12/10/2009 by admin.

Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers has revealed the Tory vision of high speed rail and better regional airports to replace the third runway at Heathrow.

She was speaking to TransportMatters after telling her party conference in Manchester: “There will be no third runway at Heathrow”. She dismissed Lord Adonis’ claims that long haul travellers would switch to Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt if they couldn’t land at Heathrow.

“We are adamant that we need to make Heathrow a much better airport,” she said. “It is hugely important because it is our major link to long haul routes around the world. But we think there’s a better way to do that than a new runway, concreting over an entire village, and 46 per cent more flights.

“We will do it by providing a realistic high speed rail alternative and by starting to use the significant spare capacity at regional airports around the rest of the country.

“If we can find a way to help regional airports some of the traffic from their local population, that is fewer people getting in their cars, trundling down to London and contributing to the overcrowding crisis.”

And she added there would be no problem axing the third runway.

“It is very easy to kill the third runway. People just have to come out and vote Conservative. They are not even anywhere near putting in a planning application. If we win, and I am Secretary of State, I will just go the House of Commons and say it is not going to happen. ‘Take your bulldozers home.’”

For the full story, see TransportMatters magazine, out this week

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08/10/2009 by admin.

Whatever his message, I really do think Bono has ideas above his station…and I still think video presentations just make you think the speaker hasn’t turned up.

At least we haven’t had his missus….and I think he’s speaking without an autocue.

A long climb ahead “but the view from the summit will be worth it” – they said he would say that kind of thing. But Afghanistan is a lot further up his agenda than it was Gordon Brown’s. And so is the first standing ovation.

“We could have come to Manchester and played it safe…” Well they have played it pretty safe, apart from the pensions bombshell.

Interesting reverse on the Sarah Brown thing, he’s paying tribute to his wife – but he’ll take some flak for mentioning the death of his son, however briefly.

“Not everything Labour did was wrong”…but it’s a backhanded compliment ending with a swipe at the Attorney General.

Not sure he should have offered options 1 and 2 on dealing with the national debt. There are some who will think them more attractive than paying it off.

“Don’t you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern Conservative Party, to fight for the poorest who you have let down”. Pretty audacious stuff.

Better than Brown? Hard to call.

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07/10/2009 by admin.

The highlight of my Tory conference – a 1 to 1 with shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers – turned into a bit of a damp squib.

I was promised half an hour and got 20 minutes as she arrived late and then remembered she was in a hurry when I started to ask about buses.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers…and I’ll just have to analyse her responses even more carefully to get enough out my considerable efforts.

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29/09/2009 by admin.

I’m a big fan of Sarah Brown. I follow her on twitter.

But I groaned when she walked on stage for the second year running. I thought, though, that she was even better this year, brief, sincere, more confident, and a lot less sugary than last year.

Why, though, couldn’t he just get up and make a speech. If it takes two videos and his wife to get him going, it looks a bit like he hasn’t turned up on time.

He really does need to sort out his smile, though. And “Securing Britain’s Economic Recovery” was certainly not the catchiest of mottos to stick on the plaque in front of him.

A long list of Labour achievements, even if you are unimpressed by some of them, was the right way to start and went down well.

And his early jokes were good, too. “I would say Alistair Darling was the best chancellor we’ve ever had…but the press would report it as ‘Brown subs Brown’ was masterful.

It was a long time before he mentioned the Tories and that’s good.

“The economic call of the century” was a good description of the credit crunch. He’s doing well. He has laboured (sorry) the ‘Tories would do nothing’ line at PMQs this year but this time, it sounds quite fresh.

“Markets need morals” is a superb line and he’s done right to concentrate early on what we all think he’s good at – the economy.

I think the jury’s out on the distinction between a general election for a fourth Labour term and a general election for “the first Labour government of this global age”.

“Getting the deficit down while maintaining and improving front line services” would be a good trick but is it possible?

Restoring the earnings link for all pensioners will go down well…but it doesn’t necessarily mean that much, does it?

Raising the minimum wage and free child care? I’m getting dizzy now. And tackling teenage pregnancies sounds good, too. Now we are into anti-social behaviour with a vengeance. Family intervention projects to get a grip on 50,000 of “the most chaotic families” sounds good.

But punishing parents for broken ASBOs could end up in a mess. What are you going to do, lock them up and put the kids into care?

Giving councils the power to ban 24 hour drinking – even though it doesn’t really exist – sounds a splendid idea. And banning drunks from drinking is a superb line.

So, no compulsory ID cards in the next parliament. What about the one after that?

He’s relaxed and self-assured now. Seems even to be enjoying himself. It’s a round of applause for every sentence, almost.

The NHS stuff is boring but free personal care for the elderly is an impressive promise. And giving constituents the right to recall their MPs is what we all want to hear. Though judging by the reaction in the hall, abolishing hereditary peers is more important to the party faithful.

Gordon Brown finished? Not yet, by any means.

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09/09/2009 by admin.

Blackley MP Graham Stringer’s interest in transport is legendary…and so is his allegiance to the Labour Party.

So eyebrows were raised when it emerged that he was not only to attend an important meeting at the TORY party conference in Manchester next month but was actually to be the chairman.

Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce alerted its members to the lunch-time fringe meeting in the town hall on Monday, October 5, on the subject: “Making the best of our rail network - what is the future for tram/train?”.

The former city council leader would need all his debating skills to keep shadow transport minister Stephen Hammond, Salford Conservative councillor Ian Macdonald, vice chairman of Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority, Andrew Coombes of Network Rail and Richard Montagu from Alstom.

