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BET faced 'blackmail', say Tories
Page 63
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BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT CONSERVATIVE MPs believe that the Transport Holding Company's 35m takeover of BET's bus company interests is a strong confirmation of rumours that Mrs. Castle's original, well-leaked proposals for PTAs have been changed.
Only five weeks after her emissaries were going round "desperately trying to sell the old concept," the whole country now thinks that new ideas have now been put forward, said Tory spokesman Mr. Michael Heseltine (Tavistock) at the weekend.
Whatever the new proposals are, the Tory party is ready to fight them—though the fire of their campaign has been momentarily quenched by uncertainty and they will have to mark time, like the rest of us, until the long overdue White Paper comes out.
Publication of the Paper should only be a matter of days, but meanwhile BET has quit the firing line. Said Mr Heseltine in an interview with COMMERCIAL MOTOR: "I can sympathize with their Board, even if I would have been reluctant to take the same decision."
He continued that the situation for the Company was full of anguish. In the end, they knew the score. They were threatened with government by blackmail.
"They were faced with a clear choice— sell out now at a price they believed to be in their shareholders' interests, or sweat it out, losing bus company after bus company, route after route as the PTAs grew in number."
Blackmail, added Mr Heseltine, was a technique now widely popular with the present Government. "Sooner or later free enterprise will have to turn and stand, or we shall find that, by a simple procedure of divide and conquer, there is little left."
The Conservatives are under no doubt that Mrs. Castle inspired the takeover, for which she has to ask Parliament for the cash. They say that while the THC took what they believed to be a good commercial decision to rationalize operations, the decision could only be fully understood in the context of the present political climate—especially the proposals to set up PTAs throughout the whole country.
'The writing is on the wall as long as this Government lasts," Mr Heseltine said. "Not only for the bus industry but for anyone involved in the country's transportation system.
"Mrs. Castle's speech to the Labour Party Conference in October spelled out as clearly as was necessary her personal demand that she and she alone is to be the final arbiter. Her ideas, her decisions, her commands— it is after all what socialism is all about. What right have we to be surprised?"
In thc field of passenger transport, he added, her arrogance took the form of her decision -to steamroller her PTA proposals through the united opposition of the municipal authorities and the bus companies.
The Labour majority at Westminster will see she gets her way."
Readers of COMMERCIAL MOTOR will remember that Mrs. Castle warned the Tories some time ago that they were welcome to the PTA proposals which had leaked out, because they were already out of date.
Last week's news was a firm indication she was not bluffing. Removal of BET from the battlefield has shaken the opponents of PTAs, and put the industry in a bigger dither than ever over the axe which they believe is to fall. The cavalier proposals for the road haulage industry have added to the general apprehension.
The PVOA says there is an undeniable feeling, among the leaders of the industry's opposition to the proposals circulated last June, that there has been at least a partial victory for common sense. Surprisingly, the executive committee of VOICE decided on Wednesday that the projected sale of the BET bus interests to THC did not change the situation in such a way as to affect the organization of VOICE. It stated that the PVOA and the British Omnibus Companies public relations committee were still entirely opposed to operational PTAs. But if this means that BET is still in the campaign, it can hardly expect its general managers to stick their necks out by continuing active opposition when they are all too soon likely to be absorbed into the State organization.