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Rest in peace (or maybe China)

· Economics, Business & Globalization · UK affairs

So that’s it then. As Mark Steyn says at the start of this, the surprise is how long it lasted.

Here is how this guy sees it:

RoverOver.gif

Thanks to Patrick for spotting this, but only in the original immobile version.

April 15th, 2005 |

13 comments to Rest in peace (or maybe China)

  • ernest young
    April 15, 2005 at 5:43 pm

    Yet another victim of government, trade union and ‘spiv’ (now that’s a blast from the past!), entrepreneur incompetence and corruption.

    Strange how everything they touch turns to rust…is there anything that they have control of that is, or has been, a success?

    First they interfere, then they control, then they attempt a ‘rescue’, when things go pear-shaped, then they dispose of the residue to their cronies, (them with the 4 million pension fund, thank you very much!), and gradually the whole shooting match disappears in the inevitable quagmire, with a display of much handwringing, crocodile tears and political spin.

    I noticed that ‘The Dome’ has quietly met it’s demise. That wonderful symbol of Nu-Labour passing with a whisper. If only the same could be said of NU Labour itself…

    The sinking ship graphic is so apt and so prophetic..

  • Andrew Ian Dodge
    April 15, 2005 at 6:25 pm

    Very witty graphic and a sad but not surprising day. Rover could not compete in the global market. They were offered a deal to save 2000 jobs & MG (the brand that actually matters) and the goverment ixned it. Rover is another casualty of goverment meddling and the last bit of British Leyland to die…not too big a loss.

    PS: On the way to Bracknell; my companion and I saw a Rover blow up (literally the engine packed it in, right in front of us) and end up by the road bellowing smoke of every bit of the car.

  • Julian Taylor
    April 15, 2005 at 8:02 pm

    Love the graphic, hated the car (except the JET1 Rover in The Science Museum).

    Price Waterhouse are now saying its something close to £1bn that has been ‘squandered’ by the Phoenix Four – £427m originally invested by BMW as a no-interest loan, £300m in existing stock and debt writeoffs by BMW and a further £200m realised from the sale of Longbridge last year. On top of this they owe millions to suppliers, VAT, PAYE etc. etc., making this look more and more like another John DeLorean scenario, only without the charm and the cocaine.

    All in all, I fully expect Cherie and our Tone rushing to buy shares in MG Rover tomorrow – given their ‘expertise’ gained through investing in the property market …

  • John J. Coupal
    April 16, 2005 at 12:48 am

    John DeLorean scenario…” ,only without the charm and the cocaine.” Sweet!

  • John K
    April 16, 2005 at 10:55 am

    The whole Rover catastrophe shows what happens when politicians, especially Labour politicians, meddle in business and industry.

    You have a situation in which men who have never had a real job, and whose knowledge of economics derives from a work shy 19th Century German razor dodger, tell the men who actually run a business what to do.

    Labour forced the British car industry to consolidate into British Leyland in the late 60’s, when Harold Wilson was convinced that if only he could sponsor such amalgamations Britain would have national champions. Thus marques like Jaguar and MG were shoehorned into a company alongside a maker of buses from Lancashire.

    Some people think Harold Wilson was a Russian agent. I don’t know if that’s true, but if he had been, he could not have done a better job of buggering up British industry.

    Let’s not forget the Communist inspired trade union savagery of the 1970’s, which brought British Leyland to its knees, and from which the company never really recovered. Mind you, the unions got what they wanted, BL was nationalised, which was so much better for them than working for a nasty old commercial enterprise. Now that they were attached to the state’s tit, it no longer mattered that the cars they made then were complete and utter crap. Again, once a company gains a reputation for making crap products, it can take years or even decades to shake it off. BL/Rover never really managed it.

    The final twist of the knife came during the reign of Stephen “My brain hurts” Byers, the worst Trade and Industry Secretary there has ever been, and the man who single handedly proves why the DTI is a complete waste of time and money.

