WHAT’S going on at General Motors?

Just a few days ago, the US carmaker was on the brink of announcing a deal to sell its European business, including Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant, to Canadian car components firm Magna International, which is backed by a Russian bank and the German government. Now, almost at the eleventh hour, GM appears to have got cold feet.

Instead, the firm is talking to other European governments, including our own, about an alternative rescue package that could see Detroit retain a stake in its European subsidiary.

Maybe, now that GM has come out of bankruptcy, the folks in Detroit feel that the way ahead looks less doubtful than it did at the start of the year. Talk of the credit crunch is fading and car sales in some markets are picking up and Germany and France appear to have climbed out of recession, which should lead to fresh sales impetus for the Opel cars.

It would be a lot better for Vauxhall and Opel, and their workforces, if they remained in the ownership of a big, solvent, carmaker. Yes GM is not the company it once was, but it has the design skills and production expertise needed to take car manufacture into the future, more so than the would be bidders.

Yet I suspect what we heard yesterday is nothing more than a bit of brinkmanship. The Americans are probably irked by some onerous aspect of the deal and want to suggest to Magna that they may go elsewhere.

The idea that other European governments are going to muscle in on what appears to be an area of particular German concern is unlikely. It’s not hard to imagine the protracted nature of any talks involving the British or French or Spanish governments as they argue about where any factory closures would fall. That would take just too long to sort out. My money is on the original Magna deal being completed before too long.

PEEL Holdings is one of the biggest and most successful companies in the North West. It is a genuinely enterprising business, with successful ventures under its belt. Among other assets, it owns Liverpool John Lennon Airport, the Port of Liverpool and other docks in Britain and Ireland.

But with strikes in full swing at Liverpool Airport and Marine Terminals in Dublin, it’s hard to avoid the idea that Peel is not too good at managing industrial relations.

Clearly times are hard for us all. And this includes Peel, which has to run a tight ship for the time being because its own finances are challenged.

It’s improbable that Peel would go bust, but the fact is the group has heavy debts. Liverpool John Lennon Airport has suffered a significant downturn in passenger numbers last year and has yet to make a profit.

Sea trade is also suffering. Some types of cargo have suffered as much as a 90% drop in volumes in recent times as a result of the world recession. So the argument that big pay packages are unsustainable has got to be right. It has also got to be right that if trade has slumped, fewer dock workers are needed.

Yet Peel’s approach, including the hiring of former soldiers to beef up security at Dublin, appears heavy handed. It would be a pity if the strike did spread to other Peel operations. Hopefully, for the sake of the reputation of the region, it won’t.