Monday 17 February 2014

Politician in bus use shock!

It's obvious that most senior politicians never use buses and don't even respect those of us who regularly do so. But Labour's Shadow Infrastructure Minister, Andrew Adonis, has agreed to slum it by using London's buses for a week and to tell the Independent all about them.


This is of course a welcome rare chance for a senior politician to see what life is really like for millions of ordinary people, but he should bear in mind that the experience that he gets will be entirely atypical of bus use in the majority of England or in the whole of Wales and Scotland. London's bus network is centrally planned by TfL, which is accountable to London's elected representatives. Outside of London, commercial bus companies decide what will run where and how much it will cost the passenger. Councils can fill in the gaps if they want, but are of course under no obligation to do so. What he's doing is a start, but a repeat run in a variety of places around the country would not go amiss and would demonstrate that Labour wants to govern the whole nation rather than just London.

3 comments:

  1. A bus....arrgh ...isn't that red thingy...with a rear platform, conductor and thrupenny fare.

    Must ask Nigel down the club. He organised a minibus for the golf club do so knows everything about buses!!!!!!!!!!

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  2. Not fair, Clive! Adonis spent a week with a Rail Rover when he was Transport Minister travelling round the country looking at trains from the passenger perspective.
    If we had a DfT with Andrew Adonis in charge of trains and Norman Baker in charge of buses, then we'd see a decent transport policy implemented. Instead, we get the politicians on their way up or on their way down. Och well . . . . . . .

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  3. It was - I thought obviously - meant in jest as a general comment on the many politicians who don't have a clue about such things.

    A parody on various comments I have heard at one time or another!!!!.

    ReplyDelete

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