Prescott shadows Ridley
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JOHN PRESCOTT, Labour's new Shadow Transport Secretary, will bring a new punchiness to Labour's approach to transport.
Although he is a newcomer to the Shadow Cabinet, at sixth place he was the top left-winger to be elected.
Transport is the job Mr Prescott wanted, and he got it because transport is not normally seen as one of the "big jobs". But with his Merchant Navy background he also had better credentials for the job than anyone else. Stand-in spokesman Bob Hughes was not elected to the Shadow Cabinet.
He intends to take a close look at where his priorities should be directed, although this week he moved swiftly to ask an emer gency question on the Severn Bridge.
A junior transport spokesman between 1979 and 1981, Mr Prescott told CM that one of his aims would be to promote more forcefully Labour's policy of an integrated freight policy. "We don't believe that you can just let market forces rule the movement of freight," he said.
And he promised to try to hold Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley, already dubbed "the well mannered Neanderthal", to his statement that he wanted more freight to go by rail because of environmental advantages.