Chance for our shipyards to rise from the ashes

IN THE early 1950s, Clydeside shipbuilders dominated the world market and produced a diverse range of products from warships to banana boats, from tankers to passenger liners. But a combination of under-investment, poor labour relations, technological backwardness and conservative management brought this powerful economic sector to ruin. When the bulk of the yards went out of business in the 1960s, Scots took refuge in the myth that shipbuilding was a dying industry.

Far from it: the next decades saw a massive expansion in the global demand for ships, particularly giant tankers and container vessels. Scotland started to turn its back on manufacturing and manufacturing jobs just as the world economy needed them mo...