Why the good people of Tatton chose her, I will never know. They would have had the pick of Conservative candidates.
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Exit Failing Grayling: the £3bn master of disaster expected to bow out
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Martin Bell, in its time of need, your country needs YOU!
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That's a very unfair comparison, Napoleon was talented, a great leader and organiser, strategist, legislator, inspirer of men; on the other hand Grayling is tall.
colchesterken
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I think Andrew Adonis was the best Transport secretary in recent years! Anyone agree?
Jo Johnson looks like a good bet for next Transport Secretary. Boris needs some remainers in the cabinet but in the less important roles. Jo has experience as a Minister of State and Transport Secretary would be a reasonable promotion. Obviously being Boris' brother means he can be trusted more than other remainers.
Grayling will likely be sent to the back benches. He is has proven too incompetent for his brexiteer status to save his career. I am not sure about Esther McVey getting another cabinet post. She is a threat to Boris and unlike in 2016 there are plenty of brexit supporting Tory MPs who have sufficient experience as junior ministers to be given cabinet roles.
Grayling will likely be sent to the back benches. He is has proven too incompetent for his brexiteer status to save his career. I am not sure about Esther McVey getting another cabinet post. She is a threat to Boris and unlike in 2016 there are plenty of brexit supporting Tory MPs who have sufficient experience as junior ministers to be given cabinet roles.
Struner
Member
indeed, I'll miss the four potplants.
Kingham West
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Chris Grayling can be thanked for pushing East West Rail, without him we may still be waiting, for what is a no brainier.
As noted elsewhere, he got a good NR settlement , the big danger is we have a minister in the hands of the Road Lobby, they are always there, with their reheated schemes.
He was not exactly the best politician, seemed to make lots of errors, that seems to be his failing.
As noted elsewhere, he got a good NR settlement , the big danger is we have a minister in the hands of the Road Lobby, they are always there, with their reheated schemes.
He was not exactly the best politician, seemed to make lots of errors, that seems to be his failing.
Cardiff123
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It's highly unlikely to be Jo Johnson as Transport Secretary. He resigned as a junior minister from Theresa May's government over her Brexit strategy. He didn't support her deal and wants another referendum. Therefore he'll be implacably opposed to no deal.
None of those positions make him compatible with being in a Boris Johnson cabinet.
Struner
Member
Thank you for speaking about him in the past tense! He also was a very good minister of/for justice of course.
Amber Rudd has done a massive U turn and some other remainers will to. Jo Johnson did a bit of campaigning against the deal with Boris on the grounds that its the worst of both worlds. If he decides like Rudd that the battle against brexit is lost then his brother becoming Prime Minister is the best time to give up. The Johnson's are unprincipled, compete with each other but they do appear to be a close family. Boris will nearly certainly offer him a cabinet a job on the condition of backing leaving with or without a deal on 31st October. If he is principled he will politely reject but I will believe that when I see it. If he accepts then Transport is a good bet.
Also, the danger for Johnson B. is that Johnson J. will muck the job up and, as we have seen, mistakes in transport rarely go unnoticed. If so, some of the mud will inevitably stick to Johnson B., more than if he'd given the job to, say, Freddy Fruitcake MP.
One positive thing to say about Grayling is that he put his head above the parapet (admittedly, reluctantly) during the May 18 timetable meltdown, the Minister of State in his department was nowhere to be seen!
Bantamzen
Established Member
Don't you mean "I'll ***** you with Esther McVey"? The mods might disapprove of your language.
Allow me to correct that further:
"I'll ***** you with ****** *****"?
The use of that particular politician's name is considered a insult in some parts!
Seriously though, anyone (well nearly anyone) other than her. If she gets her claws into the DfT, the railway network will be all but rendered useless in 6 months. She is a disaster of a politician, and a much worse decision maker & leader. And woe betide anyone that crosses or disagrees with her....
Heartily agree with most of this. Additionally, its always some one else's fault (and from her time at DWP, 'one' might be a hundred, a thousand, or more).
Disagree with first sentence - there are quite a lot I wouldn't want; half of the members of the ERG and Leave Means Leave for a start, but not because of their views on Europe.
Incidentally, Baildon; isn't that in the constituency of Shipley, whose MP is … My condolences, sir.
Bantamzen
Established Member
Thank you kindly, we've long suffered with the windbag that is Davies. And in a horrible, horrible twist of fate some of the family on my side live in a certain constituency in Cheshire!! Thoughts & prayers are gratefully received.....
Seriously though, regardless of who gets in I fear for the future of our infrastructure. On the surface those MPs likely to form the next cabinet are full of confidence (and themselves) about Brexit, and how we just need to think positive & everything will just fall into place. All I can say based on my experience with working in the public sector, at best they are kidding themselves & at worst outright lying to the public.
A gentle reminder that just because you use **** doesn't mean you're not swearing on contravention of the Forum Rules when we can all fill in the blanks. I'm happy to let it go but it does have to stop from now on
SteveP29
Member
Nobody that screws up on such a regular basis is doing it on purpose, its incompetence without the ability to question what advisers tell him.
I would also concur that there's probably been quite a few brown envelopes too
underbank
Established Member
We've had a succession of really incompetent Chancellors, particularly Brown, Osborne and Hammond. The only half decent one was Alistair Darling but due to Brown, he didn't really get long in the job. That's down not just to incompetent Chancellors, but also incompetent senior civil servant advisers who havn't a clue about the tax system, unforeseen consequences, etc. A lot of what these Chancellors have done wasn't their idea - some of the things, they'd never even have thought of doing - it's been back-scene civil servants suggesting things to the Chancellor who's just rubber stamped them assuming the civil servants knew what they were doing.
Perhaps it's the same in the dept for transport? We seem to have had a succession of hopeless ministers - maybe it's the civil servants who aren't up to the job?
edwin_m
Veteran Member
You'll have to provide some evidence on chancellors - personally I thought all three were reasonably competent but you need to separate the technocratic competence from the pollitical direction they were pursuing. For example I think Osborne knew pretty much what the result of austerity would be (but not to the extent of creating conditions for Brexit) but went ahead with it anyway because the policy appealed to enough voters to get the Tories elected. Who says populism started with Trump? I make an exception to this separation for Brexiteers - in a sort of Catch-22 situation I consider anyone in a position of power has or should have considered the evidence on Brexit and if they still support it then they are either incompetent or malevolent.
The DfT civil servants have certainly been responsible for a few howlers in recent years but I think ministerial direction does play a part. For example McLouglin "paused" electrification schemes then re-started them in response to pressure, but Grayling cancelled them entirely. By not giving the industry the incentive of allowing them to re-start if costs were got under control, he has done a lot to close the door on a future rolling programme just as things were starting to come right on the ground. This may of course be in line with the wishes of some DfT civil servants who are reportedly in favour of liquid phogiston and bionic duckweed.
underbank
Established Member
I'm an accountant so looking at it solely from a tax point of view.
Brown removing the dividend tax credit was a monumental foul up. He then brought in a 10% tax rate only to scrap it a couple of years later. Then a 10% and ultimately 0% corporation tax rate for small companies which he scrapped a couple of years later. Messed around with retirement relief, business asset taper relief and entreprenneurs relief constantly over the years. Same with capital allowances - up, down, rule changes, etc every sodding year. Brought in tax relief for goodwill and then scrapped it again. Total failure to tackle tax evasion which grew massively on his watch. Botched up the introduction of IR35 which should have stopped tax abuse via personal service companies 20 years ago, yet has only really been tackled in the last 5 years. Closure of loads of local tax offices causing loss of huge numbers of experienced tax inspectors, now replaced by poorly trained and low skilled call centre workers. Selling off our gold reserves and giving advance notice of doing so wasn't a smart move either.
Osborne - pasty tax, child benefit tax, 62% marginal tax rate on GPs and dentists.
Hammond - lazily using draft legislation first drafted 20-30 years ago to reduce the tax relief on buy to let mortgages which contains several anomalies and mistakes which clearly show how old it was. Obviously dusted off from being stored on a shelf and no one thought to proof read it properly to make sure it was up to date and relevant. Presiding over the MTD (making tax digital) fiasco. Lifetime pension tax fiasco.
Us accountants watch the annual Budget with absolute horror as we know the unforeseen consequences of the changes they keep making and then have to change and correct a year or two later. If they really knew what they were doing, they wouldn't make such fundamental foul ups in the first place. Most of their foul ups are blatantly obvious to anyone with any real knowledge/experience of the practicalities of the tax system.
furnessvale
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The operative word being "WAS".
He has since gone off the rails, every pun intended, and now supports the transfer of railfreight to automated HGV convoys on our already overcrowded motorways.
DerekC
Established Member
The bionic duckweed is a quote from "Informed Sources" in about 2007, I think. Some of the civil servants in question were pushing very hard to get electrification back on the agenda. The absence of a rolling programme now, with a declared objective of de-dieselisation by 2040, is just nuts.
deltic
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No - his ideas on HS2 were bizarre - HS2-HS1 link and Heathrow airport links rapidly dropped and Manchester Airport station unlikely to happen. Why a rail service should want to link airports with each other I have no idea. Suggesting minimum hours for catering units at stations because he couldnt get a cup of tea at Southampton at 8pm.
deltic
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I'm intrigued as to what people think Ministers do. Of course he didnt do any research, that's not what we have ministers for. He will have asked his civil servants to advise on No Deal Brexit plans. They would have given him a number of options - long delays were/are likely at channel ports so the sensible thing was to supply more capacity. He would have said yes that is a sensible thing to do and approved procurement of additional ferry services. Civil servants would have done the procurement and as the cost of which is probably on a par with the annual paper clip budget he probably was not briefed on the details but told which companies had been successful at the end of it. The company that ran no ferries was actually backed by a large Irish shipping company that eventually pulled out.
To be fair there are reports that Grayling did ignore advice that other companies should have been invited to tender - but again its not clear that Grayling would have had any involvement in who was invited to bid. He wouldnt have been asked who should be invited to tender for paper clips so why ferries.
That then concurs with what i said, I can't believe someone is that incompetent. Mind you, you have given me another question. If adviser's and civil servant's do everything, then what do these minister's actually do.
deltic
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Make decisions
edwin_m
Veteran Member
I agree there isn't much reason to travel between airports, but Manchester Airport HS2 station is effectively the station for drive-up passengers to replace Stockport and Wilmslow. The fact it's near the airport is rather incidental, though that won't stop HS2 tapping the airport for funding. As an added bonus it's quite a good site to link into southern Manchester by Metrolink and tram-train.
deltic
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Unless the airport pays for it or someone else does it won’t happen as HS2 has made clear.
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
I'd quite like that. Totally no bias for me wanting her as SoS for Transport. None at all...
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
I think he's the most over-rated Transport Secretary in recent years. NXEC anyone? McLoughlin was the best IMO and I put him forward.
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