John K added a comment to the Rover over story here last week which Mark Holland liked so much that he reproduced it over at his blog in its entirety. I agree, and had in mind to do something similar here when I first read it. But now that Mark has already immortalised it, I will confine myself to reproducing the final enraged paragraph of what John K had to say about Stephen Byers:
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.
So far so entertaining. We think Byers is a fool. We would. But then last Sunday evening, in the tube, I picked up a discarded copy of the Observer business section. And I later read, on its front page, this piece about the Rover debacle, which contained the following choice invective, also about Stephen Byers:
But there is nothing ‘natural’ about the Longbridge scandal; it is no act of God. It is an entirely man-made catastrophe, which can be blamed on a relatively small number of individuals. They can and should be made to pay.
The first culprit is Stephen Byers, who pushed the BMW-Phoenix deal through in 2000. Confronted on TV with his guilt, he all but sang ‘Je ne regrette rien’, while praising himself for keeping the Longbridge workers in employment for the past five years. This is the man who sold the original deal as a way of guaranteeing a long-term volume car business in Britain.
Now we are asked to believe the real plan all along was to ease the workers into redundancy, and to view industrial policy as an extension of the social security department. That speaks volumes about new Labour’s attitude to business. Byers, who harbours ambitions of a return to government after the election, is a busted flush who should stay on the backbenches for the rest of his hopefully brief political career.
The other culprits are, of course, the Phoenix Four, led by their still maddeningly smug chief, John Towers. . . .
Something tells me that Byers will not actually pay anything, and incompetence by the standards of normal life is not the same as political incompetence, is it? So he may indeed make a political comeback. However, the fact that Byers is being trashed in the Observer makes me optimistic that this particular incompetent may have had his day.
If so, then I guess he will have to go back to Polytechnic lecturing. If they’ll have him.
Good to see Bozo Byers finally getting his just reward – and from the Guardian-at-prayer, even!
Rarely has a British politician so richly earned the opprobrium heaped upon him. But what really offends is the cocky, not to say chipper, manner with which the little creep tries to defend his rank incompetence.
He’s another one of Bliar’s little nest of vipers from the North East, of course, along with that other smarmy, maladroit, poodle Alan Milburn.
If ever a rooting-out of Labour’s rotten boroughs was called for, that miserable part of the UK is possibly the most deserving target. They certainly know how to elect the worst of the worst up there!
Byers is indeed a deeply incompetent man whose actions have cost the taxpayer dear (Rover is a minor issue in this resect compared to Network Rail).
However, the fault over Rover is not all his. The management was long incompetent and they must bear considerable responsibility. There are also many other aspects of this government’s policies which have affected Rover badly. The deficit in the pension scheme (which acted as a prevention to the Chinese takeover) was largely created by Gordon Brown’s tax on pension funds. The comparatively high interest rates and consequent high pound caused by the need to keep inflation low (at a time where the only inflation came from the public sector) has also made life far more difficult for any business which is exposed to overseas competition (hence our enormous trade deficit).
I strongly object to the description of the North East as “that miserable part of the UK”. As a former student at Durham university, I believe it to be possibly the most beautiful region of the UK with some of the friendliest people you will ever meet. I well remember the complete lack of any resentment towards privileged students from a distinctly unprivileged local population – indeed, they were proud of their university. And where else do you get views like this: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dla0www/c_tour/station.html
Just because a few idiots like Byers come from the North East is no reason to condemn the whole region.
HJH writes:
“Just because a few idiots like Byers come from the North East is no reason to condemn the whole region.”
I was spreaking politically. From T. Dan Smith onward (and no doubt before) the entire region has consistently suffered from lousy (or worse) politicians.
I don’t know what he taught, but I’m sure he has a great future teaching economics in some socialist hell hole somewhere.
“I don’t know what he taught, but I’m sure he has a great future teaching economics in some socialist hell hole somewhere.”
Surely the incompetent Ruth Kelly could find a spot for him in the British state school system?
HJHJ – your position reminds me of my own a few posts ago!
GCooper, I was brought up in the North East and can recall our City Council telling us how great they were at regular intervals in nice free colour newspapers. It must have been true, because it was there on the page. They even got that nice Architect Mr. John Poulson to design our Civic Centre.
Indeed some of our local politicians became famous names such as Andrew Cunningham, T. Dan Smith…
Ian Grey writes:
“Indeed some of our local politicians became famous names such as Andrew Cunningham, T. Dan Smith…”
It’s a mystery. As HJHJ said earlier, a nice place populated by very friendly people who, sadly, just don’t seem able to shake-off the compulsion to vote Labour, as a consequence, having to endure seemingly endless idiocy and corruption.