Notebook
The Business News of The Times revealed 0u Monday that British Leyland cars now have only 20 per cent of the market, compared to 35 per cent in what is described as Pre-Ryder' days — a phrase that justly sums UP the career of Lord Ryder, that abrasive tYeoon and recipient of whuge cash 'present' from Canada (later returned). Apparently people are now not buying Leyland Cars because they fear that the company will collapse and spare parts become unobtainable. This in turn makes it more likely that Leyland will crash in what The Times Calls a chicken-and-egg situation. At any rate it looks as if Leylands will have to close their works on Merseyside, and justly so. It Was Merseyside, during the 'fifties, that led the rest of Great Britain into idiotic strikes, like the dispute between two rival unions on Which of them drilled holes. Having done so Much to destroy Britain's ship-building industry, Merseyside now seems bent on destroying its car industry. So much for that fraudulent advertisement intented to get new industry to the region: 'Gladstone (born in Liverpool 1809) would be proud of the new Merseyside'. Would he hell!
One former British Leyland customer, ldi Amin, is this week celebrating seven years ul power, which he has held thanks partly to 13ritish Leyland armoured cars. Whether or not Amin was helped by the Secret Intelligence Service, the British government at the time made public its joy at the access to Power of the bluff, genial rugby-playing soldier. It is worth looking back to see just how big a share Britain had in Uganda's economy and what this meant in terms of agreeable jobs for expatriates, or 'ex-pats', as they called themselves. In 1970, when the previous President Obote proposed a 60 Per cent nationalisation, it was estimated that this would cost Britain between £30 million and £50 million, from which we can deduce that our total investment was around £60 million. About a third of Uganda's imports came from Britain, much of them paid for by British assistance loans. Although these loans were supposed to be for capital goods such as airport improvements, dams, road building and so on, sometimes the money was spent on consumer articles. A document that! saw called British Development Aid to Uganda revealed that back in 1965 'some difficulty Was experienced in using up this loan and eventually it was made available for other goods imported by the Uganda Government from Britain. In the event, it was Spent on tractors, vehicles and television equipment', i.e. dumped goods from firms like Leyland. British exporters did well out
of these 'aid' loans which were conditional on most of the money being spent in Britain. British 'aid' to Uganda as late as 1972 also included 877 'experts' most of them teachers, whose salaries as Ugandan civil servants were supplemented by Britain. Uganda was a popular post for these 'ex-pat experts', most of whom applied for reengagement, which is hardly surprising since some of the benefits were a house at minimal rent, education allowance to keep their children at boarding school, plus free flights for these children twice a year.
The 'ex-pats' in Uganda also welcomed Amin because they believed him friendlier to them than Obote had been. African dislike of the British had flared up a few years earlier in what came to be known as the 'Tank Hill Affair' caused when 200 allwhite guests at a party on Tank Hill indulged in some tasteless jokes about African independence. When I first went to Uganda in 1964 there was much resentment against the 'ex-pats' and many calls for the Africanisation of jobs. This was why the 'ex-pats' were at first so delighted when Amin tried to whip up feeling against the Asians, of whom the British had always been jealous and nicknamed 'the Jews' in Africa. It was the British ex-pats, not the Africans, who insisted that the Africans hated the Asians, and this myth was repeated back in England. A certain Ted Garrett, the Labour MP for Wallsend, said on September 17, 1972: 'President Amin is right in kicking them out . . . these Asians are truly the cause of trouble in Uganda'. An editorial in The Times said at the time that General Amin had the overwhelming support of black Ugandans for any cruel measures against the Asians. My impression during a month spent in Uganda at this time was that most Africans were sorry to
see the Asians kicked out, if only because without them the economy would collapse — as it did. The Ugandans knew that any 'Africanisation' that took place, that is the acquisition by Africans of cars, houses and other valuables, would be for the benefit only of Amin's henchmen.
What would the Race Relations Board . make of this overheard fragment of convesation between two women, discussing a third? 'Is she Jewish?"No, Australian'. 'You mean a colonial?' That's right.'
In this notebook at the end of last month,, I referred to an article in Business Traveller on how British Airways cabin crews cheated the company (prop: the British taxpayer) by selling the allocation of free first class drinks to the tourist class passengers. By an amazing coincidence, shortly after this article appeared and was read by thousands of British Airways travellers, all British Airways crews stopped selling drinks to tourist class passengers because of 'an industrial dispute', apparently called by their union, the Transport and General Workers. I hear that British Airways are very peeved by Business Traveller, which is dedicated to debunking the public relations bolony of big monopoly airlines.
The fiddling by British Airways cabin crews is one more example of what is, to me, the most sinister tendency of our times: the way that trade unions are allowed to condone or even enforce criminal practices by their members. Such sharp practices are not of course mentioned in the 'media' whose own trade unions have the most flagrant of all crinn 'al practices. In the BBC, for example, the camera crews have a built-in system of claiming bogus overtime and often of 'hiring' extra men, like electricians, for work which they do themselves. The National Union of Journalists has obtained for the grossly inflated staffs of national newspapers an elaborate system of bogus expenses and allowances, amounting in some cases to more than an actual salary. The fact that trade unions are now getting above the law does not, as the Tories fear, mean that this country is heading to socialism; quite the reverse. British unions today are strikingly similar to those in countries like Chile and Argentina which have allied themselves with right-wing demagogues, or to unions in the United States whose gangster leaders used violent methods (the Longshoremen murdered or castrated their communist rivals) that were described in the film On the Waterfront. The notorious Teamsters Union was one of many run by the Mafia, an organisation that bears an uncanny resemblance to what is still called the Labour Party, a gang of corrupt local government bosses, shady financiers, property 'developers and trade union cap!, all protected, thanks to the NUJ, by the silence of omerta.
Richard West
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