Gordon Brown Was 'responsible For Letting Mg Rover Go Bust'

[sunonmars]

Now we know exactly what the bas"ard was up to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...Rover-bust.html

Gordon Brown was responsible for 'pulling the plug' on MG Rover, leading to the loss of 6,000 jobs, a report by the firm's former executives claims.

The dossier blames the Prime Minister and his former adviser Shriti Vadera for scuppering a rescue deal with the Chinese.

The allegations came as Lord Mandelson revealed a long-awaited £16million report into the collapse of MG rover could be published within weeks.

He said the Serious Fraud Office, which was called in to investigate the firm's demise in 2005, will reach a decision on whether to press criminal charges in 20 days.

It is expected to focus on the actions of the 'Phoenix Four', who took over the car maker in 2000 for a fee of £10.

John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards are estimated to have taken out more than £30million in pay and pensions in the years before it collapsed in April 2005.

The men have now released their own version of events, claiming the then Chancellor Mr Brown 'pulled the plug acting on advice from his Special Adviser Shriti, (now Baroness) Vadera'.

At the time, Labour were accused of deliberately keeping the firm afloat with £6.5million of taxpayers money in the run-up to the 2005 General Election amid fears of a backlash in Labour's marginal Midland's seats if MG Rover went under.

[silver panda]

Now we know exactly what the bas"ard was up to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...Rover-bust.html

Gordon Brown was responsible for 'pulling the plug' on MG Rover, leading to the loss of 6,000 jobs, a report by the firm's former executives claims.

The dossier blames the Prime Minister and his former adviser Shriti Vadera for scuppering a rescue deal with the Chinese.

The allegations came as Lord Mandelson revealed a long-awaited £16million report into the collapse of MG rover could be published within weeks.

He said the Serious Fraud Office, which was called in to investigate the firm's demise in 2005, will reach a decision on whether to press criminal charges in 20 days.

It is expected to focus on the actions of the 'Phoenix Four', who took over the car maker in 2000 for a fee of £10.

John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards are estimated to have taken out more than £30million in pay and pensions in the years before it collapsed in April 2005.

The men have now released their own version of events, claiming the then Chancellor Mr Brown 'pulled the plug acting on advice from his Special Adviser Shriti, (now Baroness) Vadera'.

At the time, Labour were accused of deliberately keeping the firm afloat with £6.5million of taxpayers money in the run-up to the 2005 General Election amid fears of a backlash in Labour's marginal Midland's seats if MG Rover went under.

For those who don't know Shiti Vadera is now a governement minister and has said that the only thing economicly important to this country are houses, finance and the City - industry and agriculture should be dispensed with and the countryside turned into a theme park.

She was also seeing 'green shoots' in early January as the economy was undergoing its worst quarterly contraction in over fifty years.

[interestrateripoff]

So the SFO is perhaps a smokescreen for Brown then.

[THE BALD MAN]

So the SFO is perhaps a smokescreen for Brown then.

This appears to have the touch of Mandy...create a smoke screen to cover up your own failings. Anyway the chances of theSFO finding anything are fairly slim from their previous track record.

[Bloo Loo]

I thought a lack of desirable prodcucts at an affordable and profitable price was what finished MG Rover.

[Minos]

I thought a lack of desirable prodcucts at an affordable and profitable price was what finished MG Rover.

I agree. One thing GB did right.

[Flightman]

I thought a lack of desirable prodcucts at an affordable and profitable price was what finished MG Rover.

+1.

[Guest KingCharles1st]

I posted a thread about this yesterday- I refrained from pointing the finger, as it's all going to be stirred up so badly now, and Mandy will get so many people involved the whole issue will become a quagmire.

Thread and link to whole shitty mess - here

[porca misèria]

MG Rover[1] was bust and on bailouts since long before Gordon Brown entered parliament, let alone came to power.

Under Old Labour, that was to-be-expected. That Thatcher continued pouring good money after bad and left such a chunk of the economy in a zombified time-warp was inexcusable.

[1] under a long series of different names.

[Jadoube]

Gordon Brown was responsible for 'pulling the plug' on MG Rover, leading to the loss of 6,000 jobs, a report by the firm's former executives claims.

John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards are estimated to have taken out more than £30million in pay and pensions in the years before it collapsed in April 2005.

The men have now released their own version of events, claiming the then Chancellor Mr Brown 'pulled the plug acting on advice from his Special Adviser Shriti, (now Baroness) Vadera'.

At the time, Labour were accused of deliberately keeping the firm afloat with £6.5million of taxpayers money in the run-up to the 2005 General Election amid fears of a backlash in Labour's marginal Midland's seats if MG Rover went under.

So at the time Labour were accused of improperly keeping Rover afloat. Now the people who made lots of money from this are claiming all those accusations were false. They say that in fact Brown was trying hard to kill off Rover before the general election, but somehow wasn't able to do so. And they just happened to get all this lovely money. Presumably they earned the money by forcing Brown to give it to them against his will and blocking his attempts to close Rover down?

What can we conclude?

Option 1 - here we have some sharks spinning like Mandy to weasel their way out of a hole.

Option 2 - we believe the sharks. In which case we believe Brown was trying to act correctly and save taxpayers money, trying to stop electioneering and spin, and letting Rover fail because it was bust.

I wonder how many people will choose option 2?

[murpaul]

I thought a lack of desirable prodcucts at an affordable and profitable price was what finished MG Rover.

Err, so why werent management bringing in new models for sale at affordable prices? Jon Moulton had it right about those bunch of chancers.

