Magna - backed by Russia's state owned Sberbank and Gaz group - was seen as the preferred bidder by the German government as it offered the prospect of fewer job losses in Germany. The German government has made available a bridging loan of €1.5 billion to keep Opel going.

Just before GM entered bankruptcy, GM Europe (which employs around 55,000 workers), was separated from its US parent and placed in a trust fund. Whether to be able to present a number of potential bids to the trust fund, or whether to drive a better bargain with Magna, GM never signed an exclusivity deal with Magna and has continued to talk to other bidders, notably RHJ International and Beijing Automotive.

Both are thought to have enhanced their offers. Fiat is sitting this out on the sidelines, despite Marchione's desire to build Fiat into a global player.

Names in the frame apparently include Malaysian group Westar, Indian group Mahindra and Mahindra, and Chinese car firm Nanjing, which bought Mg Rover's assets before itself being taken over by Shanghai Automotive. Other bidders may yet join the fray. The administrators have stated that there could "be some clarity around this within the next two to three weeks."

Not all bidders would aim to keep production in the UK. Whilst Westar have previously stated that they would aim to retain some production in Birmingham, other bidders may well look for a 'lift and shift' of assets and production out to India or the Far East.

Despite the global economic downturn, RR has received 1,500 'serious expressions of interest' in the new Ghost model which is set to be unveiled in September and launched next year. The Ghost model has generated much interest after a prototype has toured the globe. If these expressions of interest were translated into sales they could effectively double RR's annual sales.

It seems that firms - luxury brands included - can (and must) innovate and develop new products for new markets (witness the splendid Jaguar XF as well). In this sense, the new Ghost is critical for RR in extending its product range and moving into new markets. The model will especially aim at a lower price category and hence potential customers who would potentially go for a Bentley Continental Flying Spur instead.

The model could also appeal to the growing numbers of rich people in emerging markets such as Russia and China, even if 'mature' western markets move away from ostentatious displays of wealth, as some seem to suggest will happen post credit-crunch.

Yet that could well change over the next three years unless the UK government steps in, as the seismic changes that have unfolded in the world's auto markets threaten to wipe out mass van production in the UK, leaving only very small niche producers.

At the moment there are three main producers - Ford at Southampton, GM/Renault's joint venture at Luton, and LDV here in Birmingham. The latter has been in suspended animation since December when production was largely stopped as the double whammy of credit crunch and recession impacted.

If current trends continue, all three could effectively have gone by 2012, with all main van demand then having to be met by imports, and with jobs and capacity lost forever.

The key question for the UK government is: does it want a van industry in the UK? If so, it needs to step in with an industrial policy that can make that happen. LDV is a good place to start.

Readers won't need reminding that the van maker ceased production back in December after the double whammy of recession and credit crunch hit the commercial vehicle market, and LDV's Russian owner Gaz ran into its own financial troubles.

Critically, Weststar appears to want to maintain production at LDV's Washwood Heath plant, and also to expand manufacturing in Malaysia (where so far Weststar has imported Maxus van components and assembled them for Asian markets).

LDV employs around 850 workers at its plant, with another 1200 in dealerships. Several thousand more in the supply chain depend on the firm, although it isn't clear how many of these have already lost their jobs in the savage downturn affecting the industry and given that LDV hasn't made a van in months.

That deal is not yet completed, but the news keeps LDV in the game and offers hope that it can indeed pull off yet another famous recovery.

The loan, from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), will - it's hoped - prevent the Brummie van maker from sinking into administration and keep the firm going whilst the deal is sorted out.

Whilst it isn't clear whether Westar, a Malaysian vehicle importer with whom LDV have long-term ties, has guaranteed that production will remain in Britain, it is doubtful whether the British government would be lending the money if UK production wasn't on offer.

Westar is probably the only hope to keep LDV going in Birmingham. If LDV had been forced into administration tomorrow, the most likely outcome would be another lift-and-shift of LDV assets and knowledge out to the Far East as we saw so painfully with MG Rover four years ago.

A rather bungled PR operation by Shanghai should come as no surprise; afterall Chinese state-owned firms going international are very new to dealing with the media, as Duncan Tift notes on the front of Today's Post.

Maybe the experience they gain during the Olympics shortly will help with that. Better communication by Shanghai with the local media, and indeed their own workers, would help a lot here.

Leaving this aside, how much can we actually read into the news that a limited edition run of 500 'new' MG TFs has finally kicked off?

However, something about it set a few alarm bells ringing for me and, on further inspection, this throwaway story turned out to be a nugget of pure viral marketing gold.

It also prised open a family-sized can of worms in my hardened TV researcher's brain and set them wriggling in the part of my cranium that exists to remind me that the web can also be a truth-hunters worst nightmare.

The story concerned Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old kid in Texas who had been arrested after he swiped his dad's credit card and embarked on an epic $30,000 spending spree. This misadventure wound up with him and his mates holed up in a hotel room with a pile of junk food, a brand new Xbox and two nubile $1000-a-night prostitutes procured from the local whorehouse. It also landed Ralph in the arms of the law when the hotel room was raided by the local Texan constabulary after being tipped off by a delivery guy who'd supplied the boys with snacks.

Apparently our young hero claimed he was funding this escapade through the winnings of a World of Warcraft video games contest and, when the high-class call girls questioned his age, he convinced them that he and his friends were in fact "people of restricted growth" who worked for a travelling circus. Even better he went as far to inform them that, if they refused his custom, they would be in direct violation of the state's disability discrimination laws. Only when the boys seemed more interested in playing Halo than getting to grips with their "hired help" did the penny finally drop.

In a strange twist of narrative the poor, misinformed sex workers were released without charge whilst young Ralph was slapped with a three year community order for fraud, presumably ruing the day he figured out his dad's pin number.

Unsurprisingly the story turned out to be complete hogwash. It was later revealed to be the result of a viral marketing experiment by Cornish social media marketer Lyndon Antcliff (aka Lyndoman) who unleashed the story on popular finance site Money.co.uk.

Lyndoman deliberately laced his Munchaussen-esque tale with every conceivable narrative trigger point needed to ensure its viral success.

China, China, China. I have never been and would like to, it seems a lovely place, or at the very least interesting after the latest report on pollution in Beijing.

With the Olympics, they suddenly seem to have become the country to be talked about. Whether it is pollution, human rights, sports, foreign investment, China is the country we want to talk about.

Or do we? Well you answer that question for me...but here are a few of my musings on the subject.

Specifically, one: do we have the right to lecture the Chinese on pollution?

With more than 600,000 players using the Scrabulous application daily, game company Mattel has launched an official Scrabble application to rival the unauthorised version. Unfortunately for Mattel, early signs are that people are sticking with what they know with the official version only attracting 2000 daily views.

Have Mattel missed the boat or can they tempt users over to the official version? More importantly, should they be trying to best their rival or instead take advantage somehow of the renewed interest it seems to have generated in their product?

Europe has continued to perform strongly but has suffered form a lack of structural change which has left cost structures in the Byzantine era. This is made worse by the newly found nationalist sentiment in France and Germany in particular.

So where is there any good news and what hope can we in the UK have for future economic growth?

Emerging Markets have long been touted as the key area for growth, with Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East being the preferred examples. This either because they have vastly growing middle classes such as in India and China or favourable locations for locating manufacturing facilities such has been the case in Eastern Europe.

The problem with all these assertions though is that they fail to understand the basic opportunities that emerging markets provide.