Poet Attila the Stockbroker on threatened British steel

This music video from Britain is called Attila The Stockbroker- I Won’t Run Away.

I’d sooner bail out a steelworker than a banker

Saturday 2nd March 2016

On the Road with Attila the Stockbroker

MY OLDEST school friend John lives in Corby, Northamptonshire, and has spent his working life at British Steel and its successor Corus.

The current crisis at Tata Steel in Port Talbot brings stark memories for me of what happened to Corby, a town built on steel, after the works shut down in 1980.

I remember visiting John and his family and seeing whole streets deserted, boarded up in a new town built to house steelworkers, mainly from Scotland and invited south in the early post-war years, left desolate and half-empty as many returned home after being made redundant.

In Port Talbot it’s different. It’s their home and they have nowhere else to go. I regularly drive past that seething, glowing metropolis, one of the few remaining monuments to Britain’s past as the workshop of the world on my way to gigs in Wales. It towers above the coastline and is clearly visible from the other side of the Bristol Channel.

It must not be allowed to die.

A civilised society does not permit its great industries to be undercut and their associated communities destroyed by external companies whose work conditions for their employees are far inferior, making their products cheaper.

It is especially nauseating to see generations of Tories from Thatcher onwards, people who drape themselves in the Union Jack at the slightest opportunity, systematically presiding over the destruction of domestic manufacturing. It remains to be seen how the bastards will deal with the present crisis, but all possible pressure must be put upon them.

We need steel. I’d rather pay an extra bit of tax to keep Port Talbot open, waiting for the day when it, along with the railways, the post office, utilities and our beloved NHS, can be renationalised by a Labour government. People and communities matter. I’ve seen at first hand what happened to Corby and what the closure of the mines did to those communities.

I’d rather bail out one Welsh steelworker than a whole wine bar full of bankers, that’s for sure.

The recent terrorist attacks in Brussels and Lahore highlighted once again the recurring comments that European atrocities receive far more media coverage and public sympathy than those further afield.

For me the Brussels attack really hit home since I had returned from gigs as bassist with our Brussels-based band Contingent just two days previously and watched with relief as my friends there confirmed they were safe.

Appalling to see the public show of solidarity at the Place de la Bourse marred by a fascist march. It was one group of fascists protesting at acts committed by another, as far as I am concerned.

These fanatics are the true enemies of the faith they claim to espouse, since all that will happen as a result of their actions is more Islamophobia, more polarisation, more racist attacks. As a ghastly death cult of course they welcome all this.

Solidarity with the ordinary Muslims in Belgium and elsewhere — and with those ex-Muslims who are demanding the right that those of us nominally brought up as Christians take for granted, that of choosing to reject religion in all its forms.

My wife is a Christian, I’m not. We love and respect each other. It’s no big deal. Would that this could be the case everywhere, in all faiths, all communities.

A remarkably sober column this week, reflecting what is happening in our world. Strength and solidarity to you all. I’m off to Amsterdam and Germany next week for the latest leg of my autobiography tour.