Nicholas Winterton
There has been a lot of outrage over Nicholas Winterton’s interview on Radio 5 yesterday. Here’s The Times for example. I heard it and felt that on the one hand he had been stupid and on the other he had talked a lot of sense.
I usually travel Second Class on trains. I have a railcard which gives me discount, so I find it good value. But at certain times, I always travel First to avoid such things as families, spotty youths with over loud iPods, mobile phone users and over-crowded carriages. I also do it, when I have something complicated to read.
Where Winterton was right was when he said MPs should be entitled to First Class travel. If I was travelling with perhaps confidential papers about constituents or sensitive matters, I would always sit in a single seat in First, so that my neighbour couldn’t read the problems of Mrs. Smith with local hooligans.
Where he was wrong was in that he betrayed the arrogant attitude that so many of the great and good show. I have known four MPs well. Two were out and out nasty and grasping people and the others were totally charming and got things done. Who were the good? Gwyneth Dunwoody and John Gummer. I’ll let the others take their guilt to their graves. By the way none of the nasty were Tory.
I would love to have the late great Brian Redhead‘s view on Nicholas Winterton. Winterton was Brian’s MP and despite being on the opposite side of the political divide, I seem to remember they had a firm friendship.
Nothing is ever what it seems.
Readers Digest
So the Readers Digest has gone into administration. Although reading their web site doesn’t show anything is amiss.
I’ve never read it, but I have put quite a few pieces of their junk mail into the bin. Hopefully, that will stop now!
But perhaps it shows how we’ve moved on and their publication is past its sell-by date. After all the US parent had to file for bankruptcy protection last year.
Cabinet on the Road
Prudence likes to take the Cabinet on the road to have meetings in different places. But as this article in The Times states.
The Cabinet Office has gone out of its way to play down the cost of sending the Cabinet out of London even though mandarins originally opposed the concept. A parliamentary answer suggested that the first in September 2008, held in Birmingham where there are key marginal seats, cost £72,756.
But as with many things Prudence and NuLabor say, the devil is in the detail. And the figure above doesn’t include security by the local police. This was said about one visit to Leeds.
Only West Yorkshire Police has so far revealed the cost of a visit: £130,000 was spent on security at the Government’s second Cabinet meeting, held in Leeds in November 2008, trebling the cost from an initial £67,198 to £197,198. The Prime Minister’s eight Cabinet meetings have cost the taxpayer an average of £200,000.
I’m all for government learning more by visiting different places, but surely if they all decided to get on Eurostar to have a meeting in Paris and then left immediately afterwards for London, they would learn little about the French capital. It would always be better to hold the meeting at the most mutually convenient place and then visit where necessary afterwards.
It would also seem that Prudence and his cronies were economical with the truth.
Will I Be On The Busway Soon?
This slogan is now displayed on all the new Stagecoach buses bough for the Cambridge Busway.
At least someone hasn’t lost their sense of humour.
The Anonymous Widower 