Great Western Failway

Mon 5 Feb 2018, 12:42 (last edited on Mon 5 Feb 2018, 16:55)

Nigel: you've no idea how painful it is for me to call for a Tory to be treated kindly.

But it's a lifelong principle never to attribute to conspiracy what's easily explained as a cock-up.

The likelihood is that Ms Pickup just posted the first thing that came into her head - and that our part-time MP doesn't keep up with constituency events as assiduously as our full-time District and County Councillor. Who (I know this for a fact) started practically every day of our recent holiday Down Under keeping in touch with what's going on here.

Though both of us have now applied to attend this meeting, we've yet even to receive an automated email reply. Do ANY of us working for a living go away without programming our systems in case we lose a customer? Did our last MP behave so cavalierly when he had a country to run as well?

Mr Courts strikes me as a decent enough chap. We've vetted him back to his schooldays, but still haven't uncovered anything lethal. And that's the real problem. He (like his Parliamentary assistant) just isn't interested. Indeed, I'll buy Nigel a cup of the Finest Coffee in the Cotswolds (now exclusively available at the Deli in Market St) if I get any kind of reply during today from him or Ms Pickup.

Since the rest of West Oxfordshire returned him to Parliament (obviously, hardly anyone in Charlbury voted for him), there've been endless complaints about unanswered constituency mail. At his one public meeting last June he actually boasted he (though probably his assistant) had replied to ten queries a day: something most of us with businesses to run would prefer to keep quiet about.

But it explains why our trains aren't working. Not because FGW are filthy capitalist beasts, or because Network Rail's a neo-socialist State-owned monopoly or because Mr Courts wants to erode our democratic rights.

But because neither Mr Courts nor FGW nor NR are really interested in dealing with our underperforming trains. Life's just a lot easier for them if they just go through the motions.

LATER (5pm)
In the interests of accuracy:

Ms Pickup's just replied (saying "yes"). So I'll be publicly buying Nigel a cup of the Finest Coffee in the Cotswolds (now exclusively available at the Deli in Market St).

And might even ask our Editor to record the event for posterity on this site.

But will it make the trains run on time?