The profits of patriotism
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-08-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 6 →
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LORD Victor Matthews, the chair of Cunards, is an unselfish patriot. He is in favour of buying British. No Golden Delicious or Dutch lettuce in his lunch-box.
As we reported last time, he even sacked his Asian and African crew members so that the Task Force could be an all British affair.
Soon after Cunard's Atlantic Conveyor" was sunk, Matthews declared that regrettably he might have to place the order for its replacement with JUNI ten Wunmos Hophes. Korean Japanese shipbuilders. British quotes were too high.
The Daily Express -normally another keen "Buy British" campaigner - sympathised with the noble Lord's plight. Mind you, value-for-moneyVictor is a director of Trafalgar House which owns the Express.
The Express - hitperson for the Kill-A-Lame-DuckA-Day Campaign - felt that an exception should be 20p Women's made for Cunard's sake: the government should subsidise the cost of having the ship built in Britain. be nacener governmen nas been quick to res(naS pond.
British Shipbuilders will drop their price by §4 million, the Department of Industry will shove §5 million into Matthews' pocket and the Ministry of Defence is topping that up with another £4 million.
'I suppose it must be a contradiction of the government's philosophy and my own," admits Matthews.
But that's not all. The affair has been pushed through on the ocean wave of patriotism: it would be wrong for a replacement for the gallant Conveyor to be built abroad, said Thatcher. In reality, Atlantic ' Conveyor is not being replaced because it was sunk. It is being replaced because it was too expensive to run.
The ship had been laid up in Liverpool for over nine months before the South Atlantic war. Cunard thought it was better to the ship from sailing, so uneconomical was it to run the Atlantic Conveyor at current fuel prices.
Once the Navy commissioned the ship, however, Cunard started earning £6,000 a day for its use. They also stand to receive £9.5 million in insurance, although its scrap value (the only value it had by the time it sailed!) was no more than £2 million.
Pricy business this patriotism!
Matthews' rip-off has been inadvertently aided by shipbuilding union leaders. Their attitude has been that the Korean workers or Japanese workers are enemies of British workers.
The likes of Matthews must have been laughing: having made millions out of the South Atlantic war, claiming that the Argentinians ..are our enemies, they are now helped to millions more by trade unionists who ought to realise that Matthews and his shipmates are the real ene ny.