Taking control of the ailing company wasn’t an easy decision, but it makes sense. Hopefully the nationalisation phobia is passingThe four stately queens were saved. Mary, Vicky, Annie and Bessie are the mighty blast furnaces, though only two are still in action. Jubilation broke out in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire council leader Rob Waltham told me, still exhausted from striving to keep the steelworks open. “I’ve just been talking to a family with three generations all working there,” he said. “It’s all the family’s earnings, all about to lose their jobs at once. The eldest retires next week, really afraid his pension might have gone.”Such was the suspicion of Chinese owners Jingye that workers blockaded the plant on Saturday morning to stop executives entering; they were reportedly worried that they might sabotage the works as the emergency bill in parliament was stripping away their power. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, told the Commons how negotiations with the owners had come to naught: he said it had become “clear that the intention of Jingye was to refuse to purchase sufficient raw materials to keep the blast furnaces running.” In the Lords, John Reid, former defence and home secretary, blamed Boris Johnson for recklessly allowing British Steel to be sold to a company in a hostile state. “Did it never occur to anyone,” he asked sardonically, “that it may be, in a competitive world, in the interest of the Chinese government to purchase and then close down the British steel industry?”Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist