WHO'S BACKING BRITAIN?
Page 26
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
I SUPPORT all that D. R. Price says (CM, March 15) regarding Texaco's disposal of its own vehicles and transfer of its distribution to Tankfreight which is using foreign manufactured vehicles to do its work.
Texaco is by no means the only large company to have this anti-British attitude. We ourselves recently lost around 75 per cent of our work when the Ford Motor Company — in its infinite wisdom — informed all its suppliers that it would arrange for the collection of all its parts and promptly gave the contract to Archbolds of Trafford Park (via McGregor Cory Warehousing), which in turn sub-contracts the work to owner-drivers, the majority of whom are using foreign manufactured vehicles.
Archbolds is itself a dealer for Iveco, and all this comes when Ford's own truck plant at Langley is suffering a four-day week and the gradual closure of one of its plants.
I have also recently seen two trailers boasting the words "GM Parts — genuine parts for Vauxhall and Bedford" — one of which was being pulled by a Volvo F7 and the other by a Daf, but yet we are being told that General Motors has the interests of British industry at heart.
But the American-owned companies are by no means the only culprits. Howard Tennens is now using Dafs to carry Unipart containers.
I have included below a list of large companies (some even include British in their name) all of which use foreign vehicles: British Home Stores, Mercedes; MFI, Daf; Transhield (Marks & Spencer), Dal; British Sugar, Mercedes; Thorn EMI, Volvo and Magirus Deutz; Habitat, Daf; British Beef, Mercedes.
These are but a few of the companies who rely on the British workman to buy their products, but do not support him by buying the products he manufactures. The depth to which this uncaring attitude has gone was highlighted when a very interesting advertisement appeared in Today (March 12). The parcel carrier Independent Express tells how most of its competition for the distribution of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers via Scania artics and VW vans is Australian-owned; Lex Wilkinson Overnight is American-owned; Parceline is Australian-owned, and so on. Then, on the same advertisement is the slogan: "Independent Express — British to the core and proud of it". All of this written below a full-colour picture of one of its many MAN artics! Just how British can you get!
I would like to join Mr Price in his protest by not purchasing goods or using services provided by these companies, although I feel that nothing will alter these companies' attitude until these facts are brought to the attention of the public at large, especially the infamous three million.
Colin B. Sandiford
Brian Sandiford (Coarhe,; and
General Haulage) Osivaldtwistle Lancashire