LDV collapses - 4,000 jobs to go

More bad news for the UK’s manfacturing sector with the collapse today of van maker LDV with the loss of 4,000 jobs. As the FT reports, this follows LDV’s attempt to secure government aid of £20-£30m, which was ultimately unsuccessful. While Lord Mandelson’s refusal to offer a bail-out might seem hard hearted, it must be the correct decision: it would have been perverse for the taxpayer to have been providing such support to a company whose owner, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, could almost certainly have funded such a capital injection himself. That however will be of little comfort to those who now find themselves out of work.