Key to Phoenix plan: saving Labour's bacon
As time goes on, it becomes clear that the main beneficiary of the Towers plan is the Labour Party. Most financial commentators consider that the company will at least survive until after the next general election.
If the Alchemy plan had been instituted then most of the pain would have been immediate and therefore could have had a big effect on Labour's electoral chances.
The major crisis facing the working class in Britain is developments in manufacturing: cars, components, steel, textiles and shipbuilding.
Blair obviously had a choice. The Daily Telegraph quotes him as saying he resisted calls for nationalisation - but that the government "didn't stand idly by". So what exactly did they do? It would be interesting to know the full involvement of Byers in the process leading to the successful Phoenix bid.
For example, why did the Alchemy bid suddenly fail? Was there government pressure? Alchemy, who got a £5 million sweetener, say that on the final day they noticed a sudden changed in BMW's attitude. Officially the argument was over redundancy and pension payments. But after six months of negotiations, wouldn't venture capitalists have already clarified such a question? And wouldn't BMW have already worked out where they stood?
It transpires that, 10 days prior to the success of the Towers bid, Labour's millionaire former minister Geoffrey Robinson had become involved. Byers had been involved from the beginning and he did not hide his relief when the Alchemy bid failed.
So did the government put pressure on BMW?
These are hard-headed business people. They know that BMW had planned a new model for two years time, having worked out that this would be the viable life span of the Rover 25 and 45.
Towers has no such replacement model but at least his plan keeps the plant open beyond the next general election: then we can expect more major cutbacks to take place.