British Leyland: jingoistic hot air
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
British Leyland factories are being hawked around by Tory ministers like a bunch of crooks selling off stolen goods.
So eager are they to sell off everything in sight and look after the big US multinationals at the same time, that they have been riding roughshod over any political challenger to the General Motors bid. They have been prepared to compound the political crisis of the government in order to do it.
To make things worse it turns out that the Tory government entered into talks with GM over 18 months ago, the results of which would probably never have come to public notice until after the event had the issue not been raised by Labour MPs.
In contrast to GM other bidders who were not the chosen suitor of the government were given only a few weeks to make an offer without even being allowed to look around the plants concerned.
There has been a lot of jingoistic hot air in the House of Commons and the unions against it, but nothing has been done. One nationalist statement after another came out demanding that BL be kept "British", when the issue is keeping BL public. The issue of privatisation has been lost sight of. It makes little difference which private company or multinational takes it over. On top of that a number of the unions have said they will invest pension fund money to help keep it "British".
There is no doubt at all that the Tories intend to sell off the whole of BL, including the Austin Rover Group volume cars division. The most likely buyer for ARG is Honda, which already produces joint models with ARG. The new Maestro is in its pre-production stage and a deal has just been signed for a new joint Maestro.
The appointment of Graham Day from British Shipbuilders to replace Sir Austin Ride and chief executive of BL seems to be a part of this strategy.
BL workers have been attacked continuously for the past 7 years. Work effort on the tracks has been doubled and trebled, yet there is little doubt that the appointment of Day signals a new round of attacks.
Day is entirely in the Michael Edwardes/Ian MacGregor mould: an international industrial hatchetman. He has made his reputation fighting the unions in the shipbuilding industry and is now moving on to prepare ARG as the most attractive possible package for selling off.