British police to investigate MG Rover demise – update
July 10, 2009 by Matt Brogan
It has emerged that the former owners of collapsed manufacturer MG-Rover have rounded on the UK Government over apparently refusing financial aid to save the company.
Towers, Edwards, Beale and Stephenson stand accused of asset-stripping MG-Rover to the tune of tens of millions of pounds drawn from the car company in salaries over the five years before it went into receivership.
The four have drawn up a sizeable report also claiming that the Prime Minister at the time Tony Blair, was keen to save MG-Rover, however a £120 million loan to the company was blocked in April 2005 by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor at the time.
The former bosses claim that the company collapsed as a direct result of this action.
All of this follows news that the current Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson intends to hand the case over to the Serious Fraud Office with the intent of initiating a criminal investigation into the asset stripping.
The report seems to directly accuse the Government of wanting to cover up its involvement in the demise of the company saying:
“The Government is doing and will do anything to disguise the role played by senior political figures in the closure of MG Rover.”
It also suggests that MG-Rover was failed at a time when millions of pounds worth of public money was given to “rival foreign manufacturers such as Ford, Nissan, BMW, Vauxhall and Peugeot”.
Allegations that Mr Brown pulled the plug on MG-Rover have already been strenuously denied by the UK Government.
CarAdvice wishes to thank Bob Hume at Drivewire for his continued support with developments on this story.
Source: drivewire.eu
Print it: 
Vauxhall is foreign? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
That’s a beautiful Austin Healey update.
Yes Mumble Vauxhall is foreign as it is owned by GM. Like Holden and Ford are both foreign because they are both American owned. MG Rover was owned by a British parent company.
If only MG Rover had put this Tempest prototype into production perhaps they wouldn’t have gone bust…
I’m guessing Gordon Brown took one look at the MG books, saw the leaching Towers, Edwards, Beale and Stephenson were involved in, and decided (quite quickly) he wouldn’t be giving them a wad of public money that would likely go the same way!
ps. That Tempest is gorgeous. Who owns the plans to that now?
Just because some company is owned by a foreign company doesnt make it foreign. Holden was born here and it still manufactures here and it still exists in this country so i think that gives them the right o be called Australian.
Whilst they are at it can the Bill find out why the Awesome SV-R V8 Coupe never made it into production?
Anyone else think that the caradvice team is having a copy/paste competition at the moment???
Crouchy, it’s an imformation and reviews website. If words that someody else has written are exactly what need to said then why shouldn’t they? It’s not as if we don’t get plenty of real journalism from the CA writers themselves.
This is a bit confusing. That car on the other hand looks AWESOME……
I believe [not 100% sure] that like Mini the Tempest is the property of BMW.
Would NOT have saved the company it was losing a insane amount of money [BMW could not turn it around, says it all] like GBP million every couple of days [tbc.]
Perhaps they dont want to steal sales from the BMW and Mini soft tops already being sold and selling well?
Maybe something to be sold in the future, when the good high flyng times return!
Cheers,
F-0
English sold themselves for capitalist greed decades ago….no wonder they now have no pride.
The Tempest looks fantastic doesn’t it? Thanks for the acknowledgement Matt – I’ll try to keep all the CarAdvice faithful up to date on this and other stories as soon as they break.
Bob
MisterTwo, I know that it has been owned by GM since 1925. But Vauxhall was based in England before 1900, like Holden was in Australia. And Vauxhall started making cars from 1903. So, 22 years before they it was purchased by GM. So it would still be classified English at heart. The same with Holden for that case. Not like Ford etc. Because they started off in the USA. That’s the difference.
Good looking Tempest!
This story was 4 decades in the making
MG rover was an embarrassing and festering sore in the side of the British and had been for decades in various incarnations as Austin, BMC, Rover etc.
Everything bad about the British had contributed to its demise, poor quality, militant unions, poor decision making influenced by outdated attitudes and government involvement. The list goes on.
the entity It had already failed, been bankrupted and been nationalised at least once, sold to BMW and even after BMW could not get it to make money!!
BMW gave up and sold the whole company to capital investors for £10 !!!!!
thats about 23 Australian dollars folks for a car company…
Brown knew the cancerous history, realised that if BMW couldn’t turn it around how could govt intervention (2nd time around), saw that only the bad bits of the company were still around (BMW retained Mini, Ford bought Land rover) saw the dodgy owners leeching money and did the only humane thing…
He took the whimpering mangy dog out behind the shed and put a bullet between its eyes.
RIP Leyland/Austin/BMC/Rover you are missed but better off dead.
The tempest looks like a 1960 Austin Healey Spirte or a 1954-58 Corvette x’ed with a BMW Z4 with MR-2 Headlights…. Yet somehow it works