I'm Backing Britain - Takeover

Takeover

Such was the response coming into Colt that they found themselves overwhelmed and needed someone else to take it over. They asked the Industrial Society, a non-partisan body which promoted the best use of human resources in commerce and industry, which agreed and began to set up an organisation to run it. The society recruited 11 extra full-time staff in January 1968 for the campaign, and appointed Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John as its figurehead. The campaign was handled on a day-to-day basis by Mark Wolfson, who was Head of Youth Services for the Society.

Guardian Financial Editor William Davis had already noted in his column of 10 January that attention was moving away from the idea of providing free labour. The Industrial Society also stressed that working extra half-hours was "a tiny part" of the national campaign, and criticised people who tried to make anti-union propaganda out of the reaction to the case. Industrial Society director John Garnett pointed to tanker drivers who had switched from 56 hours driving slowly per week to 42 hours of faster driving. The Society convened a group of industrialists and leading trade unionists to reshape the official aims of the campaign. The Society found it difficult to make progress in getting the campaign adopted in more workplaces because of suspicion about their motives; a campaign adviser told the Daily Mirror that many assumed they were connected to the Labour Party and "without its political flavour, I am sure the campaign would have been taken a lot more seriously".