Friday, August 27, 2010

Tory Minister Philip Hammond says promised train services to Scotland cannot be delivered, Labour Party promises worthless again














Dear All

Prior to the Westminster election political parties focused on the high speed rail link between Glasgow Central and King’s Cross.

A very expensive proposition indeed, if it could be built, it would have to be done in stages because of the financial situation if at all.

I never thought that this rail link was viable and was a pipe dream however some people tried to make political capital out of it to get elected.

Now the Tory/Lib Dem Government rule the roost, the word from on high is no.

I knew it was going to be no previously.

UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond is a former Treasury spokesman; he has said the high speed rail link cannot be delivered.

Hammond also took the step of slating Lord Adonis of making irresponsible pre-election promises.

The Transport Sec also said that the election promise to deliver extra services from Virgin was “another example of Labour making pre- election promises that they knew could not be delivered”.

He makes the point grounded in reality that:

“It was the height of irresponsibility to promise new services, without ensuring first that they could be delivered.”

This is the difference between Tories and other political parties, people like Hammond deal in facts while others think the politics of ‘aspiration’ and ‘hope’ works.

Aspiration and hope keep getting panned at the ballot box.

At the last Westminster election some political parties due to their naïve thinking ‘took the train to loserville, a very place to get out of.

As Lord Adonis on behalf of the Labour Party was making promises, he had no agreement in place and there is still no agreement in place to the wild promises that were made.

A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said:

“We understand that Arriva CrossCountry are discussing franchise issues with the DfT. However, the DfT has informed us that they will not seek to improve service provision at Motherwell offered by west coast main line services at this time.”

In other words, just get in the cattle car and pray it starts on time and delivers you to your destination.

The Tories don’t see a pressing need to get high speed rail link to Scotland because they are very much London based and already there.

I like the night bus myself but would like to see a return of the steam train.
Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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