Today I hear that Lord Mandelsson has announced financial aid for the motor industry. Now don't get me wrong because I understand how many people rely on the motor industry for jobs but is the principle right?
In this country we have paid over the odds for cars for as long as I can remember. The same vehicles that we bought here cost thousands less on the continent. As a serviceman I bought a new car in Germany just prior to attending a promotion course in UK. I collected the car on my journey home and the customs people nearly had a dicky fit at Dover. The reason being of course that it had cost so much less and they thought that I was trying to import it illegally.
When we first dipped our toe into the Common Market many of us were led to believe that we would have parity with Europe on prices for vehicles etc! Ha! We soon discovered that the UK would never benefit from the Common Market and ultimately many of our traditional industries would be decimated.
That apart the Motor Industry has benefited for a long time by our decent standard of living and throughout continued to produce sleek machines which gobbled fuel, were for a long time insecure but could reach speeds unsuitable for our over regulated road system.
No attempt was made to produce cheap, urban friendly, environmentally acceptable people carriers. No they continued to support the OPEC countries and overproduce their monsters. Now they are faced with a crisis largely of their own making. They have acres of car parks filled with vehicles that they can't sell because of their short sighted policies.
I get no joy from seeing people lose their jobs. Things are not going to get much better under a PM who has lost the plot but sometimes... hard times carry a message.
I do hope that the banks, our major industries and most of all the politicians are learning from their mistakes in the recent past.
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