This week we launched our report into what has happened to the MG Rover workers who lost their jobs so suddenly back in 2005. The research was a joint effort by The Work Foundation and the Birmingham Business School and was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Richard Burden, MP for Birmingham Northfield, kindly hosted the event in Westminster.

A short webcast summarising the research can be found here. (you need to scroll down and click on 'download swf file').
What we found was that three years on from the historic collapse of MG Rover in April 2005, 90% of workers who lost their jobs have found new employment, but most have taken deep pay cuts.

We interviewed over 200 workers out of the 6,300 workers ex-Rover workers who lost their jobs when the Longbridge plant closed, and found two thirds have suffered wage falls. Overall, on average wages had fallen by £5,640 per year in real terms. A third of the former workers reported an increase in their salaries. Those out of work the longest suffered the largest drops in income.

Meanwhile another investigation of sorts has been on-going for three years. That's the DTI (now BERR) Inquiry into the MG Rover collapse.

Setting up the inquiry was absolutely the right thing to do. There were (and remain) some serious questions to be answered about what happened. The 6000+ workers and their families who lost their jobs at Longbridge (plus thousands more in the supply chain) deserve some answers.

Henry Paulson on October 14th 2008 believed that he spoke on behalf of the American people that the "Government owning a stake in any private U.S. company is objectionable to most Americans - me included". That was before he proceeded to instruct the Treasury to make $250 billion in capital available to U.S. financial institutions in the form of preferred stock.

In the UK, where the Chancellor and Chief Secretary to the Treasury frequently state that they are not bankers and do not want to be in the banking business, there is an as yet undawned, but imminent realisation that the government is now a bank (whether it likes it or not) and the government officers are bankers. As Larry Elliott has noted (see link here) "... it is still unclear whether the chancellor and his team fully comprehend the fin de siecle nature of what has happened over the past month."

Indeed, we are all bankers now. What is perhaps not realised - except by the likes of Will Hutton - is that this may well be the case for the long term. Once Paulson and Darling both realise that this is a pretty permanent state of affairs with very little chance of going back to a completely hands-off banking system, the best long-term decisions will be made for the economy.

He spoke as BMW's first half pre-tax profits fell to €1.24 billion, down some 35% compared to the same period last year. Net profits also took a nose-dive, down 26%. They were not alone. GM and Nissan also announced dire results last Friday. GM's spectacular $15.5 billion second quarter loss is the third-worst in its 100-year history. Meanwhile, despite increasing market share in the US, Nissan's net income still fell by over 40%.

Ganal was in effect referring to a number of events that have come together at the same time. A 'perfect storm' might be another way of describing things for some major auto manufacturers.

A rather bungled PR operation by Shanghai should come as no surprise; afterall Chinese state-owned firms going international are very new to dealing with the media, as Duncan Tift notes on the front of Today's Post.

Maybe the experience they gain during the Olympics shortly will help with that. Better communication by Shanghai with the local media, and indeed their own workers, would help a lot here.

Leaving this aside, how much can we actually read into the news that a limited edition run of 500 'new' MG TFs has finally kicked off?

Cameron went on to say that "the whole experiment with regional assemblies has been a complete mistake. The halfway house we've now got, where RDAs are being given planning powers, is a disaster too... there's a very strong case, at least in parts of the country, that RDAs should go altogether".

Hang on a minute. Scrapping RDAs could well lead to a recentralisation of policy making and delivery in London. Do the Tories really think that this will help the West Midlands economy?

Rather, this proposal seems to miss the point; a lot of good has actually been done by developing policies at the regional and local level rather than in Whitehall, and in providing strategic oversight regionally.

In fact, we haven't won anything for ages, and the chance for an open-top civic victory parade and party to celebrate our dizzying heights seemed a no-brainer. Well not to the PR chiefs down the Hawthorns who thought it was all too much hassle.

Being a Baggies fan, even a fairly lazy one like me who only makes a handful of matches a year, isn't exactly fun for much of the time. You're either biting your nails hoping to make promotion or the play-offs, or biting your nails hoping to avoid the drop.

