Hollow worm
A particularly silly article in support of the Channel Tunnel last month appeared in the Times — a paper usually sound on this subject, which produced a devastating attack on the whole idea back in 1967. The piece is by somebody called Alastair Frame, who, as managing director of the British Channel Tunnel Company can be relied upon to produce an objective argument. The cheekiest bit in the article was where Frame argued (a) that no additional road facilities need be constructed, since traffic would enter the terminal area direct from the M20, and (b) that, without the Tunnel new road facilities would have to be built to take care of the increasing traffic into Dover and Folkestone.
If you believe the first point you believe that the Duke of Wellington's name was Mr Brown.' How big is this terminal area to be; how long will it take to expand; and what hideous tangle of transport jungle will exist within it? As to the second point, nobody among the enlightened wants to leave things just as they are in the South-East. We want to develop all the east coast ports, and direct traffic away from Dover and Folkestone. As to Frame's general point that this monstrous hollow worm will be of marvellous com mercial benefit, why, then, haven't all those enlightened en trepreneurs who support it dug into their pockets and found the requisite cash without recourse to government and taxpayer? Put you money where your mouth is, Alastair Frame.
Sky-high
The wretched pipe under the sea is, so they now tell us, going to cost £500 million, as opposed to the £366 million predicted in the Green Paper no more than six weeks ago. At this rate of cost-escalation the country will soon be spending money on nothing but the Channel Tunnel. What is more, this latest estimate does not take account of inflation or the extra support costs of road and rail links. Not only is the thing ludicrously useless and environmentally destructive, but even if it was any good, the amount it's going to cost would not be worth paying. End the folly now; forget about the tunnel; and concentrate on the development of our East Coast ports.
What's the use?
Would some keen young socialist kindly tell me what good Tuesday's strikes did anybody? Commuters were hit; the car industry; and, most notably, newspapers. Does someone deprived of his Daily Mirror or Daily Express think more warmly of the men who forced him to talk to his wife at breakfast as a result? I doubt it. And what did that oldest ageingyoung-socialist of the lot, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, alias horny-handed Tony Benn, think he was doing, striding along at the head of some march or other? Does he wish himself, as well as his party, to lose all credibility?
What use was it all? Can anyone please tell me?
Best price in the world?
I write before the result of the Rolls-Royce tenders is announced, but after we have been told that Rolls-Royce Motors are to stay British. Am I being churlish in assuming that this is because no foreign buyer fancied owning RR; or was it because the Government and parties let it be known that a foreign buyer would not be very welcome?
If I were a Rolls-Royce shareholder — I am not, I prefer their
ears to their shares — I would not t4,te kindly to this business of by scaring-off possible bidSurely the best price obtain'le is the best price there is, for 'fie shareholders. If the workers °r the management or the Gov,.ernment thinks that control !tlould remain in British hands, `nen they should accept that they Ls' and not the poor bloody shareholders (rapidly becoming the exPendable infantrymen of entreprenweurial capitalism) should one -ay or the other foot the bill. I
think that R-R Motors should stay British-controlled, for purely sentimental reasons. But I don't see why the shareholders should pay for my sentimentality.
I ordered a new Rolls a couple of months ago. It should be ready in a couple of years' time. I wonder, however, if the Japs had bought R-R, whether I would have left the order in, or cancelled it. I suppose I would have waited to see if the waiting list got longer or shorter.
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