By johnredwood on February 28, 2025

Yesterday as predicted here came news of a further collapse of our car output in January. UK vehicle manufacture for the home market was down 30%. The government wants to stop all manufacture of petrol and diesel vehicles so they must be thrilled that one of their policies is working.

They keep lecturing us to buy battery cars. Most of us do not want to, and many cannot afford to anyway.

They have agreed the closure of the remaining blast furnaces and the UK’s exit from new steel making.

They have banned us producing from any new oil and gas field in the UK forcing us to import more.

They have imposed sky high energy prices to drive out remaining high energy using industries like ceramics, paper, glass, aluminium.

Their policies led to the closure of the critical large oil refinery at Grangemouth.

They put out spin of new jobs in green industries. These are outweighed by the industrial collapse. Most of the new jobs rely on imports, especially from China where most of the solar panels, wind turbines and battery cars are made. It looks as if they want to get more battery cars in the Uk by encouraging China to dump cheap battery cars here rather than struggle with 100% US tariff and the EU 40% tariff. The electric cars and heating systems rely on electricity generated by burning gas in a power station.