Such is the reality of yo-yo football. Of course, it's all hugely exciting, but like others I do crave the boredom of mid-table mediocrity and safety. Until that happens it would make sense to celebrate our victories as they don't come around too often (my dad was still talking about that 68 Cup Final well into the 90s).

That MG TF production will finally restart in July this year also comes as some relief after lengthy delays given concerns over the quality of parts coming from China.

Let's get things in perspective, though. The TF is basically a 15-year old design with nearly all of the parts brought in from China. It is not a sustainable project beyond the very short term. And with StadCo leaving, we now basically see a screwdriver operation with very few linkages into the local economy and fewer benefits than we'd hoped for in terms of economic development.

That Shanghai are going ahead at all is the crucial thing, though. This keeps them interested in a site whether further production and R&D may come in time. It's here where the case needs to be made to SAIC. And there is a strong case to be made.

I'm sure that there have been some people at Nanjing who have been genuine in wanting to restart small scale MG car production at Longbridge. However, it is a small firm with few resources and doesn't really have much of a track record in developing and producing quality cars. It has had 3 years since it acquired MG Rover and has yet to get its act together at Longbridge. Little wonder people are growing increasingly sceptical of it really making a go of this.

Its takeover by Shanghai at the start of this year raised hopes that the bigger firm could now commit resources and bring R&D back to Longbridge. Well, the StadCo pullout has blown a big hole in that plan and urgent answers are now needed as to what is going on.

Ideally, of course, we'd like to see car manufacturing and R&D come back to Longbridge. It's just that many are wondering if this will ever happen.

Indeed, the sub-prime fuelled financial crisis engulfing the world is seen by many as the worst since the 1930s. The US Federal Reserve has had to organise a bail-out of one major US bank and the government there will later this year inject a $150 billion fiscal stimulus package into the economy in an attempt to get it moving (and let's leave aside the fact that the absurd Stability and Growth Pact would probably constrain most Eurozone governments from engineering such a fiscal boost).

Britain shares some of the worst features of the US economy (a house price bubble, some reckless bank lending and a consumption binge that has seen savings rates fall and the trade deficit widen), albeit perhaps in a less intense form.

I'm awaiting exit polls as the polls shut here just a couple of hours ago. Yesterday I accompanied my Italian in-laws down to the polling station and was bowled over by the site; hoards of people queuing up to do their civic duty and to vote. And this is meant to be a low turnout; maybe as low as 80% (yes, eighty percent! Politicians back home would die for that).

Maybe the more proportional electoral system has something to do with it, or maybe having the polls open on a Sunday also helps (I never quite why understood why we have to do it on a Thursday). Or maybe it's just the Italian zest for life (whether football, clothes, cars or ice-cream) that makes them want to go and vote... they certainly do it often enough; they're voting for what will be their 63rd government since the Second World War.

StadCo and Nanjing said simply that "Stadco and NAC jointly confirm that for commercial reasons, production of bodyshells for the MGTF by Stadco will cease. Both parties are working to ensure minimum disruption to the workforce." They added that "consultations with elected employee representatives will commence immediately and every effort will be made to assist those affected by this announcement".

Until today, StadCo had been seen as a key partner for Nanjing in its efforts to restart small scale MGTF production at Longbridge, and had shifted body-shell production there from its site in Coventry (StadCo had always made the body shells for the MGTF, back under MG Rover days).

Quite where this leaves MGTF production is the big question.

Tata is a huge Indian conglomerate with a turnover getting on for $22 billion. Its deep pockets have allowed it to outbid rivals constrained by the recent credit crunch.

Ford are flogging off some prize assets after a record $12 billion loss in 2006 and a downward spiral of sales of gas guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks in the US prompted by the high price of oil.

Indeed, Ford's US sales were down by some 12% last year and Toyota has just replaced it as the number 2 producer in the US for the first time.

To its credit, Ford has invested heavily in both Jaguar and Land Rover. Yet it lost lots of money.

Partly this is down to exchange rates, with sterling at a twenty five year high against the dollar of over $2. This has made selling to the key US market very difficult and has impacted badly on Jaguar sales there.

This wasn't helped by Ford's inability to understand the European luxury car market.