Let's educate our masters
Page 4
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THIS TIME next week we will know the result of the only poll that matters. Claims and counter claims, promises and denials have abounded during the campaign. Yet on one subject the parties have been strangely quiet — transport.
Apart from Labour's promise of nationalisation, the parties have been keeping a low profile. It seems that road transport does not figure in the vote-catching ratings.
This is a sign of things to come. As always we will find that the voice of the Minister of Transport will go largely unheeded in the Cabinet room — assuming that the Prime Minister believes transport to merit Cabinet rank.
The industry must be ready to present a transport plan to the new minister. It must speak with one voice on road planning, vehicle development, bilateral agreements, vehicle excise duty, gross vehicle weights and EEC harmonisation.
In the past there have been too many lobbies in road transport. The Minister is a transient person who cannot be expected to understand the importance of road transport immediately after taking office. The industry offers him an education — preferably a crash course.
CM's campaign to improve the image of road transport has already identified politicians as being the first group to be influenced and that means the Minister of Transport in the first place.
We serve advance notice on the new Minister now. We will lend support where it is merited; we will criticise when justified; and we will continue to campaign vigorously to elevate road transport to its proper standing in Britain's "commercial, industrial and social life.