backontrack
Established Member
Poll goes back to 1983, the year of the Serpell Report.
+1...
Well he did make statements that he didn't follow through on, such as stopping privatisation...Spoiler = I see good old 2 Jags has scored a few votes
None of them have been particularly good. I haven't really been impressed with any of them. But it is certain that Chris Grayling has been the worst by far. He is on a whole new level of incompetence and uselessness. So i would vote for Chris Grayling as the worst.
However I think the SoS does have an influence on policy. For example Grayling stopped the devolution of more suburban services to TfL, allegedly due to political differences with Sadiq Khan. And Patrick McLoughlin went as far as to over-ride his civil servants and insist that the Northern franchise should replace the Pacers.Maybe we're looking at the wrong target. The SoS is a figurehead, largely doing what his/her civil servants suggest. Are we certain Grayling or any of the others really disagree strongly with the advice they get? How far dare they go to change the direction previously set in the time of their predecessors? And if they do want to make changes they'll almost certainly involve more money which the Treasury will resist paying.
However I think the SoS does have an influence on policy. For example Grayling stopped the devolution of more suburban services to TfL, allegedly due to political differences with Sadiq Khan. And Patrick McLoughlin went as far as to over-ride his civil servants and insist that the Northern franchise should replace the Pacers.
His tenure as Transport Secretary was blighted by several major transport disasters: 31 died in the King's Cross fire on 18 November 1987; 35 were killed when three trains crashed near Britain's busiest railway station in the Clapham Junction rail crash on 12 December 1988; 270 died when Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by a bomb over Scottish town of Lockerbie in the Lockerbie Disaster on 21 December 1988; and 44 died when a British Midland plane crashed beside the M1 motorway in the Kegworth air disaster on 8 January 1989.
My problem is my age. Half those candidates were around before I was alive, even more before I was aware that such a person as the Secretary of State for Transport existed, and even more for me to be politically aware enough to know what they were actually doing. Thus, I can't really make an informed opinion on Malcom Rifkind, for example, let alone how competant Chris Grayling was in comparison to him.
Imagine if Jeremy Hunt was in charge ...
Whilst agreeing with you on the worst SoS of Transport (called Minister then) I think you have mistaken the meaning of this expression. I suspect you are too young to know this.
Whilst agreeing with you on the worst SoS of Transport (called Minister then) I think you have mistaken the meaning of this expression. I suspect you are too young to know this.
No question about it:
Barbara Castle