Paying out for Jaguar and LandRover

bice

Shouldn't cyclists be opposing this pointless and expensive rescue package for Land Rover and Jaguar?

It may save a few jobs - for a while - but surely there is no future in these gas guzzlers which the government had been discouraging us from buying?

Selling off the companies to foreigners at the top of the Blair boom was a smart move; bailing them out now is mad.

inseine

Ford bought Jaguar in 1990. How was that the top of the Blair boom?

Crapaud

bice wrote:

Shouldn't cyclists be opposing this pointless and expensive rescue package for Land Rover and Jaguar? ...

No. Everyone should.

I don't see how it's a cycling issue.

giant_man

I totally agree, why does this damned Government keep bailing out this motor company. Land Rover, Jaguar et all. Can't stand the marques quite honestly.

Rover didn't work, massive amount of taxpayer's money wasted. This will just be the same.

bice

And the reason why it concerns cyclists is that these outsize, selfish-people's cars are to be found all over the city belching out fumes ... but especially the residential streets of Chelsea, which are my route to work. No one needs a four litre 4x4 in London. Boris was wrong to undo Ken's plan to tax them punitively.

edhornby

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7791568.stm

4th, 5th and 6th sentence...


however I completely agree with bice, we don't need them in manchester either..

redddraggon

edhornby wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7791568.stm

4th, 5th and 6th sentence...


however I completely agree with bice, we don't need them in manchester either..

Don't need them in the countryside either most of the time.

meagain

The products will simply be bought in from overseas - from companies probably subsidised directly or indirectly by THEIR taxpayers. At least those countries will get the jobs and keep the skills base - which the UK has wantonly thrown away ever since Thatcher set out to smash any industry/community the workers in which didn't vote Tory.

roger645

meagain wrote:

The products will simply be bought in from overseas - from companies probably subsidised directly or indirectly by THEIR taxpayers. At least those countries will get the jobs and keep the skills base - which the UK has wantonly thrown away ever since Thatcher set out to smash any industry/community the workers in which didn't vote Tory.

Well said!

Marko1962

Regardless of opinions about 4x4's, gas guzzlers etc - Landrover and Jaguar directly employ thousands of people (including myself) who in my case have worked in the car industry (Ford then Jaguar and now Landrover Jaguar) for nearly 30 years and have no desire to lose my job just because of the errors and short sightedness/greediness of the banking/financial industry, and again on a bigger scale there is the whole car supply business that will also be affected with 10's of thousands of jobs at risk including whole communities that rely on such workers..... So no I don't want one of the last surviving car industries in this country to go out of business...

There is an important point that needs to be gotten across to everyone, Jag/LR ARE ASKING FOR A LOAN NOT A HAND-OUT from the government because their normal supply the BANKS are not lending despite the government giving them a big hand out with the conditions that they should conduct business as usual..

Lagavulin

I quite fancy the Jag XF-R.

If the government are going to bail it out I'm assuming they're taking it over rather than TATA retaining ownership and having the UK government pay the bills?

ddraver

Because the Army need their Landrovers from Somewhere????

bice

Tata chose to saddle Land Rover with a huge debt rather than draw on its own vast resources. It's a try-on and they should be told to get lost.

geoff_ss

Before we dismiss Rover we should remember its foundation. James Starley made pedal cycles. One of them was the Rover safety bicycle which is where the the Rover name derives. He also made trikes which he found difficult to get round corners with a live rear axle and so invented a universal joint.

Personally I have no desire to own either a Land Rover or a Jaguar but I'd rather see them change direction than go out of business altogether. However subsidy hasn't been very successful in the motor industry in the past I don't see why it should be any better now.

Geoff

OffTheBackAdam

Coventry's a Labour constituency, hence The Prince of Darkness's keeness to bail them out.
Jaguar should be allowed to expire, they're past their best.
Landrover should be saved.

Marko1962

What Jag/LR have asked for is not a subsidy or a hand out, they are asking for a loan which is to be repaid with interest. This is a normal business practice that in normal circumstances the banks would provide, the banks aren't doing it so the government is being asked to help out... It should be the banks that should be given stick, it's them and the whole financial industry that have put us in this mess, the fatcats that take home thousands in bonuses every year at the expense of jobs. The government gave them a substantial handout with the proviso that they should start lending again- something that they have failed to do....

TheBoyBilly

I can't believe that some people are wanting to let two truly British institutions be left twisting in the wind. This isn't the 1970s, the workforces are, for the most part, diligent and hard-working members of the community, not hard-line Commies, yet some folk would like nothing more than to see them lose their livelihoods. Shame on you!
And bringing the gas-guzzling, global-warming nonsense into the equation is just plain silliness, we'll just let Toyota, Honda and even Tata make even bigger off-road vehicles instead, eh? I don't own such a vehicle as it would be overkill for my purposes but if I needed a luxury car or lived out in the sticks I know which brands I'd plump for. Thanks for wanting to take away that choice. I wonder how many of you holier-than-thou folk are supporting the British cycling industry on your Specialized, Trek, or Pinerellos?

El Gordo

Firstly - This country needs to take these steps to maintain some sort of manufacturing and engineering industry. All those people who seem to think that it's OK to base our ecconomy around financial services are hopefully realising their mistake.

Secondly - It is a loan with interest, not a handout.

Thirdly - Going back to the original post, will the enviromentalists stop trying to hijack cycling for their own cause? Amazingly some cyclists ride bikes for fun and convienience and resent the public at large assuming that we all live in trees and knit our own pants.

Johnny G

El Gordo wrote:

...we all live in trees and knit our own pants.

Crapaud

El Gordo wrote:

... Thirdly - Going back to the original post, will the enviromentalists stop trying to hijack cycling for their own cause? Amazingly some cyclists ride bikes for fun and convienience and resent the public at large assuming that we all live in trees and knit our own pants.

^^^this^^^

Sadly, they seem to be succeeding rather than trying. Keep your politics out of cycling!

The Mechanic

At least those countries will get the jobs and keep the skills base - which the UK has wantonly thrown away ever since Thatcher set out to smash any industry/community the workers in which didn't vote Tory.