Nadir hits market

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ON Monday November 15 The Times waxed eloquent on the Turkish torture regime and the policies of Deputy Prime Minister Turgut Ozal. According to this top people's paper, Ozal was given "the freedom to run the economy along free market lines"

The day before, thé Sunday Times Business News reported on the fortune being reaped by Mr Asil Nadir's Polly Peck company. Apparently the Turkish government gave Mr Așil "a tax holiday, an effective local monopoly, access to cheap energy and labour at an average wage of $1,200 a year" in return for Mr Nadir's setting up a cardboard box factory in the Turkish part of Cyprus.

Grapefruit

'Nadir can land grapefruit and potatoes at London docks for £2.10 a case and sell them wholesale for between £5.50 and £6 And as the Turkish Cypriot farmers are contracted to supply him, it would be hard for anyone else to compete in the foreseeable future... In the long run the stream of fresh projects in tandem with the Turkish authorities should ensure continued growth"

You bet it should! Thanks to 'the freede to run the economy along free market lines" , Asil Nadir's many guaranteed monopolies should grow unchecked.

A COUPLE of weeks ago, Marks and Spencer shareholders met in a troubled mood. What was all this, they asked, about a few top directors paying low rents for millionaire mansions owned by the company? • Lord Sieff - Mr St Michael himself - confessed P.S.Randi, owner of Randi's quilt factory in Smethwick, has announced that he is sacking all 200 strikers and also the 30 workers who had been scabbing on the official TGWU strike for union recognition.

"He has declared his intention to close the factory, in line with his earlier threats.

But a mass picket scheduled for 4pm this Friday, 19th, will go ahead, as the fight escalates into one against closure. that the rumours were true. The company did subsidise already super-rich directors. But so what, he asked. Marks and Spencers spends millions every year in perks for its executives.

That satisfied me it of + e shareholders. It seemed fairer explained like that. MONDAY'S Morning Star carries a glowing article on Labour Party general secretary Jim Mortimer: "a thoughtful man whose vision rises above today's factional battlefields and reflects a broad understanding of the working class movement... his politics are well-read, and seem to have a solid grounding in Socialist theory which is the property of relatively few in a time of trends, fads and quack Socialism"

Minor problems are waved aside. Mortimer's 10 years on the government arbitration service ACAS, aiter his time as a Morning Star line trade unior official? No comment. Th purge of Militant? 'He can do nothing else. It's his job". Indeed: 'his condemnation lat Labour Party conference] of Militant's opposition [?] to detente was welcomed But let it nơt be said that the Star is uncritical. To be a functionary for the capitalist state, and then for Labour's witch-hunters, is merely Mortimer's jub but the rea! flaw is that 'His opinions on. the role of a Leninist party. would not be endorsed by all on the lett