Many Vestas workers are becoming confident that Vestas bosses can be budged, to some degree at least. Many are less confident about budging the Government.
But the Government was already shaky a month ago. It had already been forced to abandon its taboos against nationalisation and against higher taxes on the rich.
Since then it has been forced to retreat on Royal Mail privatisation and on ID cards, to concede the long-demanded “Fourth Option” on council housing, and to renationalise East Coast mainline railways.
The growing public storm about the Vestas closure puts pressure on a Government about to face a general election and anxious to rally its diminished support.
Energy minister Ed Miliband feels he has to write excuses in the Guardian. That tells you that he is under pressure. He knows it makes no sense to project 7000 new wind turbines in Britain and simultaneously to allow the closure of the country’s only wind turbine blade factories.
It makes no sense to hand out Government money to Vestas bosses, and simultaneously to say that nothing can be done to save the Vestas jobs.
His excuses are wretched? What else do you expect? They will continue to be wretched, until finally he is forced to give way.
The Government can be budged!
