About as durable and reliable as a chocolate fireguard...

Comment

Whether Lord Mandelson is right or wrong about the Kraft bid for Cadbury, he cannot do much about it. Not for a quarter of a century has a British business secretary been able to veto any such takeover on anything other than competition grounds, and the European Union is determined to keep things that way (despite their recent lassitude over the banks).

Formidable as he is, it is hard not to dismiss Lord Mandelson's defence displays as much more effective than those of a skunk; he can cause a stink but he cannot stop a determined attacker.

Which is not to say that he is wrong. Foreign takeovers can certainly mean job cuts and closures, as bitter previous experience of the Nestlé takeover of Rowntree's in 1988 and the purchase by Kraft of Terry's in 1993. Both resulted in job losses, closures and transfer of production. So now Smarties are made in Germany, Terry's Chocolate Orange comes from Slovakia, and Terry's of York shut for ever in 2005. It is, of course, impossible to know what might have been if these takeovers had been stopped; but it is also abundantly clear that the assurances offered by Nestlé and Kraft back then were about as durable as a chocolate fireguard.

Then again, about the best thing that could have happened to the British motor industry was a massive infusion of foreign capital and know-how from the 1980s on. First Nissan, then Honda, Toyota and BMW have all proved resilient, while our indigenous firms long since collapsed.

If only Toyota made chocolate.