Forums Forums National News Brown To Blame For MG-Rover Collapse

It took them £16 million and 4 years to find out what we already knew...


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The Times

why am i not suprised.

Same here.

I am in the motor industry and have recently dealt with 680 redundancies and probably more to come. It was announced in the board room that the government haven't helped any motoring bodies therefore a waste of time turning to them for help.

Well now you all know what was ment by NEW LABOUR when they got into power in 1997

Give a 120 million pound loan to a company whose destiny laid in China? You think Rovers and MG's would continue to have been manufactured in Longbridge in Chinese hands? I presume the Government had finally given up on BL after 30 years of constant fook ups.

If the chinese definately wanted it then they could have done the £120M bridging loan - looks like Gordan made the right call.

Actually yes, the Chinese had planned to keep building the TF, 25/ZR and the 75/ZT at Longbridge. Where the new model's (such as the RDX60, 35, eventual 45 replacement, 55 etc) would have been built is unclear of course so in the long term job losses may have occurred but it is likely any 75 and RDX60 derived models would have stayed at Longbridge for practical and economical reasons.

They would have also continued the development and manufacture of the Powertain engines such as the N-Series (EuroIV K-Series replacement), KV6 and G-Series (direct L-Series replacement and BMW M47R replacement for the 75/ZT) at Longbridge.

Funnily enough, SAIC actually do build the revised TF at Longbridge right now and still have most of the development team employed there. With the loss of the Rover brand and no other car's in the UK/EU market at present it's pointless them building current cars like the forthcoming N1, or current models such as the 750/7, 550/6 or the 3 in Longbridge when they are only going to sold in Asia and South America until next year when MG will make a return to Europe wuth Austin or similar following on in 2011 or 2012...

The chinese moved all but the TF tooling away from Longbridge after it became clear they had lost the Rover brand and there was no way for them to continue operations within the UK market. They had little alternative anyway because most of the Longbridge site had been sold off by the administrators and now have little chance of ever fully returning because a lot of the site has been re-developed since. It's taken SAIC/NAC so long to properly restart production over in China because they had neither the space, capacity or the expertise to instantly continue production out there - in fact they are still struggling and will probably continue to do so for some years yet!

They are planning to build the new TF at Longbridge at quite possibly the forthcoming MG6 next year.

It cost the government in excess of 150million in a redundancy package just for the Longbridge workers plus thousands are still jobless and have been claiming millions of pounds worth of benefits etc ever since. Quite how that compares favourably to a 120 million short-term loan is beyond me. Only Brown know's this.

As has been said, it seems Blair wanted to keep MG-Rover (whether his reasons for doing so where right or wrong) whereas our ruthless and now useless chancellor just wanted to squeeze them out. When one considers how much money has been offered to foreign car makers this year (2.3billion plus 300 million scrappage scheme) it does make you wonder...

No pound sign on me phone hence the lack of them lol.

When negotiations with SAIC began there was no real problems but they wanted to see what potential the company had (one of the reasons for the 75 Coupe). However it took some months for an agreement to be reached, during which time SAIC bought the 25 and 75 IR to help MG-Rover along financially.

When it became clear in early 2005 that the company was in a do-or-die situation the government were effectively brokering the deal and trying to make MG-Rover look like a very attractive proporsition and a company that given the correct investment and some time to finish their new fleet of engines and car's, one that could become profitable in he long-term.

Given the fact that SAIC had already helped them out financially, and they were not sure about the future of the company, they wanted to see the government put its money where its mouth is, initially the government (Blair and his cronies) agreed but then Brown countered it at the last minute.

If the government wernt prepared to loan the ailing company a miserly 120 million in the short term, then why should SAIC?

When the government effectively ended the deal by showing no confidence in MG-Rover, SAIC quite rightly ordered production of the 25 and 75 to be ceased, after which Honda quickly took the 45/HHR blueprints, which effectively killed the company as it only had the TATA sourced City Rover and the TF left in production and on the market.

Im thinking there could have been a more sinister objective at play in Browns mind as I don't trust him as far as I could throw him, but that's something we will never know.

MG-Rover quite clearly had a future in the long-term when one considers the amount of projects they had nearing completion that SAIC/NAC are now continuing, they just needed helping out in the short-term after BMW had arse-raped them back in 2000.

But this government only helps foreigners and immigrants etc...

I'm sure 50 people work at Longbridge (which is better than none) bolting together the TF? I don't think much of the 120 million investment (I really wouldn't have seen it as a wise move), but I really think they should've got their arses together in the 70's, and then along came Thatcher.

Well its about time he gets the boot "Arsehole" is all i can say about him

Great post Matt - it is strange that the report has been delayed until after the election but I so agree with you that the real villan of the piece is BMW - they sold of the company when it was too small to survive on its own.

It's such a crying shame that Rover never merged with Honda in the early 90s - they wouldn't of been UK owned but I bet that Longbridge and Cowley would of been producing loads of outstanding cars to this day!