Rjan:
I don’t agree with how you’ve interpreted what I’ve said. Yes, I accept in the first place that any state that controls an oilfield, can set the price at which the oil is sold, and to whom.But by time Callaghan left office, the UK was a net importer of oil. It’s a sign of your madness that you seize on almost everything as a sign of a betrayal of the British worker in favour of the German worker - without any attempt to suggest what possible motive a politician would have for such behaviour.
UK oil was, to the best of my knowledge, sold at open market prices - there was no preference for Germany. You don’t seem to have grasped my point that, once states make it clear that their control of raw materials and natural resources will be used disproportionately for their own benefit, then that creates a scramble for control of those resources.
The Germans, for example, would end up sinking their own wells in the North Sea, so that they too could be assured that in the event of a shortage, there would be sufficient supply for their basic industry, and if you don’t like Germans sinking oil wells then you go to war - and it will mean bombs, it will mean sabotage, and it will mean military costs that send inflation soaring and leave workers impoverished (because, like before, someone has to pay these costs).
Imagine if the Russians and the Arabs today decided to screw the valves shut on the oil and gas pipelines, and made it perfectly clear that we would not be getting any of it, ever again. War would be declared, in order to re-establish the British share of those resources. In the extreme, nuclear bombs would be used to disintegrate those foreign states, because their conduct, their attempt to hoard the natural resources of the Earth for themselves, poses a mortal threat to our society. That’s how dangerous the policies you have in mind are.
Also, there was no “slaughter of our manufacturing base” as a result of this issue - the Germans were not getting oil on preferential terms, they were getting it on the same terms as British industry.
Who’s talking about when Callaghan had ‘left’ office.We’re talking about the winter of discontent.You know 1978 when North Sea oil really was a life saver for our economy in slashing oil prices in the domestic market ‘if’ Callaghan had wanted to use it to our advantage.
nytimes.com/1978/02/05/archi … -tide.html
But no he obviously decided to charge us the same price for the stuff as the bleedin Germans combined with doing austerity in the form of wage slashing and public spending cuts as well as any bleedin Tory could.Which effectively meant less cost for the Germans because they were paying for it out of a higher wage base.Probably because like you he thought the Germans would do what they couldn’t do in WW2 in taking control of our natural resources within our territorial waters by force.The result as I said being Brit workers having to pay the price of keeping German ones better off not to mention the increased depletion rate of our oil reserves and increased inflationary pressures caused by the influx of foreign cash which then went straight back out to pay for the resulting trade deficit. 
As for that not resulting in the slaughter of our manufacturing base you’re avin a larf.So tell us how do you explain the difference between a Cologne Ford v an Essex Ford or the the transfer of Vauxhall production to Opel for just two examples among numerous others which couldn’t compete with the German onslaught in the day.While as you’re so keen on supporting Callaghan’s circus of muppets remind us what happened in the case of Jenkins and especially Prentice for just two of your obvious treacherous bunch of bleedin heros.Maybe you can also remind us exactly which part of the UK manufacturing industry you were working in at shop floor level in the day.As I said vote Corbyn get Callaghan.