Lord Mandelson plays an ace for Vauxhall workers
Lord Mandelson has today claimed victory in the fight to secure up to 5000 jobs at Vauxhall's UK plants, following the ongoing takeover of GM Europe by Magna. It would appear that a potential £400 million sweetener, which the UK government will inject into the German authorities £4 billion state funding, may have done the trick.
Only yesterday we saw Magna suggesting that a new vehicle may well be pulled from the Vauxhall operation in the UK and manufactured elsewhere, but today the news is very much upbeat with the company guaranteeing up to 5000 British jobs and looking for new vehicles to manufacture at the company's Ellesmere Port plant.
There is no doubt that Lord Mandelson and the UK government as a whole will make full use of the U-turn by Magna and it will be in the press for some days to come. This is actually the first piece of positive news for the UK government in many months and while a number of people doubted the strategy of Lord Mandelson and Gordon Brown, there is no doubt that so far it has come to fruition.
However, there are still many people who are concerned about the overall health of the UK car manufacturing industry not to mention the UK manufacturing sector as a whole. What assistance can Lord Mandelson offer others in the UK manufacturing sector?
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