It’s not that blast furnaces were unsustainable, it was that no-one wanted to order their steel. Unlike arc furnaces, blast furnaces are destroyed by the act of turning them off. As the government wanted a UK source of steel for military strategic reasons (but not the steel itself while cheaper imports were available) they were paying to keep the furnaces idling at a cost of £400k per day.

So we've just bought a failing company? That doesn't sound good.

So I get that steel making might be a strategic national capability that we need to maintain, but is the government going to put the necessary investment into it? They seem incapable of investing in anything.