they should write that on the side of a bus. we spend four thousand on Landrovers a year lets spend it on Chrysler instead!.
The demise of BL was under the Tories watch, like Scargill this man wasn't wrong. Derek Robinson – Red Robbo – addresses a rally of British Leyland workers Derek ‘Red Robbo’ Robinson Derek Robinson was a union man the tabloids loved to hate. His first job in the motor industry was as a 14 year-old apprentice at Austin in Longbridge near Birmingham during WW2. He would join the Communist Party ten years later (he stood as a Communist candidate in four consecutive General Elections in Birmingham, Northfield between 1966 and 1974, but lost his deposit on each occasion, only managing to receive over 1% of the vote once, in 1966 – and was national chair of the Communist Party of Britain for a period in the 1990s) and the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). In 1975 British Leyland became bankrupt and was nationalised by the Government. At this time Robinson was the union convener of the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, having worked his way up from the shop floor to serve as the deputy of the previous convenor, Dick Etheridge, a fellow member of the Communist Party. With his network of representatives in the 42 different Leyland plants around the country, he led a long-running campaign of strikes around the company which he argued were in protest at mismanagement. Robinson was eventually sacked by BL in November 1979 for putting his name to a pamphlet that criticised the BL management. More than 18,000 BL workers immediately went on strike in protest of the sacking while Robinson claimed that he was being singled out for opposing company policy in the past. A secret ballot on a strike in sympathy of the man by now known as ‘Red Robbo’ and opposed to the dismissal was held in February 1980 but the motion not carried, votes being 14,000 against a strike and only 600 in favour. With headlines such as “Get lost Robbo” and “the man we can do without”. A local midlands newspaper suggested that Mr Robison should march off to Moscow to spend as much time as he liked swapping “Commie cant with his Marxist mates.” Robinson said the following day that, “A vicious campaign conducted both inside and outside the plant had led to a situation where it was difficult to get a appositive result. I am disappointed to lose my job not be doing anything wrong but by opposing the dictator, Michael Edwardes…our members have taken the wrong decision. They will live to regret it.” A Tory party the following week described Robinson as a gnat on the back of British Leyland. The communist convener agreed with this and took the analogy further “If British Leyland was a horse then he was not only a gnat but was actually biting the jockey (a common shopfloor term for the BL chairman, Sir Michael Edwards) who was whipping an underfed and beleaguered nag the wrong way round the racecourse. Edwardes acknowledging that the removal of Robinson was in some ways necessary for the company’s preparations to bring the new Austin Metro into production. Longbridge was being substantially redeveloped and expanded for the new car, whose assembly was heavily automated in comparison to previous models and job losses would have been inevitable: “It was planned only in the sense…well, the answer is ‘Yes’, from a strategic point of view we knew that we couldn’t have the Metro and him. Whether or not we wanted him to go, his actions made it inevitable that he would have to go” Derek Robinson – Red Robbo – speaks to striking British Leyland workers in Cofton Park With ‘Red Robbo’ now out of the picture the Austin Metro was launched in October 1980. It was incredibly the first new model to come out of Longbridge for seven years, but also notable for the utilisation of modern robot technology to produce it. In 1986, with the name British Leyland or BL as it was now known, only having connotations of everything that was bad about British industry, the company changed its name to Rover Group in 1986. This meant that the last vestiges of British Leyland were banished forever. Although it would literally take decades to wipe British Leyland and everything it stood for from the British consciousness. In 1988 Margaret Thatcher’s government sold their unwanted shareholding in Rover Group to British Aerospace. It really was the end of British Leyland.
Peanut is of course correct here. Government cannot be relied upon to "manage" anything. Law & order - barely - defence - unavoidably - diplomacy - I suppose so ... Anything else is overreach and will inevitably end in tears. Good call, peanut old buddy old comrade old peanut mate.
or the forgetful. they re coming back to finish what maggie started. but this time, they're on the amphetamine
aye, but its something I guess you're gonna have to go through. private security could be a good business to invest in. me? i'm gonna invest in a wall.
The thing I cannot get over is, peanut has declared as a fan of "small government". Plot twist doesn't even begin to describe what has happened here today.
in wales you could have a small gov. a v, efficient, community led by the people for the people Gov. vote PC.
What's happened with you today ? Massive pile up , two dogs shit in the same place ? Pray tell me more.
