Christian Wolmar's September newsletter
Christian Wolmar
September Newsletter
Well I’ve done it, put my hat in the ring for the mayoral contest in London. I may be mad, but it will be a lot of fun and crucially will put some important ideas out there that need discussing. And as has been pointed out, it’s not just about transport and I do have experience of other social policy issues such as housing from my work at Shelter years ago and policing.
I launched the campaign with an article in The Times and set up a new website www.wolmarforlondon.co.uk (note, not the ghastly ‘4london’) which received more than 1,000 visitors on the first day. It was picked up in various other media, notably by Dave Hill in the Guardian who posted a lengthy blog here
I will be sending out press releases, comments etc via the website and the new Twitter account @wolmarforlondon . And of course, I will be going to the Labour party conference. The main aim initially is to get out to speak to as many meetings as I can – so if you are a branch or ward secretary, or whatever, email me via the site to fix up for me to come and speak.
I chose the worst possible two and a half weeks to go on holiday. First there was the fares announcement, amounting to 6.2 per cent in January – though watch this space as I suspect it will be reined back as protests mount, just as Justine Greening managed to achieve this year – and then the announcement that Virgin had lost the franchise to FirstGroup. I did manage several broadcasts and a piece for The Times while I was away, but I missed out on a lot of the fun. I did, too, write my Rail column on the Branson – FirstGroup battle with a prediction that may turn out to be a bit optimistic. The case, of course, rumbles on and while my bet is that FirstGroup will triumph, despite the over-optimism of its bid, the shenanigans does raise the old Wolmar question, ‘what is franchising for?’.
And as soon as I got back, we had a new transport secretary, plucked from the obscurity of the whips office and, as I write in the forthcoming issue of Rail with a steep learning curve and an inbox the size of a Deltic (copyright R Ford).
Just before I left for hols, I managed to challenge Bradley Wiggins’s ill-thought out comment about helmets, from which he has, thankfully, retreated somewhat – since we all love Bradley the mod – read it here I did also appear a couple of times on the BBC News Channel on the transport chaos – or rather lack of it, as predicted in my various writings numerous times – for the Olympics and, not surprisingly, they cancelled the scheduled third appearance. This was a very interesting episode since it showed first that much of the fear was got-up nonsense, and secondly that even had there been real problems later on, then the media would have hardly been interested since, by then, the story was Olympics success.
Other articles posted recently include another Rail column on the risks of the franchising programme, interestingly written just before the West Coast announcement – here and one for TSSA celebrating the achievements during the Olympics but warning of dangers ahead
The two online books which have now been published for Kindle by Kemsing Publishing have been selling well. On the wrong line my account of the rail privatisation scandal is available here – incidentally, there is a fascinating article in the latest London Review of Books by James Meek on electricity privatisation, which shows there are numerous parallels, and Down the Tube, my account of the equally scandalous PPP on the London Underground is here.
I am now proofreading Stagecoach, my 1999 warts (and there are lots) and all company history for Kindle and it will have an appendix and new chapter bringing the story up to date (albeit briefly) as well as, hopefully, an interview with a current executive. Probably out in November or early December.
Now off the USA for speaking tour and launching my book The Great Railroad Revolution, the history of trains in America as it is called over there. Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Strasburg (PA), New York and Chicago. Should be fun if exhausting. Then back for Labour conference, and then the Tories – to do a couple of fringes and learn what they are really thinking. Might not be very nice…
And please remember to click on the ads --- who knows, you may find the love of your life or that hi vi vest which you have been praying will be under your xmas tree, but best of all, you will be helping to pay the cost of this site.
As ever, I have been tweeting from @christianwolmar regularly – my most retweeted one was a suggestion, taken seriously by only one person, that we should all go to the French embassy to protest about THOSE Kate pictures.
Until next month, I remain, yours truly,
Christian Wolmar