A REPORT has just been published about the Rover MG car company after it was sold by BMW to The Phoenix consortium. This report took three years, cost £16 million of taxpayers’ money and ends up blaming no one.

It criticises the five main board directors who paid themselves £42 million while their company was floundering and 6,500 British workers lost their jobs. That was unforgivable, but why no mention of the Government’s failure to act and help.

The then Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt was about as much help and good as a chocolate fireguard.

Can anyone imagine the German or French Governments failing in similar circumstances if Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen or Opel, Citroen, Renault or Peugeot looked like going under?

David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.