Pardon the language, but being a greedy bastard is not a ground for disqualifying someone as a company director.

Neither is paying your girlfriend's consultancy firm over the odds, as detailed in today's report.
If they were, there would be far more than the Phoenix Four facing the wrath of the department of business. So far, no banker has been struck off — despite enriching themselves with millions and bringing their own organisations to the brink of ruin.

Lord Mandelson may huff and say the four can be barred, but we've been here before with the business secretary. He tried to get them dealt with by the Serious Fraud Office — only for the SFO to turn round and say there was no case
to answer.

With Mandelson too, there is always the suspicion of politics at work. Saying you're going to press for something and letting it grind into the dust of legal procedure and official bureaucracy is one of the oldest tricks in the manual of the political grandstander. If Mandelson is going to push ahead, he is going to have to come up with watertight reasoning — that isn't going to see the taxpayer shell out vast sums to become bogged down in court hearings and subsequent appeals with men who, as we know all too well, are now very wealthy indeed.

He may be able to do so. I hope he does find a solid argument, not just for the cost to the public purse, but because the spectacle of the former bosses walking away with so much money from a company that was going nowhere — yet had thousands of people depending on it and had received millions in government subsidy — certainly sticks in this craw. But if the four are to appear in the dock, others should join them — at least to face public cross-examination if not legal retribution. It's not clear why, for instance, Mandelson's predecessors in government took the step that they did.

They could have steered Rover to Alchemy Partners, the smartly managed private-equity group, but chose not to. Probably they were afraid that the Alchemy chiefs, after financial wizardry had been applied, might make fortunes from the deal, resulting in accusations of negligence and political embarrassment. In which case, they got the same result but with the Phoenix mob.

In truth, even if Rover had gone to Alchemy, it's doubtful if anything could be done to save it as a UK-based, mid-market car manufacturer. The troubles of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler illustrate all too well the struggle a small independent would have faced in a global industry that was wilting under the credit crunch and consumer downturn.