Few tears shed in Scotland for British Steel

long after the event.

From a Brussels perspective, last week's remarks by Robin Cook in the

Commons when he oozed sympathy for British Steel sounded bizarre. I am

surprised he did not choke on his words.

His point seemed to be that poor BS might have to shed more of its

workforce to pay the fine imposed on it by the bullies in the European

Commission. I am sure BS's public relations machine would eagerly lend

weight to that notion.

Given BS's track record of contributing to the Euro-mountain of

redundant steelmen there is every chance it will keep melting down

costly overheads, like people. But it takes a leap of the imagination to

say this would be the fault of the Commission.

Karel van Miert, the competition commissioner who announced the #25m

fine on BS last week, entertained no such doubts. He was asked if BS

could afford it. He said it should make no real difference to the

company's viability, given its history of post-privatisation profits.

The facts bear him out. A glance at the record shows that three years

ago BS made #733m and although the profits have since fallen, the

company must still be rolling in the stuff.

Much of it was earned, it seems, by cheating which is why BS was

hauled before the beak. According to the Commission, BS was a ringleader

and habitual offender in this fraud ''on a grand scale''. All the

competition laws which could be infringed were infringed as the company

went about rigging markets and fixing prices illegally.

BS clearly broke the rules of the European coal and steel treaty but

was punished only for its transgressions from 1988 onwards which means

the fine could have been much steeper although it was still the biggest

of the 16 meted out to the members of the cartel. BS has been given time

to pay and can do so in instalments.

BS merely says it thought it was not breaking the rules and it will

probably appeal against conviction and sentence. Meantime, it is guilty

as charged.

And so it seemed strange to hear a Scottish Labour heavyweight

complaining at the possible consequences of it all. The scent of

southern votes surely hung in the air.

Mr Cook's party colleagues in the European Parliament in Brussels kept

tactfully quiet -- in public -- about Labour's official response. I

suspect the

feelings of Scottish Euro-MPs are shared by most people at home in

Scotland where the pain of Ravenscraig is still too

keenly felt to allow for public expressions of sympathy

for those caught on the fiddle.

So, was Ravenscraig the subscription paid by BS for membership of the

cartel? We shall probably never know. Mr van Miert thought Ravenscraig

was not a factor in the fiddle but he admitted to me that the Commission

did not investigate this murky area. I hope it will do so now.

In his view the Scottish conspiracy theory -- that the plant was

killed off to cut BS capacity in return for membership of the cartel --

is negated by the fact that production doubled during the period of

price manipulation. But, if that is so, why did BS not sell the plant

instead of closing it? I supposed the cynical answer is they wanted to

kill the business, rule out any potential competition, and take the

proceeds of cannibalising the assets.

All in all, this is just another grim example of Scotland's political

impotence. Ravenscraig was just like any other single-roof steel plant

in a small European Union state and would have been protected

permanently from closure under rules confirmed last year in the Council

of Ministers (for which English Ministers voted).

If Scotland had had independent representation in the council,

Ravenscraig would be working today and steel would still be at the heart

of the Scottish economy. But we don't and it isn't.

I suspect BS's leadership of the cartel was a factor but not the

decisive one in killing Ravenscraig. But it could explain why steel

chief Bob Scholey was so afraid to answer questions.

The intriguing point now is just how much the Thatcher Government knew

about the cartel's operation. We know the Commission in Brussels was

aware of a cartel at work as far back as 1984. When Ravenscraig was

finally closed there were widespread accusations made and suspicions

voiced that the cartel existed and was threatening the plant.

If the Commission in Brussels was aware of it, can it conceivably be

that the British Government of the day was innocently unaware? Is this

another case where the baroness might reply: ''It is no good asking me.

I was only Prime Minister?''

When Ravenscraig was state-owned, British Steel was losing a million

pounds a day. There can be no doubt that Ministers, especially the

pin-striped, slide-rule crowd who ran Britain in the 1980s, must have

had minds concentrated wonderfully by numbers like that. Yet they didn't

know that part of the BS way of turning round business was to cheat? How

much did the DTI's civil servants -- well versed in Euro-rules -- know?

What of the more pressing issue now for BS? What will happen when the

people it cheated begin suing? Now there's a real problem. Already there

are aggrieved customers queuing to recover the money they reckon they

are due from BS -- and others in the cartel -- and the cost to BS could

make the Commission's fine look like peanuts.

I know it is difficult for BS and I know Robin Cook's heart bleeds for

it and I know there are votes in the south for sympathising with

threatened steel workers and I know this is just the latest area of

corporate sleaze. But forgive me if I feel a little sceptical at this

contrived outrage. There must be tens of thousands of people in Scotland

who silently gave a cheer for the European Commission last week and

thought it couldn't have picked on a more deserving case.