“The lifeboat is coming – we just have to keep rowing,” is how one Chrysler boss describes his company’s predicament. But after failing for a third time to secure a congressional bail-out, the vessel sent to rescue it and General Motors is taking on water and listing badly. No fear – the unsinkable USS George W. Bush is embarking on one last rescue mission before sailing off into the sunset.

The failure of the latest rescue plan in the Senate and the reversal by the White House of its decision not to tap funds meant for banks should make anyone cynical about the ability of the US government to do a better job of sorting out Detroit’s problems than the bankruptcy courts. A last-minute counterproposal by Senate Republicans that would have had conditions not dissimilar to a Chapter 11 reorganisation was rejected as too onerous. It called for creditors to take a 70 per cent haircut, employees to accept the same wages and benefits as those at non-unionised, foreign-owned carmakers and for the United Auto Workers to accept payment partially in shares for the billions GM pledged to their health fund. If the original idea of a “car tsar” had been adopted, these might have been his suggestions too, but the lack of power vested in such a position would probably have yielded the same rejection.