The two remaining furnaces at the Scunthorpe steel plant, known as Anne and Bess, have blasted through plenty of crises over the course of their long lives and now, thanks to an emergency effort by ministers to source enough materials to keep them fed, it seems they’ll roar for a few more years. But it was a close run thing.

The Times reported that the government swooped on British Steel over the weekend after becoming concerned that the Beijing-based owner of the plant, Jingye, was........

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