Previously, I had thought that encouraging the private sector to invest in railways would be a good way of encouraging women and the elderly to kick off their shoes and flop aboard a growth sector. In my wackier moments I even thought that it might help us reduce noxious emissions that harm the air we breathe.
But that was then.
With the death, nay murder in Cumbria of that 84-year-old woman, even the sterling work of Sir Richard Branson must be brought into question. As ever, it's a state-owned company, Network Rail, that is to blame for this killing (as Sir Richard so rightly implied during his state visit to the carnage); but it must be observed that the train fell off the track: the points may have failed but so have the trains themselves.
We need to look to open skies for better, more reliable and affordable forms of transport. That's where there's more room and where science is leading us. Sadly, the steam train, that great tribute to Victorian engineering, has been replaced by these fibreglass accordians. It is time, wistful nostalgia aside, to move on to transport pastures new. Maybe then we can stop the slaughter of innocent commuters and their elderly relatives.
The Right Path Party is now committed to ending the rail-life lottery by investing in the scientific solutions to our transport problems on this crowded island. Needless to say, our forthcoming brochure on immigration will also convince the right people of what needs to be done to ease the congestion on our roads, in our hospitals, OAP resorts and schools. Vote RPP!
Don't carry on up the Khyber Pass
VC Tom Graham's Tale of the Afghan War is unequivocal. Afghans, be they Pashto, Dari, Uzbek or the other lot, are savages. In his prescient tome, Graham accounts for the deadly excesses of the natives against the allied forces seeking to bring security and freedom to this godforsaken land.
It is irrelevant that this book was published more than 100 years ago, because the same bloody-minded determination to subvert justice and morality continues, to this day, from Kabul to Kandahar and up to Mazar-e-Sharif. I write this in anger after just learning that another suicide bomber has detonated his sixpack all over Bagram airport - the only import-export facility in the region. Our forces don't need this, especially when they are trying their damndest to put on a concert party dedicated to the life of Billy Dainty.
My own Great-Great Uncle, Horatio McClintock, also got involved in Afghanistan, but his diaries wistfully recount how he should have joined the exodus to South Africa like his agriculturally-minded brethren. Sadly, Horatio was gored to death by an angry hypnotist in Kabul in 1920 after his magic school went belly up.
Anyway, one of the few traits I share with the Rt. Hon. Anthony Blair MP is my passion for humanitarian intervention: the Bosnians needed it; the Kosovars needed it; the North Koreans still need it. Hell, even the Iraqis needed it (and the Iranians too!). But history shows us Afghanistan is not worth bothering with (and it's not even a country). When we bombed the Afghan lands back to the Dark Ages after 9/11 it should have been job done and get out. Dead or alive, Bin Ladin was operationally crippled despite the persistence of his jihadi PR campaign. But today you can't buy a poppy in Hemel Hempstead without being pounced on by the Drugs Squad.
As the Afghan's own saying goes: "Never do a deal with a man who can't spell business." Which just goes to show you’d need more than a Victoria Cross if you ever quelled these natives. Redeploy from Helmand Province, leave Musharraf to shore up the Durrand Line and let the tribes take care of their own business. And that's an order!
(Originally published 28 February 2007)
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