I happened to catch a debate about the electrification of railways in Wales on BBC Parliament, the man actually seems to know what he is talking about and is genuinely enthusiatic about improving the rail network etc, but the highlight was this (Column 197, Hansard):
Mr Wayne David: In the spirit of St David's day, I respectfully remind the Secretary of State that St David probably lived in west Wales. Has he made any assessment of the extent to which west Wales and Swansea will lose out from his partial electrification of the south Wales line?
Mr Hammond: Many people coming from England will access west Wales through Cardiff, and journey times to Cardiff are being reduced. Everybody would like a high-speed railway running right to their front door, but as we - [ Interruption. ] Okay, to the next street...
The [interruption] was of course all the Tory-NIMBY MPs from the proposed HS2 route shouting "shame" and Philip Hammond was grinning broadly* when he conceded the point and said "Okay, to the next street..."
* By his standards, narrowly by anybody else's.
Hakuna Matata, Gillian...
9 minutes ago
7 comments:
By his standards, narrowly by anybody else's
many years ago when he was a gawky youth his nickname was
the-thing-for-getting-stones-out-of-horses-hooves
thought you'd like that
ND, excellent. My favourite was from a City AM parliamentary sketch...
"It wasn’t until Osborne began a detailed traffic report of the fate he had planned for the nation’s motorways that the House lit up again.
Roads – now here was something to get excited about! Philip Hammond’s face drifted sideways like a crumpled plastic bag."
Is he any relation to the weedy one on Top Gear?
Fscking HS1! Every time I read about it, I'm irritated by the obvious piece of international cock-waving that it is.
B, they're all weedy. Clarkson just happens to be fat and weedy.
Don't you mean HS2? I'm in favour because the NIMBYs are against, that's one of my rules of thumb.
Sorry, I meant HS2. I'm against it because spending the same amount of money on the existing rail network would save far more time and hence money, but would leave the UK lagging behind Germany in the "I've got a faster train than you" competition. When the "Mallard" became the fastest steam locomotive in the world, it was to take the record from the previous holder, which was German - they only went half a mile an hour faster.
B, sure, if they gave me £17 billion and told me to spend it on public transport, HS2 would not be top of the list. But however you decide to spend it, you'll get the f-ing NIMBYs complaining.
Mark, indeed. You can't please everyone any of the time. Years ago, when my mother was a county councillor, there was a group of people in one village she represented who were hopping up and down saying "Something must be done to stop all this traffic coming through the village or someone will be killed". As it happens, my mother was able to do something: as part of a larger road scheme, she proposed that the road through the village became a dead end. Problem solved. Were the NIMBYs happy? Were they fsck! The cry did not diminish in volume, it simply changed to "We must have our through road, or the village will die".
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