Donald Stokes, beleaguered head of British Leyland, dies aged 94

The ebullient British industrial Donald Stokes, infamous for his chairmanship of British Leyland from 1968 to 1975, died yesterday (21 July).

During his time at the head of the ill-fated company, he oversaw the merger of most of the British car industry but failed to halt a decline in competitiveness against American and European rivals.

Today’s newspaper obituaries use words like “unenviable” and “intractable” to describe the task, and he is excused on account of his “brave try”.

Mr Stokes himself (later Lord Stokes) was a resilient and cunning man who never let the criticism he received at the time dampen his efforts, but he might have found bitter irony in the posthumous pardon he has received from the same papers who were pillorying him 40 years ago for failing at a task “in which the greatest managerial genius could never have succeeded”.