It was three days ago that the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders was insisting that there must be large government subsidy to the building of battery gigafactories. Otherwise, woe is us, this will be the death knell of the British car industry:

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Trades (SMMT) has launched a new Go Fund Me campaign. Except, of course, they’re demanding rather than asking politely for our money as they insist that government pick up many of the costs of their business.

We must all pay for gigafactories and fuel cell plants and rewiring the entire country for battery chargers and on. The correct answer to which is do it with your own money mateys.

We now learn that:

Nissan has confirmed plans to build a “gigafactory” to make batteries for electric cars as well as a new electric car as part of a £1 billion expansion of its Sunderland factory that will create thousands of jobs.

The investment by the Japanese carmaker, its Chinese partner Envision AESC and the government will create 6,200 jobs at the Sunderland plant and its supply chains.

Vast sums of our money, cash from us taxpayers out here, are not required. The capitalists are entirely happy - well, at least some of them are - to spend their own.

We can thus deposit the demand for our wealth into the round under-desk filing cabinet as we always should have done anyway.

Well, that didn’t take long then, did it?