Peter Hitchens writes:
The ridiculous scenes on the railways over Christmas were in fact the result of 60 years of official hatred of rail transport.
The ‘major engineering works’ involved are being done in a rush, decades too late, as overcrowding forces even Britain’s train-loathing rulers to modernise a decrepit system.
Passenger railways in this country survive only because so many people continue to prefer them to roads, despite the painful fares and crammed coaches.
The Treasury, the Transport Department and the mighty roads lobby would have killed them off if they could have done, as has almost happened in the USA.
Huge and powerful interests – oil, construction, car manufacturers, domestic airlines – have always seen efficient, affordable railways as an obstacle to their growth.
I’m always amused by the way everyone remembers the piffling Profumo affair, in which nothing actually happened. But the far greater scandal of Transport Minister Ernest Marples is virtually unknown.
Marples ran a company that built roads. While he was Transport Minister, he continued to own shares in this firm until public outrage forced him to sell them – to his wife.
This charmer, who was really responsible for the smashing up of railways usually blamed on Lord Beeching, ended up by fleeing the country on a midnight train (of all things – it’s assumed he couldn’t have got so many of his possessions into a car or on to a plane) bound for Monaco.
Marples’s 1975 moonlight flit was a successful bid to escape a gigantic tax bill. He lived out his remaining years among vineyards in Beaujolais. Hardly anyone knows this.
And:
Cabinet files reveal the pitiful excuses Margaret Thatcher gave for introducing the GCSE exam, a dismal cocktail of hard slog and compulsory ignorance which has made secondary education such a futile misery for so many.
Apparently, she didn’t want to upset poor old Keith Joseph, who was keen on it. Well, Sir Keith was a tortured soul, but I’d still rather upset him than ruin the education of millions.
Then she didn’t want to look weak in the face of union protests. Again, couldn’t she stand a bit of loss of face in a good cause?
I am amazed her ‘Iron Lady’ reputation still endures. The more we learn about her, the less it is justified.
The ridiculous scenes on the railways over Christmas were in fact the result of 60 years of official hatred of rail transport.
The ‘major engineering works’ involved are being done in a rush, decades too late, as overcrowding forces even Britain’s train-loathing rulers to modernise a decrepit system.
Passenger railways in this country survive only because so many people continue to prefer them to roads, despite the painful fares and crammed coaches.
The Treasury, the Transport Department and the mighty roads lobby would have killed them off if they could have done, as has almost happened in the USA.
Huge and powerful interests – oil, construction, car manufacturers, domestic airlines – have always seen efficient, affordable railways as an obstacle to their growth.
I’m always amused by the way everyone remembers the piffling Profumo affair, in which nothing actually happened. But the far greater scandal of Transport Minister Ernest Marples is virtually unknown.
Marples ran a company that built roads. While he was Transport Minister, he continued to own shares in this firm until public outrage forced him to sell them – to his wife.
This charmer, who was really responsible for the smashing up of railways usually blamed on Lord Beeching, ended up by fleeing the country on a midnight train (of all things – it’s assumed he couldn’t have got so many of his possessions into a car or on to a plane) bound for Monaco.
Marples’s 1975 moonlight flit was a successful bid to escape a gigantic tax bill. He lived out his remaining years among vineyards in Beaujolais. Hardly anyone knows this.
And:
Cabinet files reveal the pitiful excuses Margaret Thatcher gave for introducing the GCSE exam, a dismal cocktail of hard slog and compulsory ignorance which has made secondary education such a futile misery for so many.
Apparently, she didn’t want to upset poor old Keith Joseph, who was keen on it. Well, Sir Keith was a tortured soul, but I’d still rather upset him than ruin the education of millions.
Then she didn’t want to look weak in the face of union protests. Again, couldn’t she stand a bit of loss of face in a good cause?
I am amazed her ‘Iron Lady’ reputation still endures. The more we learn about her, the less it is justified.
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