A better class of travel

So here I am kicking back in the first class carriage on my way to London. Free wi-fi, as well as free cups of tea and biscuits. I also have a seat tucked next to the window with a powerpoint for my PC and a little table. Its a single seat, so I don't have to rub grubby shoulders with anyone.


Not that any of the shoulders here are grubby. There are a few occasional travellers - retirees with pre-GFC indexed pensions I would guess - and worker-bee types. Everyone is looking rather pleased with themselves, the retirees because they are getting their rocks off on the free tea (as am I), the businessy types because they travel like this all the time, and they are all so terribly keen for their success to be noticed. They keep looking around to make eye contact with eachother and establish themselves as "us" rather than a "them".


I suspect that a number of the retirees are also feeling rather pleased with themselves because, like me, they have paid less for the free tea, wi-fi, and big comfy seats than they would have paid for a seat down in the other carriage with the plebs and the free air. Its one of the wierd peculiarities of the ticketing sysetm here in the UK that the price of the tickets vary from day to day, depending on demand. For some reason - I suspect because they operate as totally different booking systems - this means that if you are lucky, you can score a first class seat cheaper than a bog-standard one. Such was my luck today. Ten quid cheaper, in fact. Happy as a dog in a side-car, I am.


It also reminds me, however, that I have a little stored up pustule of disillusioned rage that I need to lance....


You may recall some time ago I had a little rant about the arrogant class-ridden elitism which seems to permeate every nook and cranny of British politics.  Well, it continues, even though we are now careening headlong into an election. That's similar to careening headlong in to a brick wall, except the wall is made of Tories. Recent recommendations in response to The Expenses Scandal suggested that MPs shouldn't travel first class. On planes, I totally agree. Trains, given the above weird pricing, I am ambivalent. At least I was, until I heard the response of one Tory MP, Sir Nicholas Winterton, who complained that this would prevent him from working on the train because "people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction."  (Welcome to our, world, sunshine! Apparently no-one has appraised him of the ubiquity of the open plan office.)  

He added: "They are a totally different type of people." (my italics).

Apparently, ones that never need to work or concentrate. Perhaps its all that paying for our own transport to work that makes us so rowdy and unpleasant. The complete conviction that there is some qualitative difference between the 'them' and 'us' would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Well, in the words of The Great Jarvis "I don't see anyone else smiling in here".

Did you ever hear a more convincing argument for never letting any of the fuckers near any first class travel again? For that matter, did you ever hear a more convincing argument for never letting Tories near Government again? 

I just wish I was a little more confident that Sir Winterton was an unrepresentative sample of the House.....

See the Beeb for further detail, if you need it.

Dear Gordon,

Dear Gordon,

A couple of things on my mind that I thought I should share:

1)Biscuits

I don't know who your media advisors are, but jesus! Next time some massive circulation newspaper asks you your favourite biscuit, just answer, for fuck's sake. You don't even have to do it yourself. Delegate the task to the person who fetches your tea if its quicker. But answer!

If you had compulsory voting in this country, you would recognise the importance of the biscuit. In failing to engage in this little bit of public banter, its like someone said hello to you at the busstop and you just ignored them. Bad manners, basically. But then, I bet no-one if your office has waited for a bus stop in a very long time. I think this would help.

2) Expenses

Hello? Have you lot never been to public adminstration school?

Rule 1)Fairness, transparency, efficiency.
Rule 2) The appearance of fairness, transparency, efficiency.

So, seeing that you seem determined to fuck this up, I though I would solve your expenses crisis for you, as follows:

1) No allowances for place of residence AT ALL.

2) A travel/remoteness allowance based on the location of the MPs ELECTORAL office. You remember those? They are where the people you represent drop in to see you.

3) Conditions of allowance as follows. If you electoral office is in Greater London, you don't get one AT ALL. If you live within a few hundred miles you get Rate A (to be determined). If you live in the fucking Shetlands or something, you get Rate B, which will be much higher than A.

4) You can give everyone a pay rise at the same time. A simple table (this is where the transparency comes in) can show The People (who are actually the whole point of you going to Westminster at all, and whose money it is, by the way) how the costs and adminsitration savings mean you can afford the pay rise and still save money.

That person who makes your tea could probably administer it for you. It might take them a day or two, but not much more.

Simples, as the meerkat, would say. That took about ten minutes. I am not sure why the Speaker took so long to come up with his idea, but I reckon I'm better value for money.

Please sort this out. If the Tories get in I might have to kill myself.

For my next trick, I will sort out the House of Lords for you, if you like (someone's got to do it, and you don't seem to have been making much progress on your own).

P.S. When discussing the expenses stuff recently, some woman on the telly - I think she was a labour Lord - said something along the lines that it showed a widening gap between "the governed and those who govern". The governed? To reiterate my points above about a) media, communication and good manners, and b)the Lords, it is, depressingly, no surprise that it did not occur to use a phrase such as "the people and their representatives".

No wonder no-one wants to vote.