The RA-RA-RA Cheerleading squad is currently armed with fanfare and pom-poms as they try to convince people that Jaguar Land Rover’s £9M loss is a sign of good fortune. That is the view of Nick Gibbs of Autocar.  Autocar has the best journalists, the best editors, and the eternal respect of the car industry worldwide. But I can spot a bit of patriotic cheerleading when I read it. This is no way to support the future of Indian car manufacturing, British jobs are at stake! I am not a racist I have plenty of ethnic minority friends… from the local pub! And I can name them all!

How can JLR’s $9M loss be more acceptable than a $302M loss the year before? It shows that sales have rallied, but a loss is a loss. The loss means there is no spare cash in the kitty to fund new product development. So that forces JLR to get on their knees and beg government for cash. It’s an example of socialism for the rich and rugged capitalism for the rest of us.

I am not a communist, but why do private companies go all communism-y, when they make a loss?

It’s all Jaguar’s fault! That good-for-nothing company is like the iceberg and Land Rover is the unsuspecting Titanic. They blame the pandemic, they blame chip shortages, they blame the earth, wind, and fire. The Gibbs article details Land Rover sales but skittles around Jaguar sales… it’s a flag-waving cover-up! A RA-RA-POM-POM cover up!

Land Rover is doing really well, sales rose by this and that percentage. Meanwhile, Jaguar is investing in a new electric platform. Everything is fine, nothing to see here, move along, move along. Even the readers in Autocar’s comment section are calling out the RA-RA-ness.

Jaguar is all but dead, to keep the future of Indian manufacturing alive in the United Kingdom, to keep British jobs for the British, it is better to let Jaguar die. When your own readers refuse to drink the kool-aid, it’s time to put away the pom-poms.

Mind you at least Autocar does have readers. And they pay real peanuts to their contributors, not an IOU!