WESTM STER HAUL
Page 7
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ALL is clear. Assurances that Transport Minister William Rodgers did not spend weeks -defending his White Paper against, hostile Cabinet colleagues can pe believed.
Now, the cause of the hold-up is obvious. The Secretary of State was explaining his transport ideas . . . and explaining . . . and explaining ...
The clue to this blinding flash of truth? Mr Rodgers provided it himself, when the time came for him to tell MPs all about his brain-child.
And tell them he did. At length.
The beginning was promising .. . "I cannot set out all the proposals in a document over 30,000 words in length". No doubt he did not employ 30,000 words. It just seemed that he did.
His opening statement was not particularly lengthy. Indeed, by Ministerial standards, it was positively modest (but then it could be argued that he had a lot to be modest about).
It was when the time came for questions that Mr Rodgers slipped into over-drive.
MPs seem incapable of asking one-sentence questions, except for those who think it is democracy at its best to yell out "What about the workers?" while someone else is speaking.
This verbosity can be a godsend to a Minister unhappy with his brief. He can match word for waffling word and ignore the embarrassing guts of the matter in the hope that the House — and with a bit of luck the questioner — will have forgotten the main point.
But, to give him his due, William did not dodge the issues. With superb fluency, he had an answer to everything.
With one exception. He admitted defeat when a Scottish Nationalist somehow managed to get cheap flights to Athens and the Norwegian road equivalent tariff into a question about the Highlands and Islands.
Tory transport man Norman Fowler will not be able to recall in mellowed old-age: "It was my performance on that occasion that set me on the road to the top."
He pointed out, in pained surprise, that "even now" there was insufficient emphasis on the importance of competition and freedom of choice for the customer. . . for all the world as if he had expected a Socialist Minister to turn into a High Tory.
But his main concern seemed to be that promises in the Labour manifesto were not being carried out, a view which, probably for the first and last time, brought him shoulder to shoulder with Dennis Skinner, that scourge of everyone to the right of extreme Left. When he was explaining why a National Transport Council was not being set up, Mr Rodgers said: "We do not want another talking shop."
Point taken.