He was roped to the tracks as MPs rolled over him
OLD thriller films would show a hero tied to railway tracks, about to be squashed by an onrushing locomotive. Cue thrilling music and close-ups of the imperilled fellow’s frantic, white-a-stripe eyeballs.
He was always cut loose at the final moment, rolling away from the flashing wheels with mere seconds to spare. Much gasping and excitement.
But for Transport Secretary Chris Grayling yesterday there was no such salvation. Mr Grayling had come to the Commons to make a statement about the foul-up on railways in the North and South-East of England.
An already dicey service has been reduced to calamity after managers tried to introduce a new timetable. Meetings, hospital appointments and more have been missed. Family get-togethers have been ruined. And all from a rail industry that is among the most expensive in the world and insists on talking to us as though we are halfwits or toddlers.
Mr Grayling, this Secretary of State being held answerable for a privatised rail service, was like that man in the films. He was roped to the track. But he was not cut free. He just had to lie there while MPs on all sides ran him over, time and again. Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum.
EACH attack from an MP left him a fraction flatter. And there was none of the normal relief to be had in Parliament when a minister is under fire. A minister’s own party will usually rally to his assistance. Not yesterday. Tory backbenchers, particularly those with affected constituents, hurled verbal bogeys at poor old Grayling. One has to admire their lack of partisanship. Yet it did not make for easy viewing.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Con, Mid-Sussex) harrumphed as only a former Hussar and member of White’s can. Having heard Mr Grayling explain that the industry’s ‘rail readiness board’ had cheerfully said the timetabling plans should be fine, Sir Nicholas offered Mr Grayling ‘a respectful suggestion’.
‘The rail readiness board should be taken quietly outside and disposed of,’ thundered Sir Nicholas. The Soamesian tone was not entirely one of ‘respect’. He Grim: Mr Grayling in the Commons spoke to Grayling more like Blackadder addressing Baldrick. If Sir Nicholas gave us an idea of rail-travel disarray in Sussex, particularly East Grinstead, Sir Oliver Heald (Con, NE Herts) brought news from more northerly parts of the London commuter zone.
It was equally grim. Sir Oliver had been on a railway platform this morning and the locals were revolting (he did not quite put it like that but you get the drift).
There was even a schoolchild in tears, either because it was going to miss school assembly or an exam or because it was intimidated to encounter so imposing a figure as the Rt Hon Sir Oliver Heald, a man of almost pontifical grandeur. He could make the Fat Controller blush, could Heald. We braced ourselves as another Tory knight of the shires came puffing over the horizon on the DOWN line. It was Sir Michael Fallon – the Sevenoaks express. Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum.
He shot over Mr Grayling’s prostrate form without hesitation, telling him firmly that certain villages in his constituency were practically cut off from civilisaton by the cessation of proper services on the railway.
FROM the Leeds conurbation we heard, via Labour’s Rachel Reeves, that things were no less hopeless there. Kelvin Hopkins relayed chaos in Luton. Nadine Dorries (Con, Mid-Beds) wanted delayed commuters to be given six months of free travel by the useless Thameslink company. Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron painted a picture of grim travelling in Cumbria.
Crispin Blunt, a Surrey Tory, started speaking with eloquent disgruntlement of ‘the Redhill hump’. He was taking it! Actually, the Redhill hump is something to do with price structures, but the House agreed with him. Furiously. Labour MPs kept demanding Mr Grayling’s resignation, saying how ‘complacent’ he sounded.
Not quite true. He was in a dreadful state, his voice husky, the left of his face twitching terribly.
Helpless, maybe. Entirely miserable. But not, I think, complacent.