MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Serious investment in a vital industry can never be a ... trends now
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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's plan to start making this country self-sufficient in semi-conductors, which The Mail on Sunday reveals today, is a good example of adult, responsible government.
It embodies several praise-worthy elements. It prepares us for a possible crisis over which we have no control should China in some way forcibly take over Taiwan, which has a huge share of world semi-conductor manufacture.
Plainly, it would be better if the free world managed to deter any such event. Much political, diplomatic and military planning is being devoted to securing the continuing freedom of Taiwan. But mighty despotisms, as Russia has shown, do not conform to normal rules of behaviour and we cannot go about assuming that no such disaster could take place.
Two recent convulsions, the first over Covid and the second over Ukraine, have served to warn all civilised countries that their apparently secure, stable societies are intensely vulnerable to shocks which previously seemed unlikely, even far-fetched. In such cases, serious investment in the essentials of modern world industry can never be a mistake.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's (pictured) plan to start making this country self-sufficient in semi-conductors is a good example of adult, responsible government
It simultaneously protects us against the possibility of disastrous shortages in time of global chaos, and strengthens us against the inflationary dangers which invariably follow war, and especially war in energy-producing parts of the world.
British governments have for many years taken the view that any sort of industrial strategy is alien to our traditions, involving inexpertly 'picking winners' or in some way imposing excessive interference on
