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What's it all about, Barbara ?
Page 40
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FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
TORY MPs are restlessly waiting to I "have a go" at Transport Minister Mrs. Barbara Castle after her trips to America and Paris. But "Madame Guillotine" is keeping them waiting. It will be the end of November before she comes top in the Commons Question list again.
Mr. Peter Walker and his henchmen are very anxious indeed to question Mrs. Castle on the statements and comments she has been pouring out over the past few weeks. Public transport subsidies, road pricing and new parking policies are among the matters she has dwelt on, and on which MN are seeking concrete information.
And following her visit to France, the Chunnel seems at long last to be a working probability. But not till 1975 and, of course, with the operating profits going to British Railways.
The general spate of publicity hasn't stopped there. The Minister managed to hold up progress of the Road Safety Bill by sending her wrong junior down to the House last week. This drew a derisory statement from the Conservatives.
Then she made some comments about liner trains, which drew the pungent reminder from Mr. Walker that, ever since Mrs. Castle took office, the terminals have been closed to more than 80 per cent of the country's lorries.
Complacency and failure were her achievements in this arena, added Mr. Walker, calling on the Prime Minister himself to summon NUR, British Railways
and RHA leaders to Downing Street to sort outthe mess. If not, warned Mr. Walker, the Prime Minister would demonstrate that his complacency was on a par with that of Mrs. Castle.
The Tories appear to be working up a state of anger which could lead to a motion of censure on Mrs. Castle who, with all the energy and buzz which is surrounding her Ministry, still has to come up with something good or bad, which Parliament and the country can really get its teeth into.
Yet another old issue was resurrected this weekend: noise. Target date for maximum levels for motor vehicles is now said to be 1970—a date far enough away to make one wonder why the Ministry encouraged the renewal of speculation without hard new facts at this time.
Both the "nationalized parking" and road pricing shocks were watered down somewhat away from the fizzy atmosphere of the States. It only needs another little local difficulty with President de Gaulle over the Chunnel for the whole position to revert to status quo, with everyone wondering what all the noise was about.
Perhaps it is unfair to suspect that Mrs. Castle is merely Tom Fraser behind a smoke screen. But if we cotne out of the economic doldrums next spring, MPs of all parties will be baying for real action on transport, in those familiar voices which finally drove Mr. Fraser into the wilderness, a fate not entirely of his own making.