Politics apart, Mr Stringer, a senior member of the Commons Transport Select Committee, would be the perfect choice to lead the discussion. After all, Greater Manchester narrowly missed out on a government trial of running trams of train lines last year. Local transport leaders put forward the Marple to Piccadilly line but just lost out to Penistone to Sheffield.

And he takes an active interest in the Commons all-party light rail committee which is chaired by his fellow Greater Manchester MP Paul Rowen – a Liberal Democrat.

Mr Stringer was in no mood to celebrate his all-party credentials when contacted by me. As usual, he didn’t answer his mobile. I left a message and within minutes, I got a text: “It’s a mistake,” it said. “I’m not an never was.”

But he did see the funny side. “It would be interesting, if true,” a second text message added.

Investigations with Conservative Party Central Office have unravelled the mystery. The chairman of the meeting will be, in fact, Altrincham MP Graham Brady, one-time parliamentary private secretary to Tory leader David Cameron.

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10/08/2009 by admin.

Good news…I think!

“We received a petition asking:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to re-open the railway line between Colne (Lancashire) to Skipton (N.Yorkshire).”

Details of Petition:

“If this line was re-opened there would be a direct link to Manchester and Preston, thereby potentially removing hundreds of cars from the roads.This 11.5 mile line was closed in the 1970s.”

· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage

Read the Government’s response

Thank you for your e-petition.

The Department for Transport has agreed to work with Pennine Lancashire partners to develop a process to take forward the Colne to Skipton Rail Reinstatement, through the Pennine Lancashire Multi Area Agreement

But ultimately, Lancashire County Council, North Yorkshire County Council working alongside the Government regions of the North West and Yorkshire and Humber will need to decide if the re-opening of the Skipton – Colne line is the best way to meet local transport needs, and to prioritise capital funding from the Government’s Regional Funding Allocation to the regions.“

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12/07/2009 by admin.

Just been reading about the latest ideas on building a replacement to Heathrow in the Thames estuary. Makes a lot of sense to me.

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20/06/2009 by admin.

Not only, has Labour MP Ian Stewart managed to avoid the expenses scandal, but he has proved himself a bit of a hero to boot. He had to be  prevented by police from diving into the River Thames to try to rescue a man who jumped off Westminster Bridge outside the House of Commons.

The Eccles MP had kicked off his shoes and was preparing to go into the river as the man disappeared under the water was being carried downstream by the fast-flowing current.

But armed officers who were guarding MPs and their guests on the Commons Terrace outside the Strangers Bar which overlooks the Thames stepped in and ordered Mr Stewart not to enter the water.

A fire brigade rescue boat and a river police boat arrived within minutes and managed to snatch the man from the river, guided by onlookers from the terrace,  before taking him to hospital.

Mr Stewart, whose constituency will disappear at the next election, was entertaining visitors from Greater Manchester and Merseyside after a parliamentary reception for the North West Rail Campaign and Merseytravel which was hosted by Liverpool MP and Transport Select Committee Chairman Louise Elman and attended by new transport minister Chris Mole.

He said afterwards: “Nobody seemed to be doing anything so I thought I had better go in but  the police stopped me.”

Earlier in the day, he had rescued me when he spied me trying to get through a locked glass door in Portcullis House. I was in the process of being told by a policeman: “You can’t just wander around this place, sir”, when Ian opened the door from the inside and let me through.

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20/06/2009 by admin.

A VETERAN airport campaigner and a Manchester MP clashed at a meeting of the Commons Transport Select Committee over to cost of air travel.

Jeff Gazzard, who lives near Manchester Airport and is a long-time opponent of the second runway, claimed that it is now as cheap to fly to Prague as catch a taxi into Manchester and demanded that air fares should be put up to discourage people from flying.

He was called to give evidence to the Committee - which is preparing a report into the future of aviation – as a director of the Aviation Environment Federation…and faced Blackley MP Graham Stringer who once led Manchester City Council - the airport’s biggest shareholder.

Submitting, Manchester Airport’s passenger figures, Mr Gazzard said: “We have some concerns that regional airports are overstating their case for expansion.

“The airport’s forecasts when seeking to build a second runway were a target of almost 30 million passengers by 2005 – actual numbers were 22 million representing a staggering 27 per cent shortfall.

“Similarly, aircraft movements are way below forecast too. This means that the economic benefits claimed at the time construction permission for the second runway was sought and obtained will also be significantly lower than predicted.

“We would ask the committee to note this underperformance by the UK’s largest airport outside London and the South East.”

Mr Stringer told him: “You do not like aviation and you are targeting it even though it only contributes five per cent of the pollution.

“How do you say to my constituents earning £15,000 a year and can just about manage one holiday a year to the Costa Brava that they should pay more?”

Mr Gazzard, who had also clashed with Sheffield MP Angela Smith about raising fares for ordinary people by imposing air passenger duty, replied: “People who fly once a year to the Costa Brava need have anything to fear from between £3 and £30 of the price of air tickets.”

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10/06/2009 by admin.

Very amusing piece on BBC news about their discovery that an MP was being paid by the Caravan Club and asking questions about caravans and the Olympics.

It was a long piece and they had got somebody to drive a Jeep across Westminster Bridge so they could get the House in the background. There must have been a convenient turnaround somewhere because the same car and carvan drove past about six times!

Posted in Media, Travels, Motors, Politics, Transport | Print | 1 Comment »