Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) from Liverpool, Merseyside, England • 6

6 Liverpool Daily Post Tuesday October 9 1973 DAILY POST PHASE I II ANALYSES BY DAILY POST EXPERTS Another phase could it be war too Santa Ted delivers the goodies the old and young in his Phase Mr Heath was both right and MR Phase Three proposals were being treated as gingerly as a hand-grenade by both sides of industry last night An independent newspaper Established 1855 No 36780 True blue Socialism the pensioners who miss out most in Mr remarkable Socialist package But even the niggardly £10 payment to them which seems rather like a scrap to stop the dog barking is to be financed by an extra levy on the employers who will also have to foot the bill for the extra New Day holiday Mr Heath adds somewhat smoothly that in the long run the pensioners like everyone else will benefit from price stability That is making the rather large assumption that the proposals will work or be given the chance to show they can work Certainly if ingenuity is the key to a successful formula then Phase III has it The ceiling criteria extra payments for efficiency the one per cent flexibility the removal of anomalies the unsocial hours factor and the threshold safeguard do permit of sufficient permutations to allow some meaningful collective bargaining And if the unions argue that their call for subsidies particularly food subsidies has not been met (apart from the clamp on milk and school meal prices) then what about all the hidden subsidies? In leaning on the nationalised industries whose services figure largely in household budgeting to peg their prices the Government is acknowledging a principle entirely opposed to its thinking of June 1970: That public services have social implications which transcend the objective of being self-supporting The safeguard factor too would amount to a form of subsidy since a quarter of the retail index is made up of food prices The farmers will be justifiably disappointed that there is no animal feed subsidy That was a feasibility And those contemplating their first home loan should read the small print before celebrating Whether there is sufficient incentive for investment on the scale needed is doubtful too But overall the package deserves a trial rather than the larger issues If the Confederation of British assessment is accurate there is plenty to he concerned about' as far as the economy is concerned The CBI argues that the in the Green Paper will ibe more than the economy can stand growth will slow down profits will shrink in short a failure to beat the threat of inflation Clearly the government is throwing all its hopes on to the floating to keep exports cheap and our factories competitive World-Wide But the other side to this is the Inevitable soaring cost of imported goods Half of our food and most of raw materials aire imported and prices are running at record levels These rising prices will be hitting the family budget this autumn and winter far in advance of the benefits of any threshold deal appearing in the wage packet If this leads to Industrial militancy the whole economic strategy of the government might be floored JAMES BREWER PM enters politely without prickles be transformed into flowering reality It is hard not to share Mr Heath's vision in the golden glitter of Lancaster House The very setting a monument to Britain's prosperous imperial paisit encourages lofty notions and ideals But the correspondents who attend the Press conferences Mr Heath is getting into the habit of holding at Lancaster House and who rarely spend time in such splendid surroundings are usually slow to get the message Yesterday was no exception As the television lights blazed and the cameras clicked Sir Heath unfolded his Phase Three package with confident aplomb Glowing like a healthy beacon with a more gaunt than usual Chancellor Ba(rber sitting next to him Mr Heath delivered his text And when he came to answer the questions which Union Chiefs nervously took a few initial jabs at the continued control of wages by law reiterating their fears that prices would go on rocketing andi slice living standards But they stopped short of all-out condemnation And the employers declaimed gloomily that the plans for pay rises would add to the already threatening squeeze on profits and prices They said they would go along to Downing Street to try to persuade Mr Heath to soften the proposals Behind the cautious catspawing with the green paper is a real fear among both unions and management of big shop-floor war this winter Trouble is that all the big unions are committed to fight using industrial action if necessary for rises far bigger than can possibly be allowed by law in Phase Three The Government is planning relaxation only in the rigidity of the pay controls not in their level Thus Whitehall is confident that the legislation will cut the rate erf increase of annual earnings from 12 per cent to 11 per cent in the next year In' real terms this means that the ideal Phase Three settlement would see the union leaders climbing down over claims for which big hopes have been growing not least the £10 increase on minimum weekly rates demanded by the engineers and the £8 to £12 sought by the miners The package is certainly a subtle and clever move ito keep unions and employers talking rather than fighting The idea is to keep them worrying over the details how to divide up negotiating groups definition of unsocial hours forms of threshold A RATHER off-putting end-of-the-road sign in West Kirby Still a Lang Lane that has no ending they were still holding their weekly company meeting They ended up walking the streets that night With fifteen actors and fifteen staff and a shoestring budget they find hotels impossibly expensive on a fifteen-week tour And in university cities like Liverpool the company are here for a fortnight next month they find students AROUND BRITAIN TEMFERATLiR E3S Min Max POSTSCRIPT BITTER-SWEET RECEPTION FOR TUNNEL MEN IN MAKING concessions to Three statement yesterday humane No one will begrudge the young marrieds the initial lower interest rates on their house mortgages and for young couples themselves Mr announcement that they would pay interest of per cent as against the present rate of 11 per cent must have come as manna from above Before this many of them had despaired of ever being able to buy homes of their own 'had settled into flats or rented houses setting aside too the matter of when they would have the sort of accommodation in which to start a family until heaven knows when Now children and real homes of their own are possible there is no need for them to pour money down the drain on rented accommodation and the outlook is cheery So too for old age pensioners wfho will be able to stock their somewhat bare Christmas cupboards with the aid of the £10 bonus which the Prime Minister announced A chicken plum pudding and a few extra goodies will mean everything to old people at Yuletide so Santa Ted must be congratulated is the read test he displayed how increasingly adroit he is at handling journalists No longer the piercing riper te for the man who dares to ask a question Gone are the days when Mr obvious impatience with stupidity are a celebrated feature of these occasions Now the man who ventures to put the Prime Minister on the spot is given an instant lecture on the niceties of economics There was humour too strong 24 hours a day now everywhere must be resolving to keep a low profile from noon The 10-minute news bulletin on the hour was followed by about 12 minutes of chat between Jessel and guests interspersed with local weather and traffic reports Then some ads and at 20 minutes past the hour a couple of minutes of headlines More chaL then a seven-minute news bulletin on the half hour More chat and then at 10 to the hour more headlines leading to the hour bulletin It seemed that just about every time Jessel opened his mouth it was to say in a few minutes have the news From nine to noon exDaily Mail columnist Paul Callan and former fashion writer Janet Street Porter presented In The A strange contrast: Callan smooth toned and all old Etonian and Street Porter with the most impenetrable Cockney accent that should never he allowed within 100 miles of even a dead microphone When they chatting to one another about absolutely nothing that I can even faintly remember they on this bonus no matter where he found the money! Though housewives may have resigned themselves to the fact that there is hot much hope of food subsidies happening along to ease their budgets nevertheless I expect there was a lot of disappointment that there was little thrown as a sop to the harassed women who fight to feed their families on ever dearer food each week True indirectly they will benefit from their husband's wage packets but no one is going to slash 2p off a pound of butter or anything dramatic like that However milk and school meal prices remain rigidly at their 1971 level so one must he grateful for small mercies as on other progressions like the further steps to be taken towards equal pay for women and the fair rents deal To sum up not much happiness and joy for the ordinary woman who runs a home and family but on the other hand no greater gloom than exists at present For old people and young marrieds good news DIANA PULSON The correspondent who asked why Mr Heath had chosen this moment to announce the extra day off was told it would be' easier to explain why the Government had not given two days As reporters filed out of the room to light up their longed-for cigarettes no smoking was Introduced at this conference for some reason praised Ted for another good show PRESTON WITTS interviewed the husband and' wife design team of Alexander Plunkett-Greene and Mary Quant and later Olym-pic horserider Richard Meade At noon the station had first phone-in programme: where listeners are asked to ring in with comments and questions One' of those doing the answering: was Michael Cudlipp chief: editor of the station Thin Things went well until one prickly gent called in to say what an insult it was to ears and intelligence to I have to listen to Miss Street i Porter You could hear the voice of Philip Jay the prog- ramme presenter actually falter Oddly enough the news in depth coverage really impressive And as news is the raison of the station this fact ought to give its planners some sleepless hours It sounded thin for instance when compared to the at programme whose Middle East coverage seemed to have much more authority But all in all it a had day for the London Broadcasting Company and it is early days to say the least WHEN Mr Heath entered the tfmalte Long Gallery at Lancaster House yesterday he came not only to make an announcement but to deliver a message The message oft-repeated rrepea bells reporters1 ears was that Britain is on the brink of unprecedented economic prosperity- All it needs apparently is common sense an round and this Mr own words can by Philip Key have snapped-up all the cheaper places So they like to stay with families But even that has its problems according to Brian People wonder about actors and they think what on earth are we going to say to them? But we like living with people and we just like to be treated as he says Spud snub COOKS at Nautical Training College have just received a little snub for the way they do their spud-bashing Liverpool