I SHOULD LIKE to know exactly what has been going
on behind the scenes in the BOAC shake-up. Opinion seems to be unanimous that the new appointments are a mistake; but i It s divided on whether the mistake was in putting in Mr. Gerard d'Erlanger as part-time Chairman, or in putting in Sir George Cribbett as his full-time deputy. The one thing that a public corporation of this kind needs is a feeling that it is an independent entity, not something that can be run by a man with a host of other interests, in his spare time, and by an ex-civil servant, with his bureaucratic background. If they Were there simply as figureheads, with a dynamic chief executive actually running the Corporation, the position would be different; but as successors to Sir Miles Thomas and Lord Burghley, the new appointments are depressing. And while I am on the subject, is it not time we heard the last of the word 'unpaid' in connection with such appointments? The proposal is that Mr. d'Erlanger should be 'unpaid.' but that he should have a tax-free expense allowance of £2,000 a year One taxation expert has calculated that this is the equivalent of £12,000 a year income: I would have put the ftgure considerably higher. I can see no excuse for Govern- ment departments giving under-the-counter incomes of this nature, and I hope that the whole question of such allowances Will be raised in the appropriate section of the Finance Bill.
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