Better Late Than Never

During the 1990s, under the premiership of Edwina Currie's little chum whose name escapes me at the moment, Britain's railway system was privatised - partly because the superior efficiency of the private sector was the prevailing religious dogma of the period, but mostly as a gesture of pre-emptive retaliation against New Labour for winning the 1997 election. The transport secretary at the time was one Steven Norris, who is now, mirabile dictu, the chair of Jarvis, one of the most efficient and successful of the rail companies in that it has, at least up to now, managed to stay afloat despite a ten-year record of incompetence, banker-style reward systems and corporate manslaughter. After the Potters Bar crash, in which seven customers underwent an unscheduled bio-detrimentation procedure as a result of Jarvis' failure to carry out its duties properly, the company "felt obliged" to stop doing rail maintenance and, as one would expect, went into health care instead. Unfortunately, despite the availability of a dozen contracts and a New Labour government, Jarvis failed to be shortlisted and, under Norris' guiding hand, spiralled steadily downwards. As a member of the Conservative Party and the minister responsible for privatising the railways in the name of saving the Government money, Norris has, of course, blamed the company's demise on cuts in Government spending.