival, you dramatically sell our great country short!

Research the threats on Longridge's life by left wing extremists, and the subsequent events... There are many reasons that such great men have been quietly disowned by their birthplace. I'm not saying the blame was all on one side, but the short-sightedness of local Labour politicos is - and continues to be - staggering. That short-sightedness has extended to the physical destruction of our heritage. Even as I child I could see that what was going on was a betrayal of our heritage, but right then I didn't have the facts to back this up. Was it planned or just sheer ignorance? Well.. a bit of both I think.

Because - like most of our town's "under-performance" - it became highly political! Those people were "evil" Tories, so must be erased from history at every opportunity. The overwhelming left-wing narrative demands no less! And more left-wing votes are to had from that place to the North, so Bedlington and its proud history doesn't even deserve a mention.

One thousand more jobs to go - some of them in the NE - due to Chinese dumping of steel. What does the USA do about this? It applies swingeing tariffs on dumped steel to protect US jobs until the dumping stops and normal fair trade can resume. What does EUCam do? He offers platitudes whilst another major industry slips away. He can't act without the permission of our German overlords, and such permission will never be forthcoming. This wouldn't align with Merkel's view of how things must be. And, what does the EU-centric, EU-funded, BBC tell us about this? Well, whatever you do don't mention the EU dimension to our job losses, as it would blow a hole straight through our propaganda about EU membership being good for jobs. Keep on repeating the lie about three million jobs being dependant on our membership of a political union, and we'll put through this bad patch - until, the next bout of EU damage to our economy. Sad that a once national treasure has been so subverted that we now get more objectivity from Al Jazeera or Russia Today!

Irrefutable Chinese logic there. Everyone knows what the "other" and prohibited use of a knife is! This road sign is entirely logical too (providing you are the sign contractor):

You couldn't make it up! He actually said it! Corbynite Labour policy is now to scrap Trident but not dry-dock our four nuclear submarines - because that would cause job losses! So, we'll be paying for nuclear subs to cruise the world to advertise the fact that we've entirely lost all our marbles! Surely it would be far cheaper, less polluting, and less humiliating for our country, to pay those submarine crews and support workers to build sand castles on the nearest beach? There's artistic merit in this alternative policy too; it needs to be debated at the next shadow cabinet meeting!

Ah, yes: Toka A Anji Lodi in English - in fact just what I was thinking before Google translate came up with the same answer. ない生活は不気味ですか？ Umm.. don't bother to translate that - you'll get: Life without Is it creepy? I leave you to guess what the original English was.

@Canny lass Zero cost (on a PC) can't be extravagant, and one password for everything spells major trouble. Anyway, how do you deal with sites that don't allow you to set your own password, and PIN numbers, and other private information? A good password manager does ALL this for you on ALL sites/occasions, and also makes sure you have them on ALL your devices at ALL times. It can also sign in to site automatically - that alone is a big time saver! Everything could get stolen, and you'd still retain full control of your digital life. The very fact that you do use scraps of paper means that you are avoiding the obvious solution! I challenge you to install Lastpass, and then come back here in a few months time to tell us that your life has not been made a lot lot easier!

The Introduce Yourself forum is still restricted, and besides Live!, there will be other features that are non-viewable by non-members.

What he said, and please note that recovering your password has nothing directly to do with signing in. If you already know your password then there is no point in asking to be sent an email to tell you what you already know. Make sure you are NOT clicking on the Sign Up button. This is not for existing members. There's a drop down menu to the left of that button. You are looking for: Existing user? Sign In That "few minutes" is just a generality. In fact on our mailservers there's rarely any significant delay, the wait is at the other end and completely beyond our control. Your ISPs mail system might be backed up or completely unreachable, in this event ours simply keeps on trying to deliver mail every hour, until it succeeds or it finally gives up after a few days. Mail servers silently talk to each other in the background, and the actual transfer of the email happens in their own time (when both are ready), and that's not when it's sent or when the recipient views it, but at some indeterminate time in between. It might amuse you to know that this transfer starts with a HELO message - yes, with only one L!

It's a brave man that ventures into Faragian territory and dares to even suggest that immigration is working against the interests of ordinary Brits. Double brave when it's a celeb, and triple brave when that celeb depends on the largesse of the Biased Broadcasting Corporation to keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed. But, Noel Edmonds has done it; perhaps not with the Faragian certitude, and by way of question rather than assertion. He needn't have bothered with fine phrasing: the PC police have already descended on his thought processes, and he must be made to suffer! TV star Noel Edmonds sparks migration row: Am I alone in feeling Britain is FULL, he asks My two penneth is to say no Mr Edmonds you are not alone, and you KNOW you are not alone. Patient, long-suffering, ordinary Brits have had enough of the social engineering thrust on them by both our traitorous liberal elites, and international corporations working hand in glove. We'd like our country back - PLEASE!

I don't see that 3 minute clause anywhere in the contract @Canny lass! And, don't blame the shipper when your delivery office has a long queue - change your mail handler! If you can't guess your own password then it's probably the right password, and you'd be moving in the wrong direction. Anyway, please send me your bank account number - purely for testing purposes. Writing passwords on scraps of paper is something else that went out in the middle ages. Use a secure password manager like Lastpass. They are generally free on a PC, and there's a small sub for the mobile platform. If you use it on both platforms then the magic increases exponentially. Password change? Have a look in your control panel and you'll find all sorts of interesting settings, including resetting that. If all else fails then PM a moderator - THAT will take more than 3 minutes though.

Of course you can submit them Maggie. How much space would you like? Update: You are now a "Contributor" which removes any upload limit. PM me if you have any other problems.

I'm tempted to say the EU forced us to convert to €s - with the usual consequences, but the reality is we seem to have moved to UTF8. Non fretta; all will be fixed anon. Update: The borrowers under the floorboards have returned your quotes. They promise not to do it again.

Yeah, wot he said too - I think. Happy Birthday CL!

If you hit the Discussion Tab you'll get things in the familiar forums format - this should reduce the shock of the new. Other missing features will creep back as time is available.

Well... we've finally gone and done it and moved to the new format! Not all the previous features are back yet, and there are some new ones we'll all need to get used to, but we're surely getting there. If you have any problems or observations then please post them on this thread. Once things are stable we have a number of initiatives planned to move your community forward. So... 2016 is likely to be a year of considerable change, and we do hope it's mostly change for the better. When we first launched hand-held internet devices were almost unheard of, so the mobile support we slowly added was very much ad hoc. The new bedlington.co.uk was designed for mobile devices from the ground up - as you'll discover when you visit from your smartphone or tablet. Enjoy!