Would YOU buy a used car from these men?

The title for today’s article is of course a variation on the famous Democrat poster campaign in the 1960 US Presidential election which used the slogan “Would YOU buy a used car from this man?” together with a photograph of Richard Nixon, who later lost the election to John Kennedy. The implication being that the person was not someone you could trust, and that was obvious from the person’s face.
British Gazette readers will of course be aware that these treasonous perjurers cannot be trusted to run our country (they prefer to leave that to the European Union, while still of course drawing their salaries from we poor taxpayers!) and therefore you Dear Reader would presumably consider it would be illogical to trust them with anything else!
Today’s article is however on the subject of cars, for the British Gazette can report upon a very nasty and squalid scam that these rouges are aware of and are doing nothing about. To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies; “Well they wouldn’t, wouldn’t they.”
Readers will be aware that over the past three decades there has been a dramatic improvement in the build quality, reliability and longevity of the cars on our roads. Those readers old enough to remember driving in the 1970s (in our Mk III Cortinas!) will recall that it was rare to see cars much over the age of five years on the road, and those that were, were rather rusty. There were exceptions; Rolls Royce and Bentley cars but also Saabs and Volvos – but ten year old examples of these Swedish cars generally looked to be very long in the tooth and soon destined for the breaker’s yard and the car crusher.
Today of course, the car buyer can walk into a car dealer’s showroom and order a new car (nothing exotic, just an “ordinary car”) and could confidently expect the car to be in sound condition three decades hence such is the way new cars are built.
However, as the reader knows, new cars purchased are not going to be on the roads in thirty years time. This is because of built in obsolescence. In the 1960s and 1970s this meant that the cars rusted away and therefore could not continue on the road – they would generally fail their MOTs on account of corrosion and the cost of the bodywork repair exceeded the value of the car. Today, a variation of this still happens but it is not as open and honest as rust and the cost of the time and labour of a reputable and competent bodywork repair man. Today, cars are scrapped due to the artificially inflated cost of certain the “dealer only” spare parts. We are not talking about such as air filters, oil filters and spark plugs. We are talking about headlamp units, computer units (that are part of the engine, braking or other systems on modern cars that have computers) and so on. The replacement costs (to the car owner) of these parts bear no reasonable relation to the cost of their manufacture. We are talking about headlamp units at £2,500! Computer units at over £1,000! Modern cars costing £8,000 can have well over a dozen! The idea being of course that the car when it is about ten years old will need such as these replacing and when told of the cost, the car owner will consider the only sensible thing to do is to scrap the car.
Of course, such a widespread practice might require the manufacturers to agree to this.
Might it be the case that such actions should be prosecuted as anti-competitive and restrictive trade practices?
Such offences carry large fines in Europe and in the USA these large fines can often be backed up by prison sentences to the directors involved.
Is it the case that the fact that such prosecutions DO NOT TAKE PLACE is due to the compliance of the politicians?
Of course, the people who suffer most are the poorest. Consider an unemployed man searching for work. An inexpensive second hand car, with spare parts that bear a reasonable relation to their cost of manufacture would enable such a chap to look for work over a wider area. He could take a job that requires him to have his own transport.
Of course, if confronted with these facts, these lying traitors would draw the questioner’s attention to the “need to reduce CO2 emissions” and new cars are more environmentally friendly that old cars.
Is this a case of one fraud needing another to keep it on the go?
Ah, but lest we forget; is there not supposed to be “honour among thieves?” Presumably this might be the evidence for it!
But for such a man to prosper so would require honest decent politicians whose noses are not in the trough.
Some hope!