2355 Hrs GMT
London
Wednesday
31 March 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
KHOODEELAAR! Noting a report in a Rupert Murdoch-ed London Times blog claiming that a 1990s 'Crossrail Bill' had been Stopped by a group of MPs, only 4, who gave no reason for their action but did scupper the then Crossrail Bill. We shall investigate in the near future the further details of that event. For now, we are carrying the texts of that Times blog. However, we can say that according o the Times blog, the alleged chair of the 4 strong group of MPs said that they were acting as a JURY when they stopped the [then] Crossrail Bill in the early 1990s. Khoodeelaar! Question is: were they perhaps already aware of the Crassness behind Crossrail, even in that 1990s form? Is that why they treated the scam as a 'criminal offence’?
[To be continued]
[See below]
OLIVER KAMM
Oliver Kamm is a leader
writer and columnist
at The Times.
He was previously an investment
banker and co-founder of
an asset management firm.
oliver.kamm@thetimes.co.uk
oliver.kamm@thetimes.co.uk
 March 30, 2010Tories aim highThe BBC reports:
The name John Marek is unlikely to mean much to you. In case he takes part in any election campaign, let me put in the public record his most notable political act as an MP. There used to be a parliamentary procedure, dating from the 19th century, under which a small group of MPs had the ability to decide on schemes to build private roads and canals. It was abolished in 1993, but not before a four-member committee had assessed the CrossRail bill - a £2.7 billion proposal to improve the rail infrastructure of London. It would have reduced congestion and and journey times. The committee chairman was a bizarre Tory MP called Tony Marlow who in 1988 called for the return of the stocks as a form of punishment and whose sophisticated critique of the European Exchange-Rate Mechanism was that "the over-mighty Hun" had raised interest rates. He was supported in rejecting the CrossRail bill by the two Labour members of the committee - one of whom was Marek. Marlow declined to give reasons for the decision, on the imaginative grounds that he and his colleagues were acting like a