In yet another pre-Paris...
In yet another pre-Paris Motor Show leak, these images of the Audi A1 Sportback concept surfaced online only hours before the car was due to be officially unveiled!
If I ever write a book...
If I ever write a book about Longbridge and the firm that lived and died at that Midlands car factory-cum-morgue, it will be called: MG Rover: Murder or Suicide? As the corpse remains warm and the post-mortem is still ongoing, it"s far too early to know the answer. But my provisional conclusion is that the irresponsible parents known as the Phoenix Four were responsible for malnourishing the factory so badly, it had to be put on a life-support machine. And that"s when the equally cruel Whitehall Two allowed the MG Rover company to be subjected to involuntary, state-sponsored, unjustifiable homicide.
Stephen Byers tipped MG Rover down the drain. And Patricia Hewitt, the shallowest politician Ið€™ve ever met, flushed it into the sewer
The Four are the directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings, who ran the MG Rover business from 2000-2005 and received £40million for their trouble. The Whitehall Two are Stephen Byers and Patricia Hewitt, successive Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry at the time. Executioners-in-chief would have been a more appropriate title for these useless politicians, who simply failed to show enough interest in the company, its 6,000 workers and the countless thousands of other employees in support industries.
A few days ago the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee publicly stated that in their hands, the Department for Trade and Industry was too distant from the Longbridge motor manufacturing business. "The DTI never managed to get close enough to the company to develop comprehensive plans," the Committee revealed, adding that "serious gaps" between the Department and the firm existed, despite the DTI knowing Rover was extremely vulnerable.
I assumed that, a couple of years ago, the DTI was doing everything to protect the factory, its premises and above all its workers. But the Public Accounts Committee now tells us: "As the company"s position deteriorated, the DTI"s contingency planning during 2004 focused on preparing for its collapse." In the final months of that year, the Department "stepped up its planning for a possible collapse". Surprise, surprise, by spring 2005 MG Rover died a painful, premature death. We"re talking about a massive business that wasn"t faultless or blameless, but was at least turning over a healthy £1,700million a year (the 2003 annual gross revenue figure) while flying the flag for Britain and providing quality jobs and salaries.
Yet the non-driving, non-caring Byers, who wouldn"t know one end of a car from another, tipped MG Rover down the drain. And Hewitt, the shallowest politician I"ve ever met, flushed the company into the sewer. History books will show they did next to nothing - but probably just enough - to rid England of its one and only homegrown volume car producer.
Dumped and dead MG Rover allegedly still has at least one Chinese "owner" talking about building cars in China, plus a few in the Midlands. But when it can employ local workers for less than 50p an hour and it will have to pay Brits considerably more, don"t be surprised if Longbridge has already built its last motor.
Another intriguing development is that there are some Americans who claim MGs will be built in big numbers in the USA, now that the Yanks have somehow grabbed some of the valuable Long-bridge bits and, according to them at least, left the dross behind. In death as in life, MG Rover and Longbridge continue to be abused. They have no chance of resting in peace.
Mike Rutherford writes for the Times, Daily Telegraphand Independent, presents ITV"s Pulling Powerand is founder of the Motorists" Association