What a pity that Thameslink decided to choose Siemens for the £3bn contract to build 1,200 carriages for the new north-south cross-London route, which comes into service in 2015.
Ironically, rail minister Theresa Villiers said that the announcement of the new £3.5bn rail link was "...further proof of the government's commitment to investing in Britain's future." Hollow words for the 1,500 workers whose jobs will soon be hitting the buffers.
The decision to award the contract to a German manufacturer is hardly investing in Britain's future and the loss of the contract will raise questions about the future of Canadian-owned Bombardier's Derby manufacturing unit, the last train-building facility in the country.
Ms Villiers, in silk purse out of sow's ear mode, went on to explain that the taxpayer would get a better deal by offering the contract to Siemens. The rail minister also suggested that 2,000 jobs would still be created in the UK as a result of Siemens winning the contract. Clearly desperate to make a positive out of a negative Ms Villiers fails to recognise that the net benefit of the contract going abroad is just 500 new jobs and not the 2,000 that she suggested.
It is hard to imagine any other European country letting such a big fish escape; in France, for example, the TGV and the AGV (the replacement for the TGV) and the Eurostar series are all made by Alstom, a French multinational conglomerate.
But as they say in France: c'est la vie.
