A dangerous precedent?

So, is bailing out Jaguar an urgent necessity or a dangerous precedent?  According to the papers this morning, Business ministers – marshalled, of course, by Peter Mandelson – are veering towards the former viewpoint, while the Treasury veers towards the latter.  If so, I’m with HMT on this one.  Although Mandy warned yesterday that the Government doesn’t have an “open chequebook”, the framework he’s created – i.e. as Robert Peston puts it, “he would only save businesses that are of strategic importance to our economy and would be sound in a world where credit was flowing freely” – implies that countless other companies will be able to make demands for taxpayers’ cash, and at a time when the public finances are hardly in great shape.  

But even if other requests for public money are turned down, a Jaguar bailout would still prompt a series of awkward questions.