Labour abandons the workers

[Gromit]

As the Government goes into meltdown and daily, the rats are leaving the sinking ship, it is easy to miss that the Government have this week abandoned the car workers.

While Obama has pledged $50billion to effectively nationalise General Motors and save manufacturing jobs, and the German Government have saved Opel and Porsche jobs, the British Government is standing idly by as LDV and Vauxhall jobs go down the plughole. No bailout for them.

Now if they were a bank or a dodgy building society, then a huge injection of Government money would not be a problem, but companies that actually manufacture something are allowed to wane.

Has this Government abandoned its core voters and the country's manufacturing base?

[craft1948]

This governments core voters are the idle s0ds on huge benefits who don't want work.......and they will vote Labour again as the Tories may cut benefits....................

[Canary42]

New Labour has NEVER supported the workers.

[mightyWBA]

Quite right Gromit.
I work in whats left of our manufacturing industry and to be honest we've had it !
Tell you what ..throw everything out of your house that wasn't made in "Great" Britain and see what you've got left.
Only ourselves to blame.
Off to bed to get up to work at 6am,nothing to do but we keep trying.
Labour? Couldn't care less like the rest of them.
One day the penny will drop and we might have an uprising...providing there isn't anything good on the telly!
Night night :-)

[jno]

The trouble is that what GM manufactures has long been poor quality, so people have not bought them (or Vauxhalls) in enough numbers to keep the company going. The German government, facing an election, has more incentive to rescue Opel than Westminster does to save Vauxhall, a comparatively small producer. (OK, so it would probably take only one banker's bonus to do it...)

Ignoring the stuff about Mandelson, there's some discussion here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/m ay/28/peter-mandelson-automotive-industry

[rov1200]

Because of the recent past Labour governments have been unwilling to save failed industries because it went so badly before. The propped up car industry took a nose dive after heavy subsidy from the government and the likes of Red Robbo were unhelpful. They also made a mess of the railways by intervening. Now the money isn't there, borrowing it would be like pouring it into a black hole.

I can never understand if an employee cares about his own company why he can't provide some of his earnings to keep it afloat?

[HillyHugger]

Labour abandoned the workers when they failed to support the miners strike of 1984/85 - I abandoned labour shortly after