Norman Tebbit has them cheering
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THE TORIES are assured of at least 800 or so votes on June 9. Harold Russett, chairman, at the Road Haulage Association annual dinner, had only to mention the name of Norman Tebbitt, Employment Secretary, who epitomises Conservative policy, to produce a muffled cheer. When in a 28-minute party political broadcast he outlined the Government's attitude towards industrial relations, he was cheered to the echo and left the audience shouting for more.
He had, he said, been too busy tidying his desk to have had time to change into a dinner jacket. "This is do-it-yourself week," he added — an allusion to the fact that he was not delivering a written speech. On the Press table we wondered how what he was saying differed from the speech that he would have made before the General Election was announced.
The Employment Secretary opened with some diverting badinage which softened up the guests for the hard sell that followed. I particularly liked his story about the Irishman who aroused police suspicion when he was stopped with an empty horsebox. "To be sure," said the driver, "I'm taking the nonrunners to The Curragh for the meeting."
The Government's new penal scale of taxation on 38-tonners is also producing non-runners.