PARKINSON'S LAW
Page 5
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• Heigh-ho, here we go again. Another Secretary of State for Transport, another fast-moving politician either on his way up or his way down. Cecil Parkinson has gone in both directions during the past 10 years of Thatcher rule with alarming speed. So why has he come to the Department of Transport?
Perhaps he has arrived to help the DTp "communicate" better. The department could certainly improve the way in which it promotes its policies to the public and press alike. Perhaps he has come to smooth the wrinkles that Paul Channon has tripped over, time and again, like plane crashes, train strikes, ferry sinkings, clogged roads, inadequate and badly-built motorways, rail crashes. . . the list goes on.
Perhaps he has come to make sure that our vital passenger and freight transport industry gets the Cabinet support it desperately needs — or has he come to quieten things down and take all of these bad-news horror stories out of the public's mind?
Let us hope that Parkinson is going to do a positive and supportive job and stop the rot. He certainly has the Prime Minister's ear like no other Secretary of State for Transport in recent memory. He has the power, the influence and the position to push the DTp up the Whitehall league of importance. As things stand at the moment, the department has only one way to go: up.
If too many cooks spoil the broth, too many Transport Secretaries have ruined our national transport scene. When will this endless game of lunatic musical chairs end? Get a grip, Cecil.