    Not content with destroying Railtrack, he handed Rover to four obvious chancers with a pie in the sky plan to succeed where BMW failed. He rejected John Moulton’s plan to concentrate on building MG’s, because 4000 workers would have lost their jobs with payoffs of up to £50,000. Now all 6000 will lose their jobs with payoffs of up to £4,000.

    I know we sometimes make jokes about jumped up Polytechnic lecturers going into Parliament, but Byers really was a jumped up Polytechnic lecturer, a man with no experience of anything outside of the Senior Common Room and Labour Party hackery, and this spineless imbecile, a man so hopeless that despite living up Tony’s rectum eventually even el Presidente had to realise he was not up to the job, or indeed any job, and expel him like the compacted turd he was, is and forever will be, this man completed the Labour Party’s destruction of the British owned motor industry.

    Things can only get better!

  • Julian Taylor
    April 16, 2005 at 1:04 pm

    Compared with Patricia “oops, I meant administration not insolvency” Hewitt, Steven Byers is a pussy. Aside from her monumental gaffe last week over MG Rover, Hewitt doesn’t exactly have any qualifications for a ministerial role, unless having once been a researcher for Arthur Andersen counts. She was elevated to the position of Phoney’s close circle of friends dint her having been the odious Neil Kinnock’s Press officer and policy coordinator for a number of years – Phoney has a heroworship thing going on for Kinnock. Labelled as a ‘distinct authoritarian’ by much of the Labour party, Hewitt recently commented that “having children is not a matter of private choice at all because children are of benefit to the country.”

    As for Harold Wilson being a KGB agent, I would have hoped that the KGB would have had far more taste than to recruit that sad lndividual. Marcia Falkender was recently quoted as having once said to Wilson’s wife that “I had sex with your husband 6 times in 1956, neither time was at all memorable”.

  • I'm suffering for my art
    April 16, 2005 at 9:45 pm

    Pity, Rover made some fine – even world class – cars in its heyday…

  • Harry Hutton
    April 17, 2005 at 4:14 am

    Steyn’s thing about Chinese Canadians moving back to China… I dunno. GDP per capita in China is $1,360; in Canada it’s $31,780*. Don’t they mostly come from Hong Kong, anyway?

    *Figures from The Economist.

  • John K
    April 17, 2005 at 11:08 am

    Far be it from me to defend Patricia Hewitt, who does seem to be completely clueless, but I think she lacks the malign combination of sly sycophancy, blind ambition and sheer stupidity which were the hallmarks of the Byers regime.

    Hewitt is just a posh girl with no understanding of trade and industry, who Toni decided to make Trade and Industry Secretary. She is therefore being as successful in the job as could have been forecast when she was appointed.

    In this case she has been left with Byers’ mess to clean up. And at least she’s not Margaret Hodge, I must give her credit for that.

    As for the KGB, I don’t think they were motivated by matters of taste when recruiting agents of influence. With regard to Wislon, I don’t know if they actually recruited him, the thing is, I don’t think they needed to, he was quite capable of buggering up the British economy without any help from them. Mind you, I’ve always had my doubts about Dennis Healey, but that’s another matter.

  • Mark Holland
    April 17, 2005 at 4:51 pm

    John K,

    Marevellous comment above. Thanks for the entertainment.

  • Damian P.
    April 17, 2005 at 5:26 pm

    Rover was a lost cause, especially when BMW kept the Mini, Ford snatched Land Rover and what was left of the company started importing the misbegotten “CityRover” from India. That said, it’s always sad to see a fine old company go under, and I really hope someone can save MG at least.

    Speaking of which: they might be orphans with no warranty, and the depreciation will probably be spectacular, buy I bet you Brits can get some good deals on MGs right now. I’d probably rush out and grab a ZT 260 while I still could.

  • John K
    April 19, 2005 at 2:45 pm

    Thanks Mark, kind of you to say so. It helped a bit to get it off my chest!

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