Labour Party

If the Labour Party were to win the general election next month, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor would both be supporters of hard-line communists.

Jeremy Corbyn has a long history of public association with communism but the fact that his shadow chancellor (opposition finance minister) John McDonnell thinks that Karl Marx has "a lot" to teach the English will come as welcome news for those who are vacillating: you can tell a lot about people by the company they keep and, unlike the Blair/Brown years, at least we know exactly where the leadership stands. And it stands for increasing taxation for millions, according to McDonnell in an interview with the BBC.

Two days ago, the British government told TATA that it would not underwrite loan guarantees without conditions (story). TATA didn't like that - and said the UK Government was putting jobs at risk. Today, TATA owned CORUS, the rump of what was British Steel, says it is mothballing its Teesside plant at a cost of 2,000 jobs.

Having failed in its initial bid to gain support from the British government via Peter Mandelson, TATA is now playing hard-ball with the UK's Labour Party in its bid to get its purchase of Jaguar Land Rover underwritten by the UK taxpayer. It's getting dangerously close to a foreign company playing power broker in UK politics.

Is there a pattern? Peter Mandelson's links to Indian businessmen were one of the reasons for at least one of his disgraces. Now, within weeks of his return from exile in Europe, he is once again "considering" assisting an Indian business.

The UK has backtracked on a high-cost "showroom tax" on cars, and whilst the cost will reduce substantially for all cars, for some the tax will actually turn into a rebate. But it won't save the UK car industry. And behind it all, there are some very questionable dealings.