Bob wrote: > > Now this is what I find puzzling. Your analogy relies on all three > parties doing an equal amount of the fighting but this is not what is > happening in the situation with DEFRA and the joint attack by BW and its > customers (i.e., us). If only one party, us (the smallest incidentally) > is doing all the public fighting then the campaign is doomed to failure.
I understand your point but, stretching the analogy further, if one party is supplying the SAS/SBS working behind enemy lines and the other party (us) is supplying the visible troops on the ground are we (the good guys) not still getting the war won? > > Talk of cloak and dagger stuff going on behind closed doors is > irrelevant if it doesn't get publicity and therefore helps to sway > public opinion. BW needs to do some flag waving of its own or else admit > that it is scared of the consequences and that the rest of us are just > on a fools errand. We, are the public, but we also need to publicise the fight. That is the whole raison d'etre behind SOW and our present push to involve *all* other waterway users. BW will still have to watch their backs for what they say publicly just because (real world politics here) they are a subsidiary organisation of the very ministry that we are criticising. We all agree what would be said and done in an ideal world (but it ain't one) and there is more than one way to skin a cat. Roger
