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For Trade Secretary Stephen Byers, the Rover disaster seems to heap embarrassment on him on a daily basis.
First he was kept in the dark and had to admit it, then he was forced to confess he probably couldn't have done anything anyway.
As the fallout from the affair started to engulf him, he then switched tack and expressed his outrage at BMW's decision, accused the company of deliberately misleading him and claimed it was "not a done deal" - sparking hopes of better offers in the pipeline. So far there have been no takers.
Now, reports that he has pushed BMW into offering massive investment into Longbridge have been brushed aside by the company which suggested it wasn't going to throw good money after bad.
The government, eager to divert attention away from Mr Byers' role, is insisting that the secretary of state is not to blame for the affair and is venting its anger on BMW.
Critics, however, claim Mr Byers should have picked up on the "numerous, very clear hints" the company insists it gave him about their intentions, and intervened.
Downing Street dismiss that insisting that on earlier occasions other firms, such as Fujitsu in the prime minister's own constituency, discussed job losses with ministers, allowing them to produce plans to salvage as much work as possible.
Citing the Fujitsu case, the prime minister's official spokesman Alastair Campbell has said the company's willingness to co-operate had helped 95% of the 600 people made redundant last year to find new work.
Damaged reputation
But the affair has clearly damaged Mr Byers' reputation and left many asking, if he could do nothing for Rover, what is the point of him at all or his department at all?
 Michael Heseltine: arch-interventionist
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Back in the "bad old days" of the 1970s, Labour ministers constantly bailed out struggling, then state-owned industries like British Leyland (one of the old names for the Rover Group) and very often still failed to turn the tide.
New Labour was determined never to return to those days and adopted a far more hands-off approach.
But many fear they have gone too far and that Mr Byers has become the Nicholas Ridley of the government, rather than the Michael Heseltine.
It was Mr Heseltine who re-christened his job President of the Board of Trade when he took over in 1992 with the clear aim of making it the most important Whitehall department after the Treasury.
He famously declared at the Tory conference in 1992: "If I have to intervene to help British companies, I'll intervene before breakfast, before lunch, before tea and before dinner. And I'll get up the next morning and I'll start all over again."
And he was without doubt one of the most interventionist Tory ministers, particularly where Europe was concerned.
He remains hugely proud of the fact that he persuaded Germany, Italy and Spain to back British Aerospace's European Fighter Aircraft, for example.
No in-tray
The late Mr Ridley, on the other hand, was straight from the "leave it to the markets" school and did not believe in state intervention.
 Nicholas Ridley let the markets decide
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But, when the company pleaded with him not to let it be sold off to Ford, he refused to intervene.
The chain-smoking right-winger regularly used to complain that he had a huge department with lots of civil servants but nothing to do. Many believed he wanted the department to be abolished altogether.
Gordon Brown once savaged him during a Commons debate claiming he was running down the department and declaring: "no in-tray, no-out tray, only an ash tray."
That same criticism, justly or otherwise, is now being made of Mr Byers as he presides over one of the biggest industrial disasters in Britain for years.
Mr Ridley was ultimately forced to resign in July, 1990 after insulting Germany by describing the single currency as a "German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe."
Mr Byers' critics believe his career may also be fatally wounded by his clash with Germany.
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