27th January 2009
Auto Suggestion
Ian Pearson just repeated Mandelson’s heavily trailed announcement on the car industry in the House of Commons. I made the point that the main purpose of Government policy had to be saving jobs through increasing sales and that none of the measures announced today would lead to a single additional car sold. The problem with car finance has been left to the redoubtable Mervyn Davies to sort out at some unspecified point in the future. Meanwhile 1600 people a day in the UK are turned down for a car loan. I asked why the Government hadn’t considered introducing the kind of generous incentives - in the form of rebates or vouchers - for people swapping older more polluting cars with newer vehicles - the so-called car-scrappage schemes introduced in Germany and France. The minister said they hadn’t been introduced yet; that they wouldn’t boost new car sales; that they’re poor value for money; and that we shouldn’t believe everything we read in the newspapers (or on the web) . Ditto everything we hear in the Commons I suspect.
Leave a Reply
You can comment on this article. but you must register first.
Your reply will be moderated and not appear immediately.
You can prepare your text in a word processor before pasting it into the box, but formatting such as bold and colour will not appear.
You must be logged in to post a comment.