[THE BALD MAN]

So at the time Labour were accused of improperly keeping Rover afloat. Now the people who made lots of money from this are claiming all those accusations were false. They say that in fact Brown was trying hard to kill off Rover before the general election, but somehow wasn't able to do so. And they just happened to get all this lovely money. Presumably they earned the money by forcing Brown to give it to them against his will and blocking his attempts to close Rover down?

What can we conclude?

Option 1 - here we have some sharks spinning like Mandy to weasel their way out of a hole.

Option 2 - we believe the sharks. In which case we believe Brown was trying to act correctly and save taxpayers money, trying to stop electioneering and spin, and letting Rover fail because it was bust.

I wonder how many people will choose option 2?

I believe no one! Brown has never saved taxpayer money he just spends it. The four chancers toook the p**s out of tax payers with their excessive salaries-(their example is now followed by the banksters)

[Moley]

The allegations came as Lord Mandelson revealed a long-awaited £16million report into the collapse of MG rover could be published within weeks.

How the ****** can a report cost that?

[SMAC67]

If MG Rover failed because it lacked a product people wanted, and every car manufacturer on planet earth is currently losing money. The logical conclusion is that people do not want to buy cars. Cool.

[Goat]

Err, so why werent management bringing in new models for sale at affordable prices? Jon Moulton had it right about those bunch of chancers.

Developing a new model costs at least £1bn and MGR never had either the money or the sales volume for this to be viable.

IIRC Jon Moulton's plan was to downscale the company into a low volume sports car manufacturer, which might or might not have succeeded. What was clear was that the phoenix plan was never going to work and it was only a matter of time before the company went bust.

The problem was that the Moulton plan would have entailed a lot of job losses in marginal constituencies. The government (in the form of Steven Byers - also responsible for the Railtrack/Network Rail fiasco) therefore publicly backed the phoenix plan and essentially forced Moulton out of the race, thus ending any realistic hope of the company having any sort of long term future.

And so, as was entirely predictable, the company limped along for a while until it finally went bust. The phoenix 4 were revealed to be a bunch of chancers who managed to get control of the company without putting any of their own money at risk and who's main interest seems to have been looting as much as they could get away with in terms of pay and pension contributions.

Finally the government spent a few million propping up the obviously bankrupt company up until after the election to avoid negative publicity at the critical time.

Basically the whole thing is a sorry tale of govenment incompetence and political self interest from start to finish.

[@contradevian]

Err, so why werent management bringing in new models for sale at affordable prices? Jon Moulton had it right about those bunch of chancers.

Well in that press release, they were planning hydrid versions of the ageing Rover 25, Rover 75 models.

If you believe that, you will also be seeing flying pigs over Longbridge and all other former British Leyland sites which are now housing estates and retail parks.

All I know is that successive governments and the former DTI are and were incredibly anti British business.

They will happilly top up the bank accounts of any big overseas business wanting to invest here though. They have no faith in British technology and managment skills. Giving the track record of the City and the Phoenix Four thats to some extent understandable as they usually get "turned over." (and witness any PFI project).

I remember my father coming away from a meeting, where Norman Lamont was present (it was some time ago) and they made it pretty clear they would only back foreign firms, and to back a UK firm would offend foreign competition!

Edited July 8, 2009 by HostPaul TAFKA Rover2000

[worzel]

How the ****** can a report cost that?

When the report writers find out that their client has a lot of money to spend on said report.

[SMAC67]

And so, as was entirely predictable, the company limped along for a while until it finally went bust. The phoenix 4 were revealed to be a bunch of chancers who managed to get control of the company without putting any of their own money at risk and who's main interest seems to have been looting as much as they could get away with in terms of pay and pension contributions.

I think you will find that this is the standard business model being run in the Western world at the moment. Get what you can, whilst you can, then scarper with the loot. I don't think it was unique to MG.

[Goat]

I think you will find that this is the standard business model being run in the Western world at the moment. Get what you can, whilst you can, then scarper with the loot. I don't think it was unique to MG.

I think that's a trifle unfair on most businesses; MGR was clearly being run for the P4's benefit only, normally there's at least some outside discipline.

[SMAC67]

Wishful thinking I'm afraid, whilst MG Rover was a weak company to start with, the principles are the same the world over. All the management have been on the same MBA course and have exactly the same mentality. As the dominos continue to toppple you will see this happening more and more. Of course quite a few companies are going to ask for (and get) government cash (taxpayer cash) which will be used as a last pocket liner before going under. In the world of business, you live for today, take the money, and run.

[a+b+c+d]

Gordon Brown Was 'responsible For Letting Mg Rover Go Bust', The truth is coming out.

That's disgraceful! He should have thrown billions of our money at it and created another British Leyland! That's what socialists governments do, is it not?

[R K]

Prime Minister Mandelslime starts to make his move...................

Why no SFO investigation into NRK, HBOS, B&B, RBS?

[Goat]

Wishful thinking I'm afraid, whilst MG Rover was a weak company to start with, the principles are the same the world over. All the management have been on the same MBA course and have exactly the same mentality. As the dominos continue to toppple you will see this happening more and more. Of course quite a few companies are going to ask for (and get) government cash (taxpayer cash) which will be used as a last pocket liner before going under. In the world of business, you live for today, take the money, and run.

MGR was a special case. The government oversaw the transfer of the whole company into the hands of a bunch of (borderline) crooks whose sole intent was to loot as much as possible.

In normal circumstances the company's management is constrained by outside investors and the need to protect their own reputation. It may be imperfect but neither of these applied in MGR's hence the scandal.

[Executive Sadman]

I didnt know private companies had to get the chancellor to allow them to go bust.

[SMAC67]

What, like RBS, that largest company on the planet? Or at least it was.......................