De La Rue: passport to petulance

“The tower of twaddle” over blue passports “has seen Brexiteer mania reach new heights of farce”, says Jim Armitage: “How dare the Government allow the French to win the high-security contract to print our glorious non-eu passports.” Perhaps emboldened by the row, De La Rue, the British printer that lost the contract, is mounting an appeal. “To Home Office old hands, it’s déjà vu all over again.” In 2009, when De La Rue snatched the deal from the US firm 3M, “the Americans cried foul too”, in a similar display of petulance. It’s also worth remarking that for the decade that 3M ran the contract, “we didn’t hear a peep” from the “patriots” protesting now. De La Rue’s “Land of Hope and Glory” lobbying feels like “poor judgement” from chief Martin Sutherland – and not for the first time. His clumsy handling of a recent profit warning “gave the worst possible view of the company”, prompting shares to crash. Sutherland will only have himself to blame if his next job is fending off a foreign takeover bid. “Imagine the Brexiteers’ bleating then.”