A week-ending round-up:
The billionaire Ratan Tata presumably has quite a bulging wallet. But does he also have very deep pockets in which to hide it?
The Government’s suggestion that the chairman of the Tata group should spend some of his own personal fortune to save Jaguar Land Rover, which he purchased for £1.7bn in June, seems pretty fair.
Indeed, it could well be the first display of common sense shown by Gordon’s Brown’s Government since the global economic downturn started to bite.
There is no doubting the wider importance of the likes of Jaguar and Land Rover to the British economy.
But Mr Tata and his colleagues have built a very successful and diverse global business over the years, so they should be using what they’ve learned along the way and the vast profits the group has made to bolster companies they bought less than six months ago.
A bail out will do little to help the economy out of recession – and that possibly applies to whoever goes cap in hand to Mr Brown.
Another of our luxury car manufacturers is also having a tough time of it.
Aston Martin has let hundreds of workers go as the demand for its cars has plummeted.
Diversification during a recession is said to be good business sense. So the fact that Aston Martin has won the competition to design a new Routemaster bus for London’s congested streets smacks of good business and good news in troubled times.
The car-maker joined up with Foster and Partners and Capoco Design to develop the winning design, which features hybrid-drive technology, lightweight materials and a wealth of fresh engineering ideas.
Along with the innovation, there is a retro-feel to the bus.
Talking of throw-backs, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives has always struck me as a politician languishing in a time-warp.
In the slick, polished Tory-world led by David Cameron, Nick Bourne has something of the Tebbit about him.
So I was quite surprised to learn that Mr Bourne was part of the iPod generation. I wasn’t so shocked to discover he’d bought the iPod with his Welsh Assembly expenses.
It is to help him learn Welsh, apparently. Da iawn (*).
After a week-long fuss, Mr Bourne has announced he will pay back the £229 he spent on the iPod.
There was no comment on the £120 also spent on a trouser press or the £5,000 of expenses invested in essential improvements to Mr Bourne’s bathroom.
Mr Bourne has slipped up a fair bit over recent months, including an apology to his Labour counterpart in Wales for a personal attack written in a Tory dossier.
And talking about a pointless waste of space, a former athlete from Romania has launched the world’s first mobile treadmill.
(*) Da iawn is Welsh for “well done”.
Groves Media 