Jaguar Brexit Boost? Er, No

In the run-up to last June’s referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, the paper that most frequently departed from reality in its demonisation of all those ghastly foreigners was the Daily Express, aka the Daily UKIP, and indeed, the flagship title of Richard “Dirty” Desmond’s joke media empire has continued since the vote in the same vein. But it is now being out-fantasised by the Daily Mail, as today’s front page confirms.

What the f***'s wrong with telling my readers some good news, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

If yesterday’s effort, where the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery heaped as much of the brown smelly stuff as they could get into their bucket on to the IFS for making forecasts that had displeased the Vagina Monologue, was routine, today’s headline “Investment, exports and retail figures ALL up, and car giant plans 10,000 new jobs … JAGUAR’S BREXIT BOOST” was the stuff of fantasy.

What do readers get in support? “The car giant threw its weight behind the UK by indicating it could expand its workforce by 10,000 and make a million vehicles a year by 2020 … A flurry of other positive news showed investment, exports and retail sales were rising … The figures confounded gloomy official forecasts this week that suggested leaving the EU would cost billions of pounds and worsen a squeeze on living standards”.

And how, exactly, will these new jobs come about? “Jaguar Land Rover boss Ralf Speth … vowed to use the UK as a base to take on the powerful German motor industry and make Britain the global leader in electric cars … The firm is planning to build a new generation of the vehicles along with the batteries that will power them … The chief executive challenged the Government to invest £450million in Midlands infrastructure to help secure the investment, saying this could create jobs … He warned Britain would lose investment to other countries - such as Germany - if ministers did not act”.

Would anyone like a plain English translation of that? Here goes. The number of actual new jobs that Jaguar Land Rover will definitely be creating is Zero. Zilch. Nil. Nada. Not A Sausage. Bugger All. But if the Government will bung them £450 million, they might create some. Yet that’s only at the planning stage. It’s a particularly crude piece of blackmail.

What Speth is doing is not unlike the doorstep salesman who tells his potential customers that they can benefit from a great deal, but they have to hand over the money there and then, because otherwise that great deal will be lost and someone else will benefit from it.

The reality is, as so often with the Mail, buried further down the article, as it is conceded “In Los Angeles last week Jaguar Land Rover unveiled its first electric car, the I-Pace, which will be manufactured in Austria … But … Speth said the firm plans to make electric cars in Britain”. And at the very end comes “A spokesman for Jaguar Land Rover said: ‘We cannot comment on quoted job numbers or a timeframe’”.

What the Mail is not telling its readers is that they face a wage freeze unprecedented in modern times. And the strong possibility that the huge extra debt due to Brexit will weaken Sterling yet further. The usual thundering editorial in support of the Mail’s further departure from reality just recycles the clichés, and abuse of those dissenting.

There are no new Jaguar jobs. There is therefore no Jaguar Brexit boost. There has been no “vow” by Jaguar’s boss. And Paul Dacre is away with the fairies.