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News and Comment November 2019

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18 November - Lie of the weekend

TweetThis weekend was not a good one for going westward as I did on Saturday, the M4 was completely closed in the Maidenhead area to allow the installation of a longer overbridge which will span another of those demented Smart Motorways. They are not very smart are they?

I left home very early and joined the M25 at junction two just a few minutes after 5 a.m. to be greeted by signs that announced that the M25 was entirely closed between junctions 8 and 9.

The announcement was repeated on almost every overhead gantry right up to junction 8 where the road was absolutely clear. Obviously everyone at The Highways Agency was fast asleep which is why they are so good at killing people who break down on the motorway.

And they call it a Smart Motorway!

The diversion on the M4 was not very clever either. I was there around 6:30 which is just as well because the revised route took me through small towns on a narrow road complete with pedestrian crossings and mini roundabouts. At that time traffic was not too bad but my daughter who followed me seven hours later took four hours to do her usual two and a bit hour journey.

I returned via Bracknell and the M3 which turned out to be slow going but about seven miles shorter.

At my destination with nothing better than an intermittent wifi signal I made little effort to keep up to date with the news but I did spot one nice Tory fib.

I was a regular commuter to Waterloo from 1961 and was very much aware of what Dr. Beeching had in mind. His 1963 report was commissioned by Harold MacMillan’s Conservative government and was published before Harold Wilson scraped into power for Labour in 1964.

Mr. Shapps is pushing his luck somewhat if he thinks all of us will fall for his implication that the Beeching cuts were a Labour plan.

Having said that it was Harold Wilson who implemented the cuts with gusto.

Shapps is the same sort of clever liar as those who run @bexleynews. Clever use of words can imply all sorts of things which aren’t really true.

Why can I see 18 unread Twitter notifications now that I am back home? Who have I upset this time?

Note: In case you are wondering, the weekend blogs were written in advance and ‘released’ remotely.

 

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