Ed Vaizey, Conservative MP for Wantage managed to secure a parliamentary debate on First Great Western’s questionable service. While many MPs who have been petitioned by their constituents were not present at the debate, at least this is a start. Whether there will be a finish I do not know.
My MP, Robert Key (Conservative) for Salisbury, has been very responsive to my emails about the problems with the service cuts introduced by FGW last December, and in the latest correspondence he assured me he had already signed two of the Commons motions raising the issue of FGW’s bad service and will be writing to the Minister responsible for service level agreements on behalf of his contituents regarding the problem.
Yesterday in Parliament, FGW’s performance was raised in Prime Minister’s Questions (Wednesday 24 January 2007), Dr Doug Naysmith, MP for Bristol North West (Labour), tabled a question to Prime Minister Tony Blair regarding the poor performance of First Group’s buses and trains. He described them: ‘disastrous commuter trains and unreliable and expensive buses.’
The Prime Minister’s reply was unsurprisingly bland and non-commital. Read the Hansard transcript.
History repeats itself. Governments / politicians / we never learn from history. We ignore history at our peril. Some of the things commonly said about the consequences of not engaging with history when decisions like going to war are made. Countless people pointed this out in relation to the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and continue to do so. However, the planning and justifications for this particular invasion have never been countenanced by history. How could they? Who, in the Bush and Blair regimes have ever engaged with history truthfully, recent or distant, to make it influence their decision making? The only use of historical legitimacy that I noted was in 
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