Bird's Eye
Page 42
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ViewBY THE HA WK
Carry on legislating!
A DOMESTIC CRISIS is facing the Minister of Transport, Mrs. Barbara Castle, and her husband Ted.
I understand that, in order to be nearer the Ministry, Mrs. Castle and her husband have just taken a long lease on a second-floor flat in John Spencer Square, Canonbury, for about £8,000—only to find that a four-lane highway has been planned 10 yards from their door!
Mrs. Castle's Ministry will soon transform the vista from the sitting room window into a noisy, bustling panorama of earthmovers, bulldozers, pneumatic drills and so on. This was all news for Ted Castle who exclaimed at hearing some of the grim details.
"We were told that there would be some road improvements, arranged long before my wife became Minister, but we did not look into it any further," admitted Mr. Castle.
Sounds like an outstanding example of lack of proper coordination to me!
Evil thoughts
ONE of the nasty, suspicious men in this office thought that perhaps British Railway's gigantic road vehicle fleet would be largely exempt from the impending haulage tax, as announced in the White Paper. Much to his surprise, BR operates no fewer than 8,930 vehicles which will have to pay up; that is, over 3 tons unladen. But more than half that number will be exempt-4,850 to be precise ... so THERE.
Devaluation devalued
WHEN Sir Donald Stokes vacated the chair of MIRA last week he spoke of the grave situation facing the commercial vehicle manufacturing industry today. He described the Minister of Transport's proposals aimed at transferring traffic from road to rail as a ridiculous restriction on the commercial vehicle industry.
Sir Donald reminded his audience that the Geddes Report had said that rail could only cope with an additional 6 per cent on its existing traffic. It was his opinion that this hasty and ill-considered action by Mrs. Barbara Castle will defeat the object of a more recent action by the Prime Minister.
C'mon—no, don't
ENSNARED as I am by the Quixotic appeal of the Emerald Isle,! was looking forward to a quick trip to Dublin this week to the opening of Irish Ferryways' new unit load depot at Tolka Quay, Dublin.
Everything was laid on to mark this CIE-Ferry Trailers Ltd. enterprise.
Now a letter from my would-be hosts tells me ". .. it would be unwise of us to encourage you to accept our invitation to attend the function in Dublin. I feel sure you will appreciate the difficult position in which we find ourselves."
To be sure I do. "Ireland of the Welcomesis in the throes of what is to us all a remarkable and painful about face, in which they have our sympathy. Current Government policy there demands they must discourage visitors.
The foot-and-mouth epidemic is serious enough for our own economy; in Ireland, it could be catastrophic. So the Minister of Agriculture has urged people not to travel between Ireland and Britain, if it can be avoided. He has appealed to Irishmen working in Britain not to return home for Christmas. Understandably, Irish Ferryways thus found themselves with the unenviable task of asking would-be guests not to accept their invitation. We'll wait.
Silent. . . er, Knight?
I SUPPOSE it was inevitable that before long the Ministry of Transport's "silent" roadside checks would throw up some odd information when the details are checked with a haulier's records. One big fleet manager tells me he has just fired a driver, who, when the Ministry man's information was produced in his office, was found to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time—and going in the wrong direction!
A woman's work is. . •
CORRESPONDENCE on drivers' hours has brought this pained. but no less relevant, comment from a long distance man in the North East: "Anyone from a miner to a managing director can work a shift then drive a car as many hours as he wants to. So can I. After I have completed my shift at the wheel I can drive a car as long as I like to anywhere I like and no-one can do anything about it."
Right! Now where's the legislation going to stop?
Aldershot's record
"THE. AVERAGE Aldershot Traction driver operates 28,702 miles a year and carries 111,744 passengers," said Mr. P. Scully, Aldershot and District Traction Co. Ltd. general manager, recently. For the record, they do it highly competently. For Mr. Scully was speaking at a dinner held to present awards gained by the company's drivers in the Road Operators' Safety Council's competition for safe driving.
In all, 213 Aldershot Traction drivers qualified for awards in the 1966 competition and, when making the presentations, Maj.General A. F. J. Elmslie, Chairman of the South Eastern Traffic Commissioners, emphasized the example they had set by their achievements.
Happy Christmas?
MPs WISHED Mrs. Barbara Castle "Happy Christmas" last Thursday by slapping down 114 questions for her to answer in the Commons on December 20. More than two-thirds came from Tories, and it seems certain she will face a record-breaking total of queries when she appears as No. 1 on the list that day. With another two weeks to go her total is likely to end up around the 150 mark—a record even for the high scoring Ministry of Transport.