Cadburys

Not good news that Cadburys has been bought by Kraft. The government seems impotent to stop foreign corporates swooping in and trashing British companies. Other governments stand up for their people, but not ours.

Having seen what has happened to Terry's (it was featured on Newsnight yesterday) I will never buy a Terry's Chocolate Orange again.

Trade Union leaders have appeared on television blaming "Thatcherism" for the continued incidence of corporate takeovers, but this is a lazy and historically wrong analysis. The process was set off by Tony Benn when he was Minister for Technology in the late 1960s and leading industrial "rationalisation". We took a wrong turning in the 1960s and have never really recovered.

You can see how it happened in episode 2 of the excellent 2000 documentary The Mayfair Set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zXiGQU64SY&feature=PlayList&p=768DE4F399464F36&index=0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW--y3RLfh4&feature=PlayList&p=768DE4F399464F36&index=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g1qU-MO_D8&feature=PlayList&p=768DE4F399464F36&index=2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMdT_5A_b8&feature=PlayList&p=768DE4F399464F36&index=3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm3HB_AAeQY&feature=PlayList&p=768DE4F399464F36&index=4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnjCDBl_SAw&feature=PlayList&p=768DE4F399464F36&index=5