Say yes to an industrialist’s pleas for state assistance and you start down a slippery slope. If the government bails out widget makers, why not the producers of woggles?

This is the difficult situation Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, and his boss, Gordon Brown, find themselves in. Having dug deep to save the banks, they are now being asked to find several hundreds of millions, and possibly billions, to safeguard the car industry.

Their natural reaction — and mine — should be to say no. Using public money to save private companies is a bad idea, an interference in the normal cycle of business, a practice that in the long run creates more misery than it saves. With reluctance, however, I have to urge Mandelson to get involved.

There are two reasons for doing so. The first is that the UK car industry is in historically good shape. This would not be a case of putting cash into the black hole that was British Leyland in the 1970s. Our plants have an international reputation for quality and efficiency, and British car designers are sought the world over for their innovation and style. The factories stand idle at the moment only because of a once-in-a-lifetime collapse in sales caused by the banking crisis, not because the products are no good.

The second is the likelihood that the current crisis will trigger the long-awaited cull of excess capacity from the world automotive industry. Industry executives frequently complain their companies have the capacity to build about 20% more cars than they can profitably sell. It would be a shame if Britain lost its industry — and the tens of thousands of well-paid, highly skilled jobs that go with it — because it was the only country not to stand behind its domestic plants when the axeman came calling. Temporary loan guarantees, not actual cash injections, should do the trick, and Mandelson should say yes.

Post modernism

ON the subject of Mandelson, I hope he adopts the key recommendations in this week’s long-awaited report from Richard Hooper, chairman of the Independent Review of the Postal Services Sector. The report will show how Royal Mail can be released from addressing a £6 billion pension deficit and ultimately pave the way for privatisation.

The postal service is in danger of dying on its feet against competitors such as Google. Privatisation would enable it to invest more in technology, promote greater efficiency and target growth areas in the delivery service. Regulation needs to be relaxed except for fixing the price of a second-class stamp. There is a structural change taking place in communication, affecting everything from newspapers to television, and Royal Mail must embrace it. A privatisation windfall would be pretty useful.

Pilloried by the press

THERE is a decision that every successful entrepreneur has to take. It is when to walk away from the business that you created or helped create, and to which you devoted every single moment of your working life. It is a tough decision and one that often swings on how large the cheque is that someone is offering.

For David Ross that moment came in 2005 when he went from executive to non-executive deputy chairman at Carphone Warehouse. Co-founder Charles Dunstone chose to stay.

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