He's been prepositioned
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If you've been puzzled about Fred Mulley being Ministerfor (instead of qi) Transport, I can now reveal the practical implications.
At last week's CIT anniversary luncheon, Institute president Moris Little commented on the "semantic subtlety" of this change in title, since he last held the post some years back.
Back came Mr Mulley: "There was never a time in history when a preposition meant so much. There is all the difference in the world between being Minister of one's own Ministry, and being Minister for someone else's!"
And if you're a transport undertaking or a local authority thinking of spending money — don't. At least, that was Mr Mulley's summary of the present financial situation. He reckons that public transport is facing the biggest crisis in its history, what with staff shortages and congestion (and he made the valid point that congestion is just about the biggest waster of fuel that we've got).
He doesn't expect to be popular with the 46 county and metropolitan authorities when he's finished dealing with those transport supplementary grants under the TPP arrangements: as he pointed out, about 85 per cent of the available cash is already committed in agreed schemes, and he can't hazard a view about the future of "the excellent schemes" which some authorities have put forwarrd.