That whole GM-Vauxhall-Opel bail-out thingy

I just don't get this whole outcry about the German government buying up General Motors' European operations.

For sure, it breaches the EU rules against state subsidies (an example of Good EU Rules, but as ever, they only apply to countries other than France or Germany, so in practice they are fairly worthless).

For sure, they'll shut down Vauxhall and keep Opel going, and up to 20,000 jobs will be lost in the UK (taking the upper end of the range suggested by the BBC, i.e. 5,500 employees at Vauxhall plus all the jobs at suppliers etc).

But let's not forget that there is chronic over-capacity in car manufacturing - because of this macho idea that £1 earned from manufacturing and exporting a car is somehow worth more than £1 earned from something girly like inward tourism - and that even German car manufacturers are shifting production eastwards because of the cheaper labour.

And somebody has to own GM's European operations. It appears that the German government is going to hand over $2 billion dollars of German taxpayers' finest to do so, which is about £1.25 billion in proper money.

Let's assume the UK government were to enter and win the bidding war and take over Vauxhall and Opel*, they end up with two loss-making companies**, at least one of which has to be shut down pronto (in the vain hope that supply-capacity and demand will be brought back into line), so they would shut down Opel (to protect 'British jobs for British workers') and end up with an additional colossal bill for redundancy payments and so on. Divide £1.25 billion by the 20,000 UK  jobs we have 'saved', that works out at a princely £62,500 per job, plus a pro rata share of the cost of shutting down Opel, and the rest.

Is it not better for Peter Mandelson (or Lord Thingy of Whatsit, as he is now known) to draft another one of his press releases announcing that although, sadly, Vauxhall is to be shut down, the German government has kindly offered to pay each Vauxhall worker a £25,000 redundancy payment and chip in a few million for 'local regeneration' in Luton and Ellesmere?

Or do we, the taxpayers, really want to underwrite the next British Leyland? I personally do not want to own shares in Vauxhall, neither directly nor indirectly, and I don't see why the UK government should force me to do so. Losing half our money on bailing out Lloyds/HBOS and RBS hardly recommends the UK government as a sound investor, does it?

* Actually, it does beg the question of why GM is selling off Vauxhall, Opel and Saab as a job lot. If they played their cards right and appealed to the protectionist instinct of what are, broadly, socialist-populist European governments, GM would end up selling Vauxhall to the UK government at overvalue, Opel to the German government at overvalue and Saab to the Swedish government at overvalue, but hey, they haven't even got the hang of debt-for-equity swaps yet.

** So that makes three loss-making companies, including Saab.