Globalisation hangs on a simple, alluring idea: make things where doing so is cheapest, then ship them to and fro. But it only works if the second half of that scenario remains viable. If there’s a chance your trade partner might use their commercial heft to strong-arm you, it might be better to pay a bit more, and keep what’s really important under your direct control. 

Steel is a solid example of where the pendulum has swung back from efficiency to certainty. So the UK’s decision this weekend to wrest control of lossmaking British Steel from its Chinese owner Jingye — and hence ensure it keeps running — has barely raised an eyebrow. The idea that the UK might lose its last remaining blast furnaces, and therefore its ability to make new steel from iron ore, is apparently too terrible to contemplate.

Behind this fear lie others. Loss of employment is one. Newer production technologies — such as melting scrap in electric arc furnaces, which could fit a country that exports a lot of unwanted metal — used to be associated with lower grades of steel, though this isn’t necessarily the case any more. All these strands get tangled up with the UK’s attachment to a metal that holds a central spot in its history as an industrial powerhouse.