The Scottish Government’s disdain for local manufacturing was evident again yesterday (your report, November 11). Its reaction to the reduction of capacity at the Grangemouth oil refinery, with the loss of 200 jobs, was almost welcoming.
The Infrastructure Secretary, Michael Matheson, expressed textbook concern for those being made redundant but also used the opportunity to wish the petrochemical company “a sustainable future”.
Not so very long ago, every Scottish job was cherished because they all provided working people with the means for self-advancement. Today our snobbish political class hail only the “sustainable”. The rest, like petrochemicals, are expendable. In another age a threat to Scotland’s petroleum independence would have had nationalists revving their engines with bumper stickers declaring “Fuel Freedom”. In this new woke world, energy security is readily traded for a speaker spot at COP26.
As the Scottish industrial base shrinks inexorably, so does our understanding of the key manufacturing jobs multiplier and the effect it has on both upstream and downstream employment; one job inside a petrochemical plant can sustain 16 outside, which means 3,200 workers could now be under threat throughout the Central Belt, way more than the number employed in the entire Scottish offshore wind industry (fewer than 2,000).
Scotland is missing a modern industrial strategy to defend and expand our local manufacturing base. Endlessly providing government cash and support to foreign wind farm companies has proven a one-trick donkey with a broken leg.
Calum Miller, Polwarth Terrace, Prestonpans, East Lothian
0 Comments