Substitute the words "car plant" for "parrot" in the Monty Python dead parrot sketch and you have my view of the prospects for Longbridge and MG Rover. It is dead, deceased, pushing up the daisies, bereft of life.
It's desperately worrying for the 6,000 workers there, but the company and the plant are knackered. Over the years, Longbridge has had dozens of chances and has failed and failed again. The models are ancient and unloved, the plant decrepit. And the business is losing money at the rate of £25m a month.
The government's efforts at keeping the life-support machine going are, at worst, shameless electoral bribery and, at best, misguided. The idea that Longbridge could have a long-term future as a volume car producer under Chinese ownership is laughable.
The discredited Phoenix Four, who bought the business for a token £10 five years ago, have been travelling the globe desperately looking for a partner for years. Private equity firms would have come to the rescue long ago if they had thought there was a glimmer of hope. All that is left is Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, which appears to be running rings around Rover and British ministers. SAIC may want Rover's intellectual property and the brand. It may even be prepared to carry on some limited manufacturing for a year or two. What stretches credulity is the notion that a company in one of the lowest-wage economies in the world will carry on employing 6,000 Britons on ten times the pay it dishes out back home.
The interesting question is whether the bung from Patricia Hewitt will produce any electoral advantage. The orthodox view is that in the 20 or more constituencies around Birmingham, pretending the bird's still breathing for a few more weeks will win votes.
I'm pretty certain the average Brummie voter isn't that naive. In fact, outside the West Midlands, the move looks like a vote-loser. In today's hire-and-fire culture, there can't be many voters above the age of 40 who haven't faced the chop at some stage in their careers, or seen their
partner sacked. For non-Rover sackees, there is no Patricia Hewitt paying their wages out of the public purse.
Unemployment in the West Midlands, by the way, is 4.8 per cent and falling, and very close to the national average. London, Scotland and the north-east all have much worse joblessness.
Loan sharks and lenders on the dodgier fringes of the banking system are celebrating. The Consumer Credit Bill was one of the first casualties of this general election. Along with a dozen other pieces of putative legislation, it was dropped when parliament was dissolved.
It is a great pity and a terrible waste of time. The government spent years consulting on the new rules. It managed to win cross-party support and find favour not only with consumer groups, but also with the mainstream banks.
Getting everyone to agree to the new system was far from easy. The bill would have made it much easier for borrowers to challenge extortionate terms in the courts. It would also have paved the way for an ombudsman to settle disputes.
The legislation had even made it as far as a second reading in the Lords. Yet time was not found when it came to the "wash-up" period - when ministers rush through a few watered-down bills.
Otto von Bismarck was right. The making of laws, like the making of
sausages, is best not examined too closely.
With personal debt well above the £1trn mark in Britain, any downturn in the economy will trigger a wave of problems. Any rise in unemployment and/or any prolonged hike in interest rates, and debt disputes and personal bankruptcies are certain to go up. Yet a workable framework that could have softened the blow has been dumped.
Most analysts in the City say that share prices will rise by about 5 per cent this year and 5 per cent again next year. That seems highly unlikely. Although the stock market does average this sort of annual upward pace, its growth isn't smooth. It tends to surge forward only to plunge most of the way back again.
One analyst who studies these patterns is Robin Griffiths of the City firm Rathbones. He is almost alone in predicting a serious stock-market slide, saying the FTSE 100 of British blue chips will fall from its current level of 5,000 back to 4,000 by late 2006.
His technical analysis, known as chartism, is ridiculed by some in the City, who regard it as little better than studying the entrails of dead animals. But
it seems as credible as the prognostications
of the "smooth, gentle progress" brigade.
By the way, Griffiths predicts that the collapse will begin in the last week of May. If he is right, whoever wins on 5 May, is going to get a very short honeymoon from the stock market.
Patrick Hosking is investment editor of the Times
