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AT LAST THE GLOVES ARE OFF
Page 9
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popular convention says that one should never embarrass one's guests at dinner. To hell with convention. Graham Miller's noholds-barred speech at the FTA's annual dinner shows just how far the previous "special relationship" between the association and the Department of Transport has deteriorated. By the admission of the association's own head of media relations, this was a speech that would never have been made in the past...more's the pity. If this is the way the FTA intends to talk to the DOT in public, we're all for it. What's the point of inviting the Transport Secretary to dinner if you can't say what you think about his performance? As "principal guest speaker" Sir George Young would no doubt beg to differ. Miller set just the right tone with a mixture of exasperation and barely concealed anger. Dismissing the old claim that the DOT is "an ally of the powerful road lobby" Miller declared: "If this is how you treat your friends, then I would hate to be an enemy of the Department." There was an audible whistle of surprise from the audience when he dared to repeat what everybody has known all a long— that the DOT is "the departure lounge for declining statesmen or the waiting room for young men in a hurry". Watching the Secretary of State sifting next to Miller, one was left wondering which camp Sir George might mentally align himself with. With the ink barely dry on the DOT's latest Green paper, Transport—the Way Forward, Miller confirmed what we've long suspected: there is still no long-term transport plan for the UK. The ETA reckons the latest policy statement from Marsham Street is "the great transport disappointment". But then this Government has been disappointing truck operators ever since it swept into power in 1979—on road spending, on enforcement, on wheel loss, on 44 tonnes„.the list is endless.
Meanwhile it looks as if the DOT wants to go on talking about the problems forever; anything rather than actually tackling them. At the end of his speech Sir George declared: "The debate will never end..." Dear God, we hope he's wrong. As Miller remarked: "I know our industry might be seen as the modern day equivalent to a donkey—but we still don't like being treated like one." Quite.