Regardless of the rights or wrongs of possibly throwing upwards of 50,000+
people out of
work, the inescapable fact is that Land Rover makes profit. New Mini, if the
pundits are
to be believed and personal impressions are any guide, may well do the same -
but 'other
Rover' doesn't or hasn't convincingly done so for many years. Even back in the
late
sixties when British Leyland came into being, Longbridge and Cowley were
haemorrhaging
money and it was made clear by Leyland to the British government over a period
of probably
two years that it wasn't interested in the former BMC. Governmental pressure
was applied
purely to save jobs - and more importantly (for the government of the time)
votes.
BMW have invested massive sums already and there must surely come a time when
even an
organisation with that level of financial clout, decides to call things a day.
No
organisation can be reasonably expected to see 'the patient' gobbling up yet
more money
and at the same time turn in a GBP 900 million loss which is what its likely to
be for the
financial year just ended.
As suggested in a certain book, we've probably only ourselves to blame. It
makes one
wonder whether the link up with Honda wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Jonmac
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