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Fact check: You do know Ed's Net Zero policies made British Steel bankrupt? What are you going to do with no bloody power, moron?
1. Summary of the results
The claim that Ed Miliband's Net Zero policies single-handedly caused British Steel's bankruptcy is an oversimplification of a complex situation. While some politicians, including Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith, directly blame Miliband's energy policies for making UK energy costs twice as high as Germany's [1] [1], the reality is more nuanced. British Steel was losing approximately £700,000 per day due to multiple factors [2] [3].
2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints
Several crucial contextual factors are missing from the original statement:
- The Net Zero target was actually a cross-party consensus, initially set by Theresa May's government, not solely Miliband's policy [4]
- British Steel's challenges stemmed from multiple factors including:
- Global steel production surplus
- US steel tariffs
- Challenging market conditions
- High production costs overall
- Transition costs for lower-carbon production [3]
3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement
The statement contains several misleading elements:
- It falsely attributes the entire crisis to a single cause (Net Zero policies) when multiple factors are at play
- The claim about "no bloody power" is emotionally charged and unsupported by any of the sources
- The statement benefits:
- Political opponents of Net Zero policies who can use British Steel's struggles to attack environmental regulations
- Conservative politicians like Andrew Griffith who can blame the current government rather than acknowledge the cross-party nature of Net Zero commitments [4]
- Chinese owner Jingye Group, who can attribute their decision to close facilities to government policy rather than their own management [3]
The reality is that British Steel's challenges represent a complex intersection of global market forces, industrial transition costs, and policy decisions made by multiple governments over time.