Brown pulled plug, say the Rover four

FOUR former MG Rover executives accused of asset-stripping the company blamed Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday for pulling the plug on Britain’s last major car maker, leaving it to collapse in 2005.

They say he took advice from key treasury adviser Baroness Vadera while he was chancellor.

The so-called “Phoenix Four” – John Towers, Nick Stephenson, John Edwards and Peter Beale – say the move clashed with the wishes of Tony Blair, Prime Minister at the time.

A dossier, where the claim was made, is the first attempt by the group to defend themselves, after Peter Mandelson asked the Serious Fraud Office to see if there needed to be a criminal investigation.

The four bought Rover from BMW for a token sum of £10 in 2000.