A 259-year-old company torn to shreds. Britain’s industrial heritage flogged off to asset strippers. Thousands of honest manufacturing jobs put at risk while the hedge funds make millions.

In the wake of Melrose’s victorious £8.1bn hostile raid on engineering conglomerate GKN, the cries of outrage were so predictable they almost wrote themselves.

Everyone from Jeremy Corbyn to Michael Heseltine was outraged. Almost immediately the Government, which increasingly has a paper-thin commitment to traditional free-market conservatism, said it would review the deal and may still block it.

And yet that would be the worst possible response. Melrose won the battle fair and square. While jobs may be lost,...