Britain's assets are slowly being nationalised, unfortunately not by us

It is not necessary to be a raving protectionist to feel a sense of absurdity at the takeover of bus and train operator Arriva by German state-owned train company Deutsche Bahn. The UK's mania for privatisation of industries such as rail, nuclear and utilities has led to important British assets being nationalised by a foreign government. EDF, a French state company, owns nuclear power group British Energy, along with several local electricity franchises; the Dutch state railway owns chunks of our network, German state telecoms company Deutsche Telekom bought T-Mobile in the UK and Deutsche Post has a licence to deliver letters here. Then there are the sovereign wealth funds controlled by foreign governments, which bought chunks of Barclays Bank, P&O's ports and Manchester City football club. This may not be a terrible thing. It may even be a good thing – the French government will probably do a better job of running nuclear power than ours. But these takeovers are too important to be waved through - and the situation is asymmetric. We did not use our North Sea oil revenues to create a sovereign wealth fund of our own; state-owned British firms are not on shopping sprees, and our open door policy towards bids is not replicated in Paris, Berlin, or even Washington DC. I have been arguing for several years that there needs to be a public debate on foreign takeovers – a lonely view until US company Kraft's takeover of British chocolate-maker Cadbury brought the issue centre stage. Support is gathering for a tightening of takeover rules. The Tories are quiet on the subject but Labour and the Liberal Democrats want to lock short-term investors out of the voting, so firms cannot be bought and sold at the behest of hedge funds. The Lib Dems want to subject takeovers to a public interest test on whether a deal would serve the UK economy. Even bosses' club the Institute of Directors has joined in , backing Labour's manifesto proposal to introduce a "Cadbury rule" so hostile takeovers can only go through on a "super-majority" of two thirds of shareholders in the target. The captains of industry actually go further, and say the higher threshold should apply to the bidder as well. A major motivator for takeovers is the rewards they decant into boardrooms, legal firms, investment banks and PR advisers. The incentives in the top ranks of a target company are stacked towards succumbing to a hostile bidder, after racking up the price. In the case of Kraft, "winner" Irene Rosenfeld had a 40% pay rise to £17m last year, but "loser" Todd Stitzer, the former Cadbury chief executive, walked away with £40m in cash, shares and pension . The hedge funds just want a quick return and even "long-term" shareholders often prefer to cash out at a profit to boost their quarterly performance figures. It is not an environment conducive to the welfare of employees or pension fund members, or to the long-term interests of the UK.