The Beeching Report - Condensed.

Since the anniversary of the infamous Beeching Report has arrived, along with several mentions on the tellybox, I feel I need to add to the sum of the worlds knowledge by condensing the whole history for the benefit of those with limited attention spans.

Thomas the Tank engine: Hello. I am Thomas and will be representing the entire railway network. During the war I worked very, very hard and now look forward to some rest and recuperation. I'm hoping the Fat Controller will replace my worn out rails and trains.

Labour Govt: Screw that, we'll nationalise Thomas and provide a gravy train for out union mates.

Tory Govt: Hooray. We are now in power and need to sort out the mess the last lost made of the railways. What we need is a top man for the job.

E.Marples: Hello, I am Earnest Marples and I will be a top transport minister as I have made a fortune building roads. What I need is a report on the railways to give us an excuse to close them, I mean provide a blueprint for their future.

R.Beeching: Hello, I am Richard Beeching a very rich chairman of ICI.

E.Marples: Just the man for the job. Please go away and write a report on the railways and do not be at all influenced by the fact that my wife owns a huge road building company and I will be paying your wages.

R.Beeching: Can I have a huge amount of money ?

E.Marples: Of course. My wife sends her best wishes on your work.

R.Beeching: I have now written my report and discovered that on a wet Wednesday morning there aren't many people travelling by train. On that basis I think the entire network would be shut down.

E.Marples: Excellent work.

General public: We are not happy because it is the mid 60's and we don't all own a car yet and so travel by train.

Tory Govt: Bugger, we have been voted out of power.

Labour Govt: Hooray, we are back in ! Time to get our noses in the trough. What can we close down to free up money for our back pockets ?

B.Castle: I am Barbara Castle who will one day be considered saintly. I an transport minister and have found a copy of the Beeching report in a filing cabinet. I can't be bothered to read it but just looked at the pictures in the back.

Thomas the Tank: Glup.

B.Castle: Ha Ha ! I am going to smash the railways !

Crash. Bang. Wallop. Scrunch. Screech.

B.Castle: (Evil laugh) Stitch that Thomas.

R.Beeching: In my defence I would just like to say at this point that I said there should be investment in an enhanced bus service at the same time as reduction of the railway infrastructure.

PM: Shut up fatty. You are a capitalist pig and I want the money to buy a yacht.

American Election Result

My prediction: John McCain by a small margin.

Reason: While people will be very reasonable when talking with a pollster, get in the voting booth and suddenly a whole lot more people will remember that one candidate is black and the other loves guns. In the UK, we do the same with taxes...

Update: Wrong. And I've rarely been happier to be so. Bye bye scary Sarah !

Closed Post Office

Closed Post Office
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Last week I needed to post some parcels. Since I was going to Birmingham, I thought I'd just drop in to the Post Office in the cetnre of the city and do them there.

But it's closed.

Apparently the Post Office has reviewed its services and decided that the Office in the middle of the UK's second city isn't needed any more. We can all wander up broad street to Victoria Square and use that one. Or another somewhere I couldn't work out as the map was rubbish if you were on foot - and since this is a pedestrianised area that's the only option.

Genius. After all, no-one will ever need to use postal services or anything else in the middle of a city will they ?

Now I understand the reasons for all this. Essentially the Government has seen a Post Office in every town and village as A Bad Thing. You see it provides servies to the whole community. Do you know that you can send a letter anywhere in the UK for the same price ? Whta a discrace ! What had better close all the branches down - so we'll get a management in with just that plan.

Best of all there are plenty of businesses who want to pick up the lucrative trade delivering items within urban conurbations. So thats' businesses in the London OK then. And politicians after they leave thier current berths. Plenty of cushy directorships available.

In the meantime local councils are encouraged to open up One Stop Shops - providing many of the services the local PO used to. In fact some include a PO as part of the setup.

I appreciate that the destruction of frontline public service in favour of pointless quangoes employing expensive consulatants is seen as progress by all political parties. It does beg the question what point our political masters are though when they have fobbed everything off to buisness.

Lab rats ?

Could the decision by Swindon Council to stop funding speed cameras and they hope to see them removed from their roads, be seen as a bold experiment ?

If the good people of Swindon start to turn into bonnet ornaments in ever greater numbers thanks to the decision to stop enforcing this law, then presumably safety campaigners will see it as a vindication of the status quo. And of course if more Swindonians are killed, then they only have themselves to blame as they voted for the change...

Treason ?

From the BBC: Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to raise £20bn, with chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin quitting the firm

Once upon a time, anyone who damaged the United Kingdom as fundamentally as the senior bankers have done would have been charged with treason. Instead, the Government is going to let them walk away with millions of our pounds.

Of course there could be a punitive tax band introduced as a way of recovering some of the money pumped into the system to rebuild it after incompetent investing - but I bet MPs are so in awe of the "Masters of the Universe" that populate the City that that won't happen. After all, most hope to find a nice safe home there after their career in Parliament finishes.

Perhaps the terrorism laws could be used ? After all, they would come into play were someone to blow up a nightclub and while the loss of life is lower in the "banking crisis", the overall damage to the country, which is what the terrorists will be seeking to achieve, will be far greater. Lets see some brokers in orange suits !

Sadly, in a years time, those who thought lending to people who couldn't repay, who appeared in the media saying economics had changed and property values could rise forever, who demanded the Governments stay out of the City 'cos they knew what they were doing, will be sunning themselves on a beech somewhere on sunbeds full of cash. In the meantime we'll be paying all this off with cuts in services for the next ten years.

I've got a hammer and nails - anyone got plans for a gallows ??????