THE Phoenix Four today accused the Government of a “witchhunt” and “whitewash”– and bottling the last chance to save MG Rover and over 6,000 jobs at Longbridge.

John Towers, Peter Beale, Nick Stephenson and John Edwards rounded fiercely on New Labour with a string of angry claims that Downing Street directly caused the collapse of the last British-owned volume car maker.

In a furious response to today’s release of the Government report, the Phoenix Four said: “The report is entirely as we expected – a witchhunt against us and a whitewash for the government.

“It is also dripping with the hallmarks of this government – spin, smear and point blank refusal to take any responsibility for their own actions.

“We criticised the government for failing to help MG Rover. As we have seen elsewhere, there is a price to be paid for criticising this government and for us this report is that price.

“The government was, however, willing to spend £18 million of taxpayers’ money on a report – many millions more than they ever gave MG Rover. Not surprisingly, they have got a version of events that suits their interests.

“This report was supposed to explain why MG Rover collapsed and it has failed to do that. Our remuneration was not the reason for the collapse. The real reason it collapsed is because this country’s government bottled its chance to save MG Rover.”