Skinflint's City Diary
The Concorde muddle, I hear, goes on, and on, and on. The latest news is that Battling Tony Benn, friend of the workers, is standing practically alone in the Cabinet in favour of the project. Not only is that the case, but Benn actually has a theory to support his continued insistence on the sustaining of this massively expensive project. Of course nobody wants to see the British aircraft industry die, nor, for that matter, do I want to see lots of people out of work in the Bristol area. On the other hand, neither the industry nor the keeping in employment of those working on the aircraft in this country, is worth the crippling burden of its cost — which, of course, we now know can never be recovered, even if anybody can be found to buy the thing. Benn, on the other hand, having consulted the workers — many of whom are his constituents — believes that their voices should be as weighty in the scale as cost. This is democracy run riot: the only result of indulging it would be to lead the country down the hill to total bankruptcy.
EEC and CBI
On Wednesday Ralph Bateman of Turner and Newell is expected to be elected the new president of that hapless and impotent institution the Confederation of British Industry.
The CBI's Director General, Campbell Adamson who made some thoughtless remarks about the Industrial Relations Act during the general election, has claimed that membership of the EEC is vital to his members. He is expected to be retired soon, probably to the relief of Ray Brooks of GKN and possibly to the relief of Sir Arnold Weinstock of GEC. Weinstock now feels that membership of the Common Market is inimical to his industry. It's difficult to argue that Sir Arnold has not some claim to be an industrial leader of the greatest distinction. Similarly, Jim Slater may be said to be the most notable pacesetter in the city sector for many years. He has plainly a most penetrating financial mind. During the past few months, I can reveal, exclu-sively
— as Chapman Pincher would say — that Slater has come slowly to the conviction that membership of the Common Market is no longer in Britain's commercial interest.
Whilst Weinstock reasons that membership is derogatory to the medium sized companies on which GEC relies for supply, Slater feels that the scenario changed when the magnitude of the North Sea oil _potential started to be appreciated. ‘Unluckily for Slater he won't have the pleasure of resigning from the CBI as he never became a member.
Mystery money
For some reason that I cannot understand, since one lot of money seems to be as good as another, there have been sharp comments on the anonymous payment of £65,000 to Sir John Donaldson's Industrial Relations Court from shadowy sources not far from the socialist solicitor, Lord Goodman. Various names have been suggested. Harold Lever and Lord Stokes have denied that they gave the money or know who did. It is unlikely to have been from a nationally known public company because the payment is politically controversial and there would probably have been difficulty in getting a boardroom consensus far less keeping the payment secret. To the interested busy-body the identity of the donor is not difficult to guess. Who has the largest shareholding in a newspaper group (Beaverbrooks) that were threatened with crippling losses if the strike continued and a further drag on the share price? Who is very rich and so close to Lord Goodman as to be almost a henchman, or perhaps the other way around? Who, like Lord Goodman, obtained a title from Harold Wilson during the last Labour government? Who, after appropriate delay, is unlikely to turn down a further step up in rank and into a coronet from 'charitable services '? Getting the Labour Party out of a strike which would threaten the forthcoming general election is surely that. A public denial that it is in any way connected would be a great surprise if it came from that nice property speculator who gave £.800,000 to the University College Hospital Medical School a couple of years ago, Sir Max Rayne.
Register of interests
Since the objective of debate is to attempt to reverse the thinking of the opposition or to concede that there may be some substance in their claims, it is sickening to see that Brian Walden the Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood has been receiving the huge sum of E25,000 under contract from the National Asociation of Book makers during a period in which the nationalisation of bookmaking and the Tote Bill have been under discussion. Brian Walden, it must be stated, has declared his interests at all times, though he was not called upon nor did he consider it necessary to volunteer the scale of the payment he was receiving from a body utterly hostile to any encroachment on the bookmaking profession. The Labour Party keen as they are to nationalise might now consider re-introducing a Bill to nationalise High Street betting to the benefit of bloodstock, the racecourses and the public if not to the members of the trade for whom Brian Walden made the sacrifice of not taking up an appointment in this present administration.
If and when a compulsory register of members' interests is introduced it will certainly have as many holes as a broken-down sieve. Curiously enough I suspect that the measure will be watered down not so much as to protect those with something to hide or to conceal the capital and income of good members of the Labour Party who will no doubt receive a Christlike uplift from the declara tion of their poverty (and good cause to claim a further increase in Parliamentary salary). No. The resistance will come trom Conservatives — junior and senior alike. (the comfortably off Mr Heath probably excepted) who are not from the secure ranks of the professions, the squireachy (do they really exist?) or the relations of the magnificos, but are from the merchant banks and the City and preach the merits of private enterprise to the Home Counties. When these members declare their interests and have to show that their cupboards are bare they will be only too open to the humiliating charge "if you're so clever why aren't you rich?"
Previous page
