A better class of joke
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"FOR the ideal Christmas present," said Maggie's brother Cromwell, "I would choose an appointment to a quango such as the Price Commission."
''Like the rest of us,'' I said, "you want to have power without responsibility."
"What I have more in mind,said Cromwell, "is the scope the job gives to the practical joker."
"He would need a macabre sense of humour," I said, "if the Commission's report on the road haulage industry is any guide.
"And Cromwell's sense of humour is nothing if not macabre," said Maggie.'
"Blame it all on a Russian named Pavlov,said Cromwell.
-We did him in sociology the other day," said Charlotte. "He had a circus act with dogs. He rang them every meal-time; and in the end it only needed the sound of the telephone to start their mouths watering ."
-I suppose the lesson you were taught," said Cromwell, "was that the mere announcement of a public inquiry on a motorway starts the saliva flowing in an environmentalist."
"It's not fair," Charlotte complained. "You have been looking at my exercise book.
"And you still have to explain the connection between Pavlov's • dogs and Roy Hattersley's watchdog," I said.
"For a change this time,said Cromwell. "The dog is carrying out his experiments on humans."
, "I am pleased to hear it,said Maggie. "Your friend Pavlov 'sounds a very unfeeling man, using poor dogs to prove what 'everybody knows in any case."
"When I say humans," Cromwell continued, "perhaps I should be more explicit and say hauliers."' "You are surely not suggesting," I said, "that the Commission places them somewhat lower on the evolutionary scale: although certainly the report makes a lot of what it calls 'scope for improve.ment,' and warns hauliers that they will be 'kept under continuing review.' " "On this point the Commission is being completely serious," said Cromwell.
"So this is not where we come across Pavlov's conditioned reflex," I inquired.
-Convinced that the Commission, like most quangos, is composed mainly of old gossips," said Cromwell, "the R H A has largely ignored, or accepted more or less tolerantly, most of the nanny :element in the report." ' "It has even picked over the bones," I agreed, "to find one or two complimentary references to its members."
"Just a smoke screen for the Commission's little joke," said Cromwell. "Where it really has fun is in listing what it calls 'remedial measures' to improve productivity. The choice can only have been calculated to make the average haulier foam at the mouth."
"The reaction was certainly of that kind," I agreed.
"How could it be otherwise?" Cromwell asked "How often, ,-rom the time of the defunct Prices and Incomes Board, and even .earlier, have haulierS had to endure being told loftily that all their troubles and worries would be cured by midnight deliveries, by fitting tachographs, by charging demurrage or by the ministratione of the angelic host of clearing houses."
"Certainly," I admitted, "this has happened so frequently that , hauliers were almost bound to respond automatically, like Pavlov's dogs."
"It is only natural justice, however," said Cromwell, "that the Commission should meet its match in the NEC. Perhaps, as a state-owned undertaking, it is more easily able to understand the quango mentality." "Do you mean that this time the tables are turned and the joke is ! on the Commission?" I asked.
"I should very much like to know," said Cromwell, "how the Commission enjoys being made to feel, for a change, that it is being treated as the not very bright pupil well towards the bottom of the class."
"The NEC has, of course, covered much the same ground as the RHA," I said, "and come to much the same conclusion."
-It has attacked the report in a different way," Cromwell pointed out, -Notably by rearranging the wording. For example, the Commission puts its basic principle in the following terms: 'The main scope for holding down costs lies in increasing operational, efficiency.' " "A typical platitude, no doubt," I said. "But, according to your contention, it could have been composed deliberately to get the hauliers' adrenalin flowing."
"The NFC turns the point neatly," said Cromwell, "by paraph-• rasing the Commission's recommendation so that it becomes: ; 'Efficiency improvements should act as a substitute for real price rises over the next 12 months.' Whether or not this is how the Commission would prefer to put the case, the NEC has no hesitation in rejecting it."
"Which sounds an authentic condemnation," I said, "How can there be any substitute for the real thing?" "By such reasoning,said Cromwell, "the NFC teases the Commission rather than the other way round. It is as though the wretched dogs had spoiled Pavlov's experiment by demanding a, change of diet. The Commission's whole existence is put even more'. clearly at risk in the NFC's conclusion: 'Improving efficiency in the: industry is likely to cost money in the short term and the overall' restriction on price increases suggested by the Commission would penalise the enterprising in favour of those prepared to accept the status quo. "
"In other words,I said, "if you want a better service, you must pay for it, Not an unreasonable suggestion." 'But unlikely to please the Commission or its masters,'" sale Cromwell. "Perhaps after all I should prefer my Christmas proem. to be a seat on the NFC Board. You get a better class of joke there."
...byJanus.