Adonis by name…

I thought it was the Real Tories who were the toffs, but actually it’s the New Party who trot out their unelected peers for the benefit of the press. We’ve already seen a lot of dear old Mandy, and a good thing too, because the more people see of him, the more they will be reminded of what he is. But today it was ‘Lord’ Adonis, urging Lib Dem supporters in Real Tory/New Party marginals to vote for  war criminals rather than the Bullingdon Club. It’s a lovely choice; one which ‘Lord’ Adonis won’t have to face, since, as a member of the House of Lords, he doesn’t actually have a vote himself. The only other people who don’t get a vote are the Monarch and people who are currently in prison or secure asylum wards, and I find it a little rich being told how to vote by someone who won’t be doing it himself.

‘Lord’ Adonis is actually the Transport Secretary. If he has to open his mouth, perhaps he might tell us something of what the New Party are thinking about in terms of transport policy. They are the only major party committed to building the third runway at Heathrow, for example. So much we know already. We do know a lot more about the Lib Dem transport plans, and they make a railway buffs heart sing. They are commited to reopening hundreds of miles of track. As I’ve argued before, it made sense that Beeching closed train services, but no sense at all that they lifted the permanent way. Now, if by some bizarre miracle the Lib Dems formed the next government, we might once again have the pleasure of riding on the Exeter-Okehampton-Tavistock-Plymouth line, or the Waverley Line from Carlisle to Galashiels. And the money would come from the motorway budget and the Heathrow third runway; a big hoorah from me, at any rate.

If ‘Lord’ Adonis could talk about transport, and in particular about reopening scandalously closed lines, instead of telling us how to vote, then I might be interested.