Playhouse needed potato peelings for their production of Getting On So they asked the college to give them their left-over peelings The college was only too happy to oblige A man was sent to collect the peelings each day and the college received a programme acknowledgment Peelings from Nautical Training But all was not well and now the threatre has rejected the peelings were too skimpy for us They peeled them too the Playhouse man told me yesterday now we buy our own potatoes and peel them Well well well THEY found no archaeological gems while digging the new tunnel They did find within a few yards of Moor-fields however a well It was thought to have been used in the last century by a sugar refinery The diggers too pleased with their find however They had to line it and cap it with a pump to take water rising from 450 feet below out of the tunneL THERE was one big problem facing the caterers from the Adelphi Hotel at breakthrough of the new Mersey underground railway line And that was how to deliver coffee and biscuits to the guests and officials 75ft below The peculiar solution was to load it all into a man-sized bucket and then to have it sent along the tunnel on rails Sadly the plan hit a couple of snags They forgoit to bring the sugar And as chief speech-maker Alderman Bill Serfton leader of Liverpool City Council pointed out he drink only tea Underground film THERE were some mumutr-mgs too that the whole thing looked like a movie set It certainly appeared dramatic enough with a crumbling sandstone wall and clouds of white smoke bellowing about In fact the scene will appear in a movie and one you could see at your local cinema For a camera team from British Transport Films were there recording the scene HEATHER PHIPPS: She pulled the switch to put London Broadcasting on the air and here is the news read in Cockney DERRICK HILL listens in to the first day of first commercial radio station Just before 620 am came the first advert And it is Birds Eye that will be able to put up a plaque in its hoard-room commemorating the fact that it was the first company to advertise on British commercial radio Among other early advertisers were most of the national newspapers and the two London evenings Profile Good homes wanted THEATRICAL 1 a ndladies even where they still exist tend to he of the heavy dragon variety according to Brian Burton He should know He is a member of the Actors Company and they are doing a lot of touring at the moment Finding a place to stay says Brian is one of their big problems He is full of stories of incidents they can laugh at now but which funny at the time Like the time they were thrown out at three in the morning in Cambridge as Wales NW England Lake District and Isle of Man: Mostly cloudy occasional rain Wind westerly moderate Near normal maximum 14C (57F) MERSEY TIDES HTGM WATER AT LIVERPOOL TODAJY Ilf HT HT 1016 76 22216 80 (Hedphrt in metre (By permission of Ahnarracfc) NW TIDES To obtain the time of high water an the following places apply the time shown in brackets tx the time of high water at Liverpool THE WEATHER LONDON Broadcasting Company first commercial radio station featured i astrologist-in-residence Rodger Elliot in its first programme yesterday Who came up with the news that the station had chosen an extremely favourable time starwise to be born And he really kidding For you do better if you claim to be an all-news all-talk radio station than to make youir debut on Day Three of a new punch-up in 'the Middle East and on the day the Government launches the third phase of its attack on inflation Jingle Until the Prime Press conference at 230 pm which was taken live by LBC and followed by a lengthy studio discussion the news bulletins were dominated by the claims and counter-claims of Arab-Israeli who if they are both to be believed have zeroed each army twice over already Listeners prepared to shiver over their sets at 6 am presumably so as to be able to tell their grandchildren were heard a 30-second jingle and then the first news bulletin of the station GENERAL SITUATION: Pres- sure is high to the south and low to the north of the United Kingdom and weak troughs of low pressure are expected to move slowly south-eastwards across north ern areas Scotland and Northern Ireland will be rather cloudy with scattered showers but some sunny intervals as well Northern England North Wales and the Midlands will be cloudy with rain at times and fog over the hills In South Wales and southern England it is expected to remain mostly dry though rather cloudy Temperatures will be near normal Further outlook: Colder in northern Britain with sunny Intervals and scattered showers Rather cloudy with rain at times in the south and near normal temperatures There were also taped birthday greetings from the Prime Minister and the leaders of the Opposition parties Frontman of the first programme in the LBC Day the three hour long Update on the is David Jessel whose bouncy undergraduate manner got him into occasional hot water during his days with the BBC Early morning studio visitors included a spokesman from the Israeli Embassy and one from a pro-Arab agency in London both of whom must have regarded as a very dubious honour being dragged from their beds to chat to a few early-rising Londoners As the LBC will be going SATELLITES WEDNESDAY Time Rises High Her Sets PAGEOS 0029-01 1 7 WSIW NINE 03 49 -04 51 NW 25 ENTE 21 32 -212 10 SKYTAB 1 0603-0607 WSW 45SSW BSE SKYLAB ROCKET 05 12-05 15 SK 30VSE BSE Leaves Eclipse) MOON AND SUN Sun Rises 0727 Son Sets 18 30 Moon Rises 1706 Moon Sets 04-11 Full Moon Oct 12 04h 09m Last Quarter Oct 18 2i3Ji 3l3m New Moon Oct 26 04h Il7m First Quarter Nov 3 06h 29m (Crown Copyright Reserved) 4.