Sheffield Forgemasters nationalisation in public interest – The Yorkshire Post says

They are engineers and highly-skilled people who, despite advances in technology, still work in arduous conditions at the 215-year-old firm to build defence-critical components and equipment which is said to be integral to the operation of the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet.

Sheffield Forgemasters to be acquired by Ministry of Defence

And this explains why the Government should be praised for acting in the public – and national – interest to safeguard this historic firm rather than risking the possibility of classified work being outsourced to companies with potentially conflicting priorities. Not only is such pragmatism to be welcomed, as the MoD brief staff and unions, but it, potentially, signifies a more interventionist approach on the part of Boris Johnson’s government in contrast to the stance taken by its predecessors.

After all, it is just over 10 years since a £80m loan to Forgemasters to build a new press, first proposed by Labour in the death-throes of Gordon Brown’s administration, was rejected by the Tory and Lib Dem coalition in which Nick Clegg, the then Sheffield Hallam MP, served as Deputy Prime Minister.

“The truth is that this loan was promised by the outgoing Labour Government as a calculated ploy to win support in Sheffield just ahead of the election – when they knew all along that there simply wasn’t the money to keep to that pledge in first place,” said Mr Clegg at the time.

A stance that fuelled much of the uncertainty of recent years, it also explains why the wider defence industry welcomed the change of stance as much as the people of Sheffield – and why such matters should never be left to party politics or chance.

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