Prince Philip stirs new row

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 9

Prince Philip stirs new row

NZPA-Reuter Cambridge

Prince Philip had stirred up another controversy with a speech suggesting that Stat e-owned industries should reduce their work forces.

Prince Philip, who is supposed not to voice political views, said some people contended that industries really existed for the benefit of their employees first and the consumer second.

“If you take that argument too far people would still be employed making bows and arrows for the army or whalebone corsets, steam engines or antimacassars,” the Prince said. Prince Philip told the Cambridge University Industrial Society: “It is unrealistic to expect the large and well-established enterprises of the nationalised industries to increase the number of people they employ. “Everything suggests that if they are to improve or even maintain their produc-

tivity, and hence the cost of their services, their work forces are more likely to shrink.”

Prince Philip had “absolutely no qualifications” to talk about nationalised industries, said Mr Tom Torney, Labour member for Bradford South, “ft sounded like a Tory Party political broadcast, and Mns Thatcher must rate him quite an asset.” Asked at the Cambridge meeting what he. thought of the banned Sex Pistols record “God Save the Queen,” which criticised the Queen, Prince Philip said: “I think we have got to operate civilisation and freedom of speech on the basis of selfrestraint, and we have got to put up with people who do not exercise self-re-straint.

“I accept the principle of freedom of speech very much. I perhaps do not enjoy it so much as some, certainly not afterwards.”