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Post by harryburrows on Oct 31, 2017 19:23:20 GMT
Derek Robinson , good riddance
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 20:15:44 GMT
Derek Robinson , good riddance Terrible man, did his best to put British Leyland out of business. I've just read part of his obituary in the Telegraph : " Sir Michael Edwardes (Chairman) claimed that in Robinson’s five years as convener, there had been 523 disputes at Longbridge – an 87 per cent increase – preventing the production of 62,000 cars and 113,000 engines, worth £200 million. Robinson’s activities delighted BL’s competitors: Fiat’s advertising agency came up with the slogan “made by robots, not by Robbos”. What an awful "achievement" to be remembered by. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 20:17:50 GMT
I'll fetch my dancing shoes
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Post by wagsastokie on Oct 31, 2017 20:41:06 GMT
Derek Robinson , good riddance Terrible man, did his best to put British Leyland out of business. I've just read part of his obituary in the Telegraph : " Sir Michael Edwardes (Chairman) claimed that in Robinson’s five years as convener, there had been 523 disputes at Longbridge – an 87 per cent increase – preventing the production of 62,000 cars and 113,000 engines, worth £200 million. Robinson’s activities delighted BL’s competitors: Fiat’s advertising agency came up with the slogan “made by robots, not by Robbos”. What an awful "achievement" to be remembered by. Maybe he did us a favour could you imagine all those extra allegros and maxis ect |
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Post by felonious on Oct 31, 2017 20:43:33 GMT
Derek Robinson , good riddance Terrible man, did his best to put British Leyland out of business. I've just read part of his obituary in the Telegraph : " Sir Michael Edwardes (Chairman) claimed that in Robinson’s five years as convener, there had been 523 disputes at Longbridge – an 87 per cent increase – preventing the production of 62,000 cars and 113,000 engines, worth £200 million. Robinson’s activities delighted BL’s competitors: Fiat’s advertising agency came up with the slogan “made by robots, not by Robbos”. What an awful "achievement" to be remembered by. .....but did he do well personally out of the union? |
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Post by yeokel on Oct 31, 2017 21:06:01 GMT
Good riddance to him the shit stirring bastard.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 21:21:47 GMT
The obituary also says
"Robinson was eventually sacked by British Leyland in November 1979 for putting his name to a pamphlet that criticised the BL management, and refusing to withdraw his name from the pamphlet when asked to do so. A ballot on a strike in sympathy of Robinson and opposed to the dismissal was held but the motion not carried, votes being 14,000 against a strike and only 600 in favour (the result was rumoured to be due to infiltration in the Union by MI5 to try to undermine his position)."
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 21:38:07 GMT
I'll fetch my dancing shoes Have a word with the Doc tomorrow before you do anything too strenuous.  |
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Post by crapslinger on Oct 31, 2017 21:43:56 GMT
Good riddance to him the shit stirring bastard. Rot in Piss, fat Marxist bastard I bet Corbyn and his cronies are in mourning. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 21:59:43 GMT
I'll fetch my dancing shoes Have a word with the Doc tomorrow before you do anything too strenuous.  physio after too |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 23:42:50 GMT
Met him once. He bought me a bag of chips. Seemed a nice bloke. Papers didn't like him though. But you know what they say just because someone wrote it in a book/newspaper doesn't mean it is true.
RIP
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Post by desman2 on Oct 31, 2017 23:44:52 GMT
He probab;ly caused more job losses than any other individual in history.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2017 23:57:00 GMT
Another " Working Class Hero" that was hell bent on spreading his Marxist ideology and bringing the country down, dare I say a bit like Scargill, and that Trotsky twat Nellist.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2017 0:13:16 GMT
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Post by harryburrows on Nov 1, 2017 2:19:28 GMT
Terrible man, did his best to put British Leyland out of business. I've just read part of his obituary in the Telegraph : " Sir Michael Edwardes (Chairman) claimed that in Robinson’s five years as convener, there had been 523 disputes at Longbridge – an 87 per cent increase – preventing the production of 62,000 cars and 113,000 engines, worth £200 million. Robinson’s activities delighted BL’s competitors: Fiat’s advertising agency came up with the slogan “made by robots, not by Robbos”. What an awful "achievement" to be remembered by. Maybe he did us a favour could you imagine all those extra allegros and maxis ect The maxi was a great motor , I'll agree about the allegro though . My old man sold his Capri and bought one . Like driving a tractor |
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Post by Dutchpeter on Nov 1, 2017 7:14:25 GMT
The Union movement caused the collapse of James Callaghan's minority government in early 1979. Callaghan was doing well enough to have won an election in late 1978 (inflation was down to 8% from 25% for example). So why on earth did the unions bring down a sympathetic Labour government (Callaghan was a former union leader), and lay the path for Margaret Thatcher? Go figure as the yanks say.
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Post by yeokel on Nov 1, 2017 8:14:20 GMT
You didn't need to 'hunt' Red Robbo down. He was there on Midlands Today every bloody night having bought another load of mindless sheep one step closer to the dole. Of course, the main problem with British Leyland was that the cars were shite (with one or two honourable exceptions (including the Maxi)) but given the right level of investment and some decent management the business might have stood a chance of being turned around. But in the days of Red Robbo, Scargill, McGahey and their like the management of various nationalised industries never stood a chance, and thus the country/economy never stood a chance either. The good thing, of course, is that we've learned the lessons of the past and there is nobody around who would like us to return to those union dominated, strike ridden days, is there? |
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Post by Dutchpeter on Nov 1, 2017 8:32:18 GMT
linkDespite being a link to The Daily Mail, the article's author historian Dominic Sandbrook made a sympathetic evaluation of the Callaghan's government in his book 'Seasons in the Sun'. Bernard Donoughue who is widely quoted in the article was a Callaghan insider and future Labour minister.
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Post by wagsastokie on Nov 1, 2017 8:34:48 GMT
Maybe he did us a favour could you imagine all those extra allegros and maxis ect The maxi was a great motor , I'll agree about the allegro though . My old man sold his Capri and bought one . Like driving a tractor I remember as a kid my mother exchanging her maxi for a olive green allegro stupid nearly square stearing wheel Thank god after a couple years she got rid and got Vauxhall vx 2300 now that was the most comfortable car I've ever been in not great at corners |
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Post by thevoid on Nov 1, 2017 9:57:25 GMT
He'd fit in well with the current Marxist slime.
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Post by metalhead on Nov 1, 2017 12:34:48 GMT
No doubt, the fuhrer will be out to eat me alive and call me a communist, but bollocks was BL's demise down to Red Robbo. It was a combination of things. Shit management, weak government, aggressive unions and absolutely dire quality.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2017 12:46:08 GMT
linkDespite being a link to The Daily Mail, the article's author historian Dominic Sandbrook made a sympathetic evaluation of the Callaghan's government in his book 'Seasons in the Sun'. Bernard Donoughue who is widely quoted in the article was a Callaghan insider and future Labour minister. Yes that article brings back memories. |
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Post by manmarking on Nov 1, 2017 12:51:14 GMT
No doubt, the fuhrer will be out to eat me alive and call me a communist, but bollocks was BL's demise down to Red Robbo. It was a combination of things. Shit management, weak government, aggressive unions and absolutely dire quality. You raise a correct point mate, albeit a futile one on the EE Waffen Board |
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Post by crapslinger on Nov 1, 2017 13:33:45 GMT
No doubt, the fuhrer will be out to eat me alive and call me a communist, but bollocks was BL's demise down to Red Robbo. It was a combination of things. Shit management, weak government, aggressive unions and absolutely dire quality. I seem to re call BL was a nationalised company under a Labour government, is this what Corbyn wants to return to ?, a weak government bullied by Red Robbo and the Marxist lead unions funded by the tax payer, must never happen again. |
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Post by metalhead on Nov 1, 2017 14:17:11 GMT
No doubt, the fuhrer will be out to eat me alive and call me a communist, but bollocks was BL's demise down to Red Robbo. It was a combination of things. Shit management, weak government, aggressive unions and absolutely dire quality. I seem to re call BL was a nationalised company under a Labour government, is this what Corbyn wants to return to ?, a weak government bullied by Red Robbo and the Marxist lead unions funded by the tax payer, must never happen again. BL was nationalised by Tony Benn, under a Labour government. You are correct. What does that have to do with the price of bread? Had it not been nationalised, it probably would have died. BMC was on the verge of collapsing. Labour tried to keep some 250,000 employees in work. People can, and will, bag on Red Robbo, but they'll conveniently forget that huge problem with BL, which is that the quality of British cars really started to plummet in the 60's (before the nationalisation) and then pretty much flat-lined in the 70's and 80's. Designs were outdated. Engines were outdated. Cars were badly assembled, often by inexperienced workers (take the Rover SD1) and were routinely under-engineered. That is all ignoring the fact many of them were also poorly designed (prone to rusting) and cheaply manufactured. It's mad to think, that at the same time you could buy a Morris Marina....  You could also buy a BMW 3 Series (E21).... .jpg) And there wasn't a massive difference in price. People bought British out of blind loyalty to BL. Once they bought a Volkswagen or a BMW or went Japanese, they quickly realised that they'd been throwing their money away buying shit British cars. |
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Post by Dutchpeter on Nov 1, 2017 14:38:34 GMT
The big problem with BL was it was just too big. Austin, Morris, Triumph were all going for the same markets with little product rationalisation. So they were effectively creating their own competition, with suspicion and lack of cooperation from these competing elements. The quality was bad, but arguably no more so than their European competitors. VW made poor cars until they put their own badge on the Audi 50 and created the Polo. Where BL were truly poor was product vision. Whereas there was the Renault 5, the Fiat 127 (the super mini class), BL missed the boat with the Allegro and the Metro was just too late.
Ford, Chrysler UK and Vauxhall were plagued with Strikes to a marginally lesser degree, but those companies had big factories on the continent to take up the slack. BL had one factory in Belgium by comparison. So it's correct to say poor products, quality and management were to blame, but the Unions at BL were part of the problem too.
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Post by metalhead on Nov 1, 2017 15:01:50 GMT
Dutchpeter if you want to sum up BL's vision, you have to look at the Triumph Stag, arguably one of the best convertibles of its generation. Looked brilliant, drove brilliant and had all the makings of a great car.... except Triumph refused to use Rovers excellent V8 engine, an engine grounded in reliability (surprisingly) due to.... well, fuck knows why. Instead, some genius came up with the idea of welding two Triumph Dolomite engines together. The cooling system remained almost the same as the original Dolomite and was too restricted to ever cool the engine properly, as such the engine ran hot. When the engine overheated (which they often did), the head warped..... It was common Triumph advice to turn the engine off in any kind of traffic.
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Post by Dutchpeter on Nov 1, 2017 15:14:42 GMT
Dutchpeter if you want to sum up BL's vision, you have to look at the Triumph Stag, arguably one of the best convertibles of its generation. Looked brilliant, drove brilliant and had all the makings of a great car.... except Triumph refused to use Rovers excellent V8 engine, an engine grounded in reliability (surprisingly) due to.... well, fuck knows why. Instead, some genius came up with the idea of welding two Triumph Dolomite engines together. The cooling system remained almost the same as the original Dolomite and was too restricted to ever cool the engine properly, as such the engine ran hot. When the engine overheated (which they often did), the head warped..... It was common Triumph advice to turn the engine off in any kind of traffic. You're right a thing of beauty but chronically under engineered. BL cars had many strange faults, Allegro exploding rear windscreens, SD1's who's hazard lights operated when opening the glove box etc. My favourite however, are Triumph Stag's that just after parking would self operate its central locking (thus trapping the owner),then the engine would set on fire |
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Post by metalhead on Nov 1, 2017 15:37:01 GMT
Dutchpeter if you want to sum up BL's vision, you have to look at the Triumph Stag, arguably one of the best convertibles of its generation. Looked brilliant, drove brilliant and had all the makings of a great car.... except Triumph refused to use Rovers excellent V8 engine, an engine grounded in reliability (surprisingly) due to.... well, fuck knows why. Instead, some genius came up with the idea of welding two Triumph Dolomite engines together. The cooling system remained almost the same as the original Dolomite and was too restricted to ever cool the engine properly, as such the engine ran hot. When the engine overheated (which they often did), the head warped..... It was common Triumph advice to turn the engine off in any kind of traffic. You're right a thing of beauty but chronically under engineered. BL cars had many strange faults, Allegro exploding rear windscreens, SD1's who's hazard lights operated when opening the glove box etc. My favourite however, are Triumph Stag's that just after parking would self operate its central locking (thus trapping the owner),then the engine would set on fire I never knew that about the Stag setting on fire after the locking. That's brilliantly terrifying. I've heard many a story of the Austin Allegro and it's exploding glass. Story goes, you jack up one side, the weight of the car chassis and the return force from the jack would cause the the frame of the car to bend ever so slightly.... BANG, glass flying everywhere. The SD1, styled on a Ferrari Daytona, so they say I do remember going and looking at one, about 4 or 5 years ago. I'm convinced they'll be a classic one day, and it was about £950, come and collect. Almost everything electrical didn't work. Cruise control? Didn't work. Electric sunroof? Didn't work. Radio? Didn't work if you were driving over 20mph... Oh and it had electric windows..... which didn't work. (I lie, the windows did work but they were very intermittent) |
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Post by metalhead on Nov 1, 2017 15:41:03 GMT
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physio after too
