Very interesting that a traditional Tory supporting paper is having a go at a Tory minister in a week, when the government would clearly prefer attention to be elsewhere. Given the complete lack of support from any colleagues it would seem that Mr Burns may have run out of friends and could be heading back to obscurity, other than a claim to fame of being a cousin of David Bowie...





"kenw" wrote in message news:2013010608021399615-email@londonsrivercom...
Dear all





And BTW, for those who believe the Daily Mail to be a worthless publication, today's [online] edition has an interesting lead



Thousands are hit by fare hikes... but not the rail minister who spends £80,000 on a CHAUFFEUR for his 35-mile commute

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-commute.html





Many thanks



Kenw



[use the above as ]

Yes, let's hope that his last act as a transport minister is to reduce
the notorious congestion on the A12 by removing himself and his vehcile
from it.

Which do we think will happen first:

- he decides that he can take the train after all, maybe copying the
Deputy PM and using a less obtrusive black or brown box

- he "decides to spend more time with his family" to use a time-honoured phrase


Kenw

On 2013-01-06 12:15:43 +0000, J Lynch said:

Very interesting that a traditional Tory supporting paper is having a
go at a Tory minister in a week, when the government would clearly
prefer attention to be elsewhere. Given the complete lack of support
from any colleagues it would seem that Mr Burns may have run out of
friends and could be heading back to obscurity, other than*a claim to
fame of being a cousin of David Bowie...
*
*
"kenw" wrote in message
news:2013010608021399615-email@londonsrivercom...
Dear all


And BTW, for those who believe the Daily Mail to be a worthless
publication, today's [online] edition has an interesting lead

Thousands are hit by fare hikes... but not the rail minister who spends
£80,000 on a CHAUFFEUR for his 35-mile commute

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-commute.html



Many thanks

Kenw

[use the above as ]

On Sun, 6 Jan 2013 12:37:25 +0000, kenw wrote:

Yes, let's hope that his last act as a transport minister is to reduce
the notorious congestion on the A12 by removing himself and his vehcile
from it.

Which do we think will happen first:

- he decides that he can take the train after all, maybe copying the
Deputy PM and using a less obtrusive black or brown box

- he "decides to spend more time with his family" to use a time-honoured phrase

The article focuses on the cost of the car to the tax payer, but I'm
unclear who would pay for his commute if he chose to use the train.
Presumably he'd be able to expense the (standard class) fare as he'd
be travelling from his constituency to Westminster?

- he decides that he can take the train after all, maybe copying the
Deputy PM and using a less obtrusive black or brown box

It is of course not the colour of the box but the papers being read -
and the risk of other travellers reading the papers which are being
dealt with if they are classified. Civil servants face the same problem
with working on trains etc.

Oddly the GBP seem never to have similar problems with the vast numbers
of private sector directors, local authority chief officials, NHS chief
executives etc who have cars and drivers available for home-to-work
travel. By comparison very few Ministers and top civil servants get
such perks and IME they work much longer hours. I do not hold Ministers
as a class in very high regard (and as a grumpy old man consider they
are on average worse than previous generations) but the one thing most
do still put in are the hours, especially when you combinetheir work as
Minister and as constituency MP.

--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

On 06/01/2013 12:37, kenw wrote:
Yes, let's hope that his last act as a transport minister is to reduce
the notorious congestion on the A12 by removing himself and his vehcile
from it.

Which do we think will happen first:

- he decides that he can take the train after all, maybe copying the
Deputy PM and using a less obtrusive black or brown box

- he "decides to spend more time with his family" to use a time-honoured
phrase

Or he travels by train, and the Daily Mail then runs a story headlined
"Fury, outrage (etc) as minister looks at sensitive documents on a
public train where criminals, immigrants, single mothers and gays might
see them, when he could be travelling by car allowing him to read them
securely"....


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK