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Big business stooge David Cameron oozed complacency yesterday over the threatened job-killing takeover of AstraZeneca by US drugs giant Pfizer.
Labour leader Ed Miliband led a Commons attack on the Prime Minister, accusing him of “cheerleading” for the proposed takeover.
Mr Miliband demanded that the government must launch a formal public interest test on the impact of a takeover of AstraZeneca, which employs 7,000 people in Britain.
Mr Cameron retorted unashamedly that “Britain benefits massively from being open to investment.”
Sidestepping the fact that manufacturing is now only 10 per cent of the nation’s economy, he boasted that large numbers of cars were made in Britain by Japanese-owned Nissan and Indian-owned Jaguar-Land Rover.
“We must remain the open economy that will encourage people to invest in our manufacturing base,” he told MPs.
Mr Cameron said he would make no apology for asking ministers and his Cabinet secretary to “engage” with both companies involved in the proposed takeover.
He claimed that the government was “getting stuck in to help British science, British investment and British jobs.”
An intervention by Tory member for Macclesfield David Rutley embarrassed Mr Cameron slightly. The anxious MP pointed out that 2,000 of his constituents worked at AstraZeneca.
Mr Rutley asked what further steps were being taken to “safeguard highly skilled manufacturing jobs in Macclesfield.”
Mr Cameron was forced to change tack a little, proclaiming that the government was engaging with both companies, but “I’m not satisfied, I want more.”
In a jibe against Labour, he added: “The way to get more is to engage, not to stand up and play party politics.”
Sweden Finance Minister Anders Borg entered the fray yesterday, warning that his country’s experiences of previous job pledges from Pfizer had led him to be sceptical.
Pfizer took over Swedish company Pharmacia in 2002, and within a year thousands of jobs had been slashed in Uppsala and the Stockholm area.
Now the only trace of the former major Swedish company is a small biotechnology plant.
Mr Borg told the BBC that Pfizer’s track record was “not very convincing.” He advised that the company’s promises should be taken “not only with a pinch of salt but a sack full of salt.”
