Paul Corfield wrote:

...

I'm sure Mr Ranger was involved with Prestige at some point and he was
also involved in the Tunnel Cooling project but I don't know what his
exact role was. However from my experience of Prestige he did not single
handedly deliver the contract / project on a plate [1] - as is suggested
by certain press releases.

I shall now await a brown envelope landing on my desk ;-)

[1] it was this suggestion that rather stuck in my throat given how much
work so many good people put in to that project to make it happen.

Sort of confirms my suspicions - the impression he gave at the Transport
Committee (which was that he'd helped renegotiate some part of the PFI
rather than delivering the whole project) plus the factor of his youth
was rather at odds with the PR, which seemed to me to be bigging up what
appears to be a conventional bright young guy career in consultancy
which occasionally touched on transport matters as something rather larger.

I suspect he did indeed help out during the Oyster PFI negotiations but
not a lot else, but at least his minute amount of relevant transport
experience won't be entirely wasted now they're going to need a new
contract. Although, in his current role he's not really involved
day-to-day at TfL, is he?

In recent years his efforts seem mainly to be geared towards a political
career, including standing for Parliament in Wigan and briefly being the
Conservatives' vice-chairman. I was at a party with him back in 2006,
actually, although we didn't meet.

Tom