PR PLAN
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Mega Markets plan to make £75,000 by printing and selling teeshirts is a very clever one. How many hauliers would like to make a profit of 10% on all their activities? How many haulers make a 10% profit?
This scheme strikes me as an excuse to flog teeshirts. I feel that Mega Market's sympathy for the plight of road hauliers is a bit too good to be true.
Also, 1750,000 is not an advertising budget. It would not even cover the cost of production for a 30-second TV advert, let alone screen it. Ask a motor manufacturer, for example, what its annual advertising budget is, Joe Public, that mythical beast that hauliers serve so assiduously, could not care less whether Sainsburys, Tesco or his local filling station/sportswear/burger shop is supplied by British hauliers with British drivers any more that he cares about whether they are delivered on British-made vehicles or imported ones.
If he did, he would not drive Citroens, BMWs or Seats. His kitchen would not be by Indesit and his telly would not be a Toshiba. And he most certainly would not holiday in Spain or Florida, despite the sunshine.
As far as Vectra-man or Scorpio-man is concerned, there exist only two types of lorry: the slow one he is stuck behind and the speeding one on his back bumper.
Anyone who imagines that the Government—any government—wants to see off the "cowboys" is living in cloud cuckoo land. Cowboy operators are an anti-inflationary force—they keep rates artificially low, and as one cowboy bites the dust another rides into town on his trusty steed.
Do not place any faith in the Tory party: they just enjoy shouting at the Government. They don't really know or care about road haulage; they simply like the sound of their own voices. New Labour, when they were in opposition? They were going to put the world to rights. And what have they done for you since they were put in power?
Politicians cannot distinguish between operators and pollution. They think that if you get rid of one, you automatically eliminate the other.
Not that they really give a hoot about the environment. All they want is your money. Pathetic, isn't it?
If British haulage wants lobe seen by Joe Public—and the Government—as an indispensable service, it should send all its drivers on a week's holiday next Friday evening. Fat chance: hauliers are too busy cutting each other's throats for that! John Benton, Moxley, West Midlands