More smoke, mirrors and KY jelly...

More proof regarding the NuLabour disinformation project for England – and also evidence that yet again, we are going to have to bend over and take it...

Yesterday, I had a rather surreal telephone conversation with some government customer-relationed lackey at the Department of Transport.

I rang them in response to Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick's many, many telly appearances (mostly near a busy traffic junction) as he announced his great new ideas on life, the universe and hot hatch drivers....

Jim was in turbo drive, loving the cameras, loving the attention... looking like he was doing a piece to camera for Top Gear. He was determined to “Do something” about the terrible near 3,000 death toll on Britain’s roads each year.

Firstly, he was going to have a go at those psycho drivers who excessively speed. It’s a sort of two strikes and you’re banned strategy – and Jim warned every furry-diced-boy-racer in Britain that he was on their case. He also hinted that ‘they’ were looking at the current drink-drive limits – Jim rather portentously warned that this ‘may’ be looked into in the near future..

Jim repeated the day’s mantra – “We know that we can do more and that we can reduce the numbers of people being killed and seriously injured in Britain - and that means looking at speeding, drink driving, drug driving, careless driving and people not wearing seatbelts”...

It was yet another ‘fighting for Britain’ speech, so beloved of NuLabour’s budding iagos. But then, I started to wonder – was Jim’s initiative ‘Brit-relevant or English-relevant?.... I mean, all things Transporty are sort of devolved nowadays aren’t they? I decided to go to the people who should know.... The Department of Transport.

A quick butchers at the press release makes it clear. The opening paragraph says –
‘A crackdown on the menace of reckless driving was announced by Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick today as he unveiled a range of new proposals to tackle drink and drug drivers and other dangers on Britain's roads’.

And a direct quote from Jim within the press release clinches it - "Britain has one of the best road safety records in the world and the number of people killed or hurt has fallen dramatically in the last decade. But too many people are still dying on our roads".

Yup – it’s all about Britain all right.... Wondering if I had missed something - and that Transport had been de-devolved back to Westminster, I decided to ring them – just to make sure.

“Hi, is that the section responsible for road safety?”

“Yes”...

“I’ve been watching Jim Fitzpatrick on the telly today – and the new initiative he is launching.... I notice that he keeps on saying it is a British-wide initiative. He keeps on saying it will cover ‘the whole country’. And that’s where I am getting a bit confused. I thought Transport was a devolved responsibility – so how, can Mr. Fitzpatrick be claiming a British jurisdiction when I know he simply does not have the power?”

“Errrrrrr, I’m not sure. Can you hang on a mo’?”

(I hung on for quite a few moes, actually).

“Hello – yes, well. Apparently, Mr. Fitzpatrick was only talking about England”.

“What!!!!!........ Only about England?”

“Yes. Only about England”

“So why has he not mentioned that fact in any of his interviews? Why has he been lying to the public, claiming false responsibilities much further than his remit? Is he some sort of imbecile? Does he not know the difference between Britain and England? Is he geography-deficient? Does he actually know where England is?”

“Err”

“And why is your Press Release a complete lie – you mention Britain several times – but nowhere on that press release do you utter a word about England. Why is that?”

She put the phone down.