There'll Beano delay!
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When a Brighton Corporation conductor stopped his bus while he nipped off to buy a comic, a passenger wrote in complaint and the matter duly came up during a hearing before the South Eastern Traffic Commissioners.
Said transport manager Richard Clarke (according to the local Evening Argus): "I would take a dim view of a conductor stopping a bus to buy any sort of publication."
What, no exceptions? Not even Connnereial Motor?
It seems to have been a hearing at which quite a lot of sharp comments were made. A councillor complained that Brighton buses were untidy, while Dutch buses were spotless. Traffic manager Michael Rourke, of Southdown, is reported to have replied that Dutch people were clean and tidy, while Brighton people were not! And when the president of Brighton Trades Council said Brighton deserved as good a bus service as Stockholm, Mr Rourke retorted that the Stockholm flat fare was 25p.
Frustrated Europeans
There's a topical en i tle eoeur in the annual report of the EEC's Economic and Social Committee, just published. After listing some of the achievements of the Community, the chairmen's preface goes on:
"But persistent internal weaknesses make the Community vulnerable: the lack of unity on the energy front, delays in the implementation of economic and monetary union, gaps in the common transport policy, insufficient progress in the social field, procrastination in introducing the regional policy, lack of imagination and concrete proposals
Smears
Having said that, as a keen proEuropean myself I am alarmed to see the smear techniques which the antiEEC lobby has already started to use. A van which I followed this morning carried a sticker proclaiming that "idiots and traitors" got us into the Common Market, and calling for us to get out.
The poster was appropriately printed on bright pink paper, so I can guess the sort of politics behind it, but it is just one more example of the current technique of making your opponent seem so outrageously insupportable that even those who agree with him are reluctant to stand up and be counted.
I am also saddened to see URTU, which I've always thought a reasonable body, publishing such a prejudiced attack on continued EEC. membership in its paper Wheels. The leading front-page feature by a Mr Ron Leighton opens with: "Why do British Conservatives favour membership of the Common Market?" and goes on to quote Sir Christopher Soames before spelling out a case against membership.
I would only ask Mr Leighton to rephrase the question: "Why do British Socialists favour membership of the Common Market?" and then try to answer it in terms of the replies which Harold Wilson, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins etc might give. Or doesn't Mr Leighton think they are Socialists, in his terms? •
Dear me, aren't I getting uncharacteristically political.