Forgemasters so it begins?

[Eater Sundae]

I don't remember seeing or hearing of any....

 

I've looked on Wikipedia again.

 

We have reserves, but not economical to extract in current world markets (cheaper, better quality ore available in China)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_the_United_Kingdom#Minerals_produced_in_the_United_Kingdom_in_2013

[foxy lady]

Is there any iron ore mining in the UK? If not, then it all has to be imported.

 

I doubt there is any commercial iron ore mining carried out in the UK. There are imports but as far as I know there are only a couple of places in the UK that still make steel from iron ore. The UK imports bulk iron and finished steel, but a large quantity of the UK's steel output is made from remelted scrap steel.

[Hogg]

We are, it seems, unable to subsidise our industry, even though it means that Plant and skills will be lost forever. We can however subsidize the wealthy landowners:

"The minister responsible for cutting income support for the poor, Iain Duncan Smith, lives on an estate owned by his wife's family. During the last 10 years it has received €1.5m in income support from taxpayers".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich

[foxy lady]

We are, it seems, unable to subsidise our industry, even though it means that Plant and skills will be lost forever. We can however subsidize the wealthy landowners:

"The minister responsible for cutting income support for the poor, Iain Duncan Smith, lives on an estate owned by his wife's family. During the last 10 years it has received €1.5m in income support from taxpayers".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich

 

Odd that neither the paper nor you mention how many people live on the estate, how many of them are on income support,how many of them actually work for the estate or whether the estate even makes a profit. But I don't suppose you are interested in such details.

 

I always thought people received income support not estates. Firth Park estate probably has one or two on income support too.

Edited January 20, 2016 by foxy lady

[atticus]

Odd that neither the paper nor you mention how many people live on the estate, how many of them are on income support,how many of them actually work for the estate or whether the estate even makes a profit. But I don't suppose you are interested in such details.

 

I always thought people received income support not estates. Firth Park estate probably has one or two on income support too.

 

A couple of questions foxy (and anyone else)

 

Do you believe the farmers should be subsidised to produce food ?

Do you believe any other industries should receive state subsidies ?

[bazjea]

Odd that neither the paper nor you mention how many people live on the estate, how many of them are on income support,how many of them actually work for the estate or whether the estate even makes a profit. But I don't suppose you are interested in such details.

 

I always thought people received income support not estates. Firth Park estate probably has one or two on income support too.

 

 

It would appear that grants are paid to estates;and whatever next, Grants from the EU don't know how they will manage if we pull out of the EU

 

"still, it shows that the best of us need a hand from time to time"

HELP FORGEMASTERS

 

• A time for tough love, and no one has been better placed to dish it out than the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. On Monday the Telegraph claimed that, as his contribution to the latest round of spending reductions, he was prepared to cut harder and deeper on the welfare bill. But one might have thought he'd have a better grasp of the need people will sometimes have for public assistance. And if in doubt, he can always ask the relatives. For over the years, the farm business operating off the country estate part-owned by Duncan Smith's son – with the minister's wife as a trustee – has received well over a million pounds in taxpayer subsidies. Swanbourne Home Farms, run in partnership between the minister's in-laws, Baron and Baroness Cottesloe, brother-in-law Thomas, and cousin Richard Brooks, has been given €1,517,535 over a 10-year period in funding from the EU. It has also been the recipient of grants understood to be worth tens of thousands of pounds from Natural England. Described by the EU as "income support" for farmers, these common agricultural policy payments were established by the 1957 treaty of Rome to ensure "fair standard of living for the agricultural community". None of it goes to the Duncan Smiths. "Neither Iain Duncan Smith or his wife receive any income whatsoever from the Swanbourne Estate," his spokesman says. And few would quibble with the payments themselves. till, it shows that the best of us need a hand from time to time

Edited January 21, 2016 by bazjea

[ellabbs]

the winds of change are never far, mostly a gently waft in summer meadows but every now and then a tumultuos storm which wreaks havoc in its wake.... we just have to accept what we cant change and change what we can....

 

the trick is to know the difference..

[foxy lady]

A couple of questions foxy (and anyone else)

 

Do you believe the farmers should be subsidised to produce food ?

Do you believe any other industries should receive state subsidies ?

 

That's a tricky one. We pay the Brazilians not to cut down trees because of global warming. We subsidise the planting of trees all round the UK to try to do something about climate change.

We ourselves have had grants to protect and replant hedgerows and provide habitat for wildlife. We don't need those payments, but then we don't really need the hedgerows either. We could also qualify for grants to pull out conifers and replant native British trees. We don't farm our land.

Farmers who do get set aside money for leaving areas uncut. They could just pull up hedges use masses of pesticides and fertilisers and maximise crops. Other farmers take payments to allow their land to become flooded to prevent local towns being swamped. The government of the day and the EU make the rules and farmers make their choices based on those rules.

TBH I don't know many rich farmers. They have a lot of potential wealth tied up in their businesses but work 7 day weeks 52 weeks of the year on less than minimum wage. Should they simply say producing milk at 10p a litre above selling price, or pigs at £10 more than selling price isn't worth the effort and just allow the country to import all our needs?

 

Other industries are a different thing. Every subsidy is a tax on the rest of us. I don't think we should pay a miner to dig up coal we don't want, when it costs more to dig it up than it is worth.

Edited January 20, 2016 by foxy lady

[atticus]

That's a tricky one. We pay the Brazilians not to cut down trees because of global warming. We subsidise the planting of trees all round the UK to try to do something about climate change.

We ourselves have had grants to protect and replant hedgerows and provide habitat for wildlife. We don't need those payments, but then we don't really need the hedgerows either. We could also qualify for grants to pull out conifers and replant native British trees. We don't farm our land.

Farmers who do get set aside money for leaving areas uncut. They could just pull up hedges use masses of pesticides and fertilisers and maximise crops. Other farmers take payments to allow their land to become flooded to prevent local towns being swamped. The government of the day and the EU make the rules and farmers make their choices based on those rules.

TBH I don't know many rich farmers. They have a lot of potential wealth tied up in their businesses but work 7 day weeks 52 weeks of the year on less than minimum wage. Should they simply say producing milk at 10p a litre above selling price, or pigs at £10 more than selling price isn't worth the effort and just allow the country to import all our needs?

 

Other industries are a different thing. Every subsidy is a tax on the rest of us. I don't think we should pay a miner to dig up coal we don't want, when it costs more to dig it up than it is worth.

 

Thats where you and me may differ,I honestly don't see any difference in subsidising a farmer to produce milk that can be imported cheeper than say subsidising a coal mine to produce British coal for our power stations.

Same thing surely.

[foxy lady]

Thats where you and me may differ,I honestly don't see any difference in subsidising a farmer to produce milk that can be imported cheeper than say subsidising a coal mine to produce British coal for our power stations.

Same thing surely.

 

That may be so. If they didn't give farmers subsidies the landscape would look a lot different. Where we live the land is no longer farmed. We keep horses on a bit of it and some was sold for housing. But up in the Dales farming and land management would cease. Much of York would be abandoned to constant flooding.

Other areas would become an unmanaged wilderness and access to the countryside restricted.

 

I see no point in mining coal we can't burn, and I wouldn't subsidise steel where the car parks of the workers are littered with Volkswagens, Renaults and Fiats built with foreign steel.