Learner driver heads for a great railway disaster Sketch Simon Hoggart Wednesday July 4, 2001 The Guardian The good news is that John Prescott is no longer in charge of transport. The bad news is that Stephen Byers is. Nothing Mr Byers said in his first session of transport questions yesterday gave the slightest hint that he realises the size of the problem. Instead, astoundingly, he is thinking of handing over the east coast main line to Virgin Trains. To Virgin Trains, the greatest railway disaster since the collapse of the Tay Bridge! He didn't even think this was an odd thing to contemplate. "I will give due consideration to the strengths which have come from both bidders, and there are strengths belonging to both GNER and Virgin," he said elliptically. No doubt if Mr Byers employed a cowboy builder who flooded the kitchen, demolished a retaining wall and made the master bedroom fall into the garden, he would cheerfully hire the same man to build his conservatory. The even worse news is that he is accompanied by a ministerial team of spectacular nonentities. I don't want to be rude to teachers in our new universities, but this lot do resemble the geography department from an old polytechnic. There is a man with thinning hair who yesterday wore a grey suit and brown shoes. There was another man with a regrettable moustache. And a woman in a crumpled beige outfit. Who are these people? It is hard to say. I assume they are members of parliament, though given the fictional names so many constituencies have these days (think of Amber Valley, Wyre Forest, Mole Valley, Ynys Mon, Wansdyke, Weaver Vale, The Deepings, Anniesland - these are not real places, but fairy glens) I am not so sure. They may have been told to wander into the chamber and let everyone assume they were just elected. They have, however, all learned New Labour jargon. For instance, the man with the regrettable moustache spoke of "the area cost adjustment context of the white paper which will be published later this year". He told us that he was considering split bands, and a fixed cycle for revaluations. He was looking not only at changes in banding, but also the ratio between bandings (And you may have thought that a fixed cycle was otherwise known as an exercise bike.) The woman in the crumpled beige outfit replied to Gordon Marsden, the Labour MP for Blackpool South, by talking about "regeneration strategies due to a single regeneration budget". Mr Marsden is too lively and interesting to be a minister, but he's obviously trying to learn. He talked about Blackpool's "special needs, due to its 180 degree periphery". This means, I suppose, that half the place is next to the sea, so it has a special need for donkeys, Punch and Judy shows, fortune tellers, and buckets and spades. There must be a single regeneration strategy to provide these. Mike Hancock, being a Liberal Democrat, cannot be a minister in this government, but how he would fit in! He called for "regeneration expenditure to be spent outside the parameters". There was just one sign of hope amid this dreary, sub-fusc reduction of real issues affecting real people. On Monday no fewer than three Labour backbenchers asked aggressive questions of David Blunkett, which is three more than you'd have got at the same session in the last parliament. Yesterday Gordon Prentice of Pendle let rip with an angry assault on the government's failure even to address the issue of housing. This is all most encouraging. We have prime minister's questions this afternoon, and I hope to record more progress in the direction of less deference. Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,516557,00.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
