28th February 2010
At last we are in March, and warmer weather surely cannot be far away.
Last Saturday the former Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies (Ming) Campbell visited our area, and on Saturday he spoke at a Public Meeting in South Petherton on a variety of Foreign policy issues.
Ming had flown down on Saturday morning from his own constituency of Edinburgh, which was still deep in snow and ice – so by comparison he found the temperature in South Petherton to be almost sub tropical.
Ming is an enthusiastic sportsman (with a fine record of his own in athletics), and he insisted on visiting Huish Park to see Yeovil Town play MK Dons. It was nowhere near as cold watching the match as I had expected, and we were warmed by Yeovil’s excellent first half performance and by a cracking Yeovil goal. The second half was a much tougher proposition, but Yeovil fought with determination to the bitter end, and secured a very valuable three points. Congratulations to Terry Skiverton and his team on taking six points from last week’s matches – this achievement could prove to have been very important indeed by the end of the season.
There was a collection at the Yeovil match for the national “Help for Heroes” charity, which raises money for servicemen who have been injured in Afghanistan and in other theatres of conflict. There could hardly be a better cause, and I am grateful to all those who have given so generously on this and other occasions.
After the match I had return to London, to work in the office on Sunday. As usual, I caught the train from Yeovil Junction, and I was relieved this week to find that there wasn’t any engineering work, and that it was not therefore necessary to catch a bus between Basingstoke and Woking (which has been the case on many weekends this year.)
The two and a half hour train journey up and down to London is one of the most enjoyable times of the week for me. I am able to clear quite a lot of paperwork, read the newspapers, and sometimes just “switch off” for half an hour or so. For a lot of the journey, mobile phone reception is very poor, which is actually a huge blessing. Being contactable 24 hours a day, and therefore always open to disruption and distraction, is for me one of the plagues of modern life. I am afraid I am rather old fashioned in that respect!
The staff at Yeovil Junction railway station are always brilliant too – friendly, patient, and good at steering me to the cheapest tickets. These days there are so many special deals and other considerations that using a machine is just no substitute for talking to a real person.
Imagine my seething anger, therefore, when I discovered last week that those wretched senior managers at South West Trains are yet again trying to close the ticket office at Crewkerne Station for half of the week.
We successfully fought off the plans by South West Trains to close the ticket office at midday and for all of Sunday, and yet only a year or so later they are trying again. Closed ticket offices are bad news. They mean passengers cannot access the cheapest fares. They mean waiting in the cold, as waiting rooms are locked. They mean reduced safety and reduced information for passengers.
I am determined to fight these proposals again. And this week I will be meeting the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, and asking him to tell South West Trains to take a hike. You would have thought this company had learned its lesson last year, but apparently not. I hope that local residents will once again send a clear and determined signal. We must get these proposals withdrawn.
Later this week some of the first Education debates of the General Election campaign will begin, and I will be taking part for the Liberal Democrats. I must have at least 10 of these debates over the next month, and there is no doubt that this is going to be a very busy period.
Ever,
David.
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