This doesn't bode well for the nation's favourite chocolate brand.

Cadbury's new American owner has admitted that it reneged on its promise to keep the Somerdale factory open, simply because it couldn't be bothered to check out a rival Polish factory.

A Kraft executive has come under fire from British MPs today and the heated exchange has thrown up some hilarious comments... although this is obviously no laughing matter for the workers of Somerdale who are now out of a job.

The Unite union called for a 'Cadbury law' on foreign takeovers.

Boo! Hiss! Those villains at Kraft, who tore the heart out of our great British chocolate-making heritage have now gone back on a promises to keep a Cadbury factory open by announcing that they will in fact shut it and lose 400 jobs.

After their five-month battle to buy Cadbury, which eventually succeeded in January and was signed, sealed and delivered earlier this month, Kraft had decided to reverse an earlier decision by Cadbury's management to shut the Somerdale factory near Bristol.

But further chats with the chaps at the top saw that ambition dashed and now Kraft have announced that after all, Somerdale will shut in 2011.

The pound has perked up a bit lately but there is no escaping the fact that going abroad has become much more expensive in the last couple of years.

Anyone going skiing in France or Austria this winter will feel the pain as they have to shell out much more for ski passes, chalets and food than they used to.

Why has the pound fallen so much and is there any hope that it could become stronger by the time we go on our summer holidays?

The reaction to Kraft's imminent takeover of Cadbury continues to rumble along with the latest news being an announcement from US chocolate maker Hershey that they won't be making a rival bid to the £11.9 billion offer already on the table.

Considering that Hershey were only ever a side-bet on having any involvement, it's strange they even felt it necessary to say anything at all. But it does give you an idea on the backroom machinations that are still going like the clappers in a bid to scupper Kraft's deal.

Everyone has had a say on this most controversial of hostile takeovers, from the Government trying to get Kraft to guarantee jobs to the Dairylea-makers key shareholder Warren Buffet expressing his reservations about the whole deal.

Though it's really down to the shareholders and that offer of 840p a share is mighty tempting.

Cadbury is just the latest in a string of British businesses that have been swallowed up by foreign companies over the years, sparking a wave of national outrage. Disgusted by the group's imminent £12 billion takeover by "processed cheese company" Kraft, some loyal customers have vowed to never buy a Cadbury chocolate bar again.

The list is long and includes big names like Rover, Abbey National, Asda, ICI and Corus. Has Britain gone to the dogs?

Finally, the global cheesemaker Kraft made Britain's chocolate giant Cadbury an offer they just couldn't refuse.

Sweeter than a tin of Roses, the deal looks like a mega-cash windfall for Cadbury shareholders with the Americans upping their original offer of £10.2 billion – kicked into touch by the Dairy Milk manufacturers – to a whopping £11.7 billion.

The Cadbury board reacted sniffily to the first offer, which put the value of their shares at around 760p, and told Kraft they'd have to do a lot better if they were serious about any sort of takeover. So Kraft have. They've come back with an offer of around 850p a share leaving the Cadbury board, which has to put the financial interests of its shareholders first and foremost, no option but to recommend that they accept the deal.

Cheese or chocolate, which do you prefer?

Because if Cadbury and Kraft really want to settle their ongoing dispute once and for all, then maybe they can just ask all the shareholders of the globally-known British chocolate brand that one simple question and leave out all the bad-mouthing.

The manufacturers of Dairy Milk have called on their shareholders not to let Kraft "steal their company" in the latest episode of the ongoing takeover saga that has seen the British company already rejecting an offer of around £10.5 billion.

The chocolate war took a dramatic turn in Cadbury's favour this week as key Kraft shareholder and über-billionaire Warren Buffet suggested a hostile takeover was not in the US company's interests.

And that meant they had blinked first in this stand-off with the stubborn Brits, who have snorted with derision at the £10.2 billion on offer for their business, dismissing Kraft as a "low-growth conglomerate" while being very uppish about their own business prospects.

With Nestlé passing on any interest at all in the whole thing, that leaves just Hershey, from the States, and maybe Ferrero from Italy as any sort of players.

It has been another grim year for the world economy, but 2009 could have been a lot worse than it was.

Some had predicted a re-run of the Great Depression of the 1930s, but to everyone's relief most major economies – with the notable exception of the UK – pulled out of recession by the summer. The year ended with fresh crises in Dubai and Greece, though.

Banks were little chastened by the crisis and were soon back to their old ways. Ignoring calls for restraint, they tried to pay themselves massive bonuses as though nothing had happened.

Walletpop looks at the main financial events of the year.

Hostile takeovers are never that straightforward but the fact that Cadbury and Kraft are both household names across the globe makes their current spat particularly entertaining.

It started back in September when, apparently out of the blue, US-based Kraft bid £10.2 billion for the much-loved British chocolate maker. There was a loud harrumphing from the West Midlands as Cadbury dismissed the offer as derisory.

And that was just the beginning.

Cadbury isnow facing a second takeover bid after a US chocolate maker announced it was looking at launching a joint offer with the Ferrero company from Italy.

This comes just weeks after Kraft reconfirmed its £10 billion offer for the British brand. To really understand the situation, think of the whole thing in terms of chocolate. Obviously Cadbury is one of the UK's leading brands while, amongst other things, Kraft make Toblerone, Hershey makes Creme Eggs under licence in the States and Ferrero makes.... well just let me say, "Ambassador, you are spoiling us".

Put them all together and you have one big, yummy choccie mess.

Ooh, I can't wait! The recession ends this week!

That's because we're expecting good economic news on Friday as growth figures are reported from the three-month period from July to September. If national output is up, however modestly, then it's champagne all-round, cue dancing girls and a big brass band all the way up Threadneedle Street. Already, in the build-up, experts are pencilling in a 0.2% rise in that figure.

Officially, that would spell the end of the recession as it would put and end to the decline in growth.

Grim unemployment figures continue to dog our hopes of a happy ending to the economic tale of woe, and the particularly unsettling is the news that one in five of 16 to 24-year-olds is out of work, the highest level since Office of National Statistics records began in 1992.

When a word like unemployment starts to be heard to often, there is a fear that it's losing its impact or just, well, being too negative. So I notice there's even a new euphemism for unemployment now bandied around, it's called being 'economically inactive'.

Either way, that means a lot of youngsters hanging round the house watching Jeremy Kyle or Living TV all day. It's also pretty depressing for the rest of us

Bonus bunfight

Expect it all to kick off next week when the European leaders head off to Pittsburgh for a meeting of the G20. High on the agenda will be bankers and their bonuses with the EU leaders looking to put specific links in place between bonuses and long-term performances by those in the finance industry.