Mandy is on the racks. Yesterday, he made his big announcement on how he was going to help the UK car industry, and unions, analysts and Tories are furious. Tony Woodley, the joint general secretary of the union Unite, could barely contain his rage. It’s a “huge disappointment,” he said. The Tories were up in arms. It’s "pretty small beer," said Ken Clarke; and John Thurso, spokesmen for the Liberal Democrats in these matters , talked about "grave concerns". It is a little odd, but among the more vociferous of the government’s critics were those who normally speak out against any form of government subsidy. Even the Torygraph was seething. “I can't really believe what I'm reading,” said the Telegraph’s Richard Tyler, “Lord Mandelson has spent the last two months having his ear bent by the car makers about the financing crisis engulfing the industry and he has just given his response. And it's meaningless.” The thing that seems to have really got people's goat is that the banks, whose fault this crisis is in the first place, have received so much, while the poor innocent car makers are insulated with pennies. Others are talking about a north–south divide; the City gets all the money it needs, but the manufacturing heartlands are betrayed. It’s a bit rich of the Tories, of course. This is the same party that turned its back on manufacturing in the 1980s, and largely sat back in the early 1990s recession and let market forces do their worst. As for the north–south argument, you may have noticed most of the banks which have availed themselves of government money are not London based at all: Royal Bank of Scotland, Halifax Bank of Scotland and Newcastle’s Northern Rock. But these arguments are not the point. Rather the point is this.