NO STRUGGLE
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Just for the record, I really don't recognise the strange and exciting version of events alleged to surround my perfectly amicable departure from the Road Haulage Association. "Power struggle'? What power struggle? News to me, I can assure you.
In fact in many instances your report is just wrong.
You say "the board decided enough was enough". If they did, they certainly did not communicate that fact to me. As the press release makes clear, the initiative to terminate my contract prematurely came from me, and all subsequent negotiations, which were not prolonged, were conducted in an admirably sensible and friendly way.
You then cite RHA Board member Bob McKinnon as saying "he felt it was time for (me) to move on"—despite carrying a letter from Bob in the very same issue in which he explicitly denies your previous report and adds: "I also continue to have every personal confidence in him as director-general."
Oh, and one more thing. Could the fact that the Freight Transport Association has just announced a half-millionpound campaign to try to recover lost ground on the fuel issue have anything to do with the marked success the RHA has had in bringing these issues to public attention?
And is that also perhaps why RNA membership is at its highest level for at least the past six years, against the background of a hugely difficult time for the industry? Anyone would think reading your report you might have an axe to grind. Wouldn't have anything to do with the apology you were obliged to print for me a few months ago would it?
Ah,well. I shall miss CM. But we can always find something else for the bottom of the budgie's cage.
Yours fraternally,
Steven Norris.
• CM stands by the story that it published on Norris's departure from the RHA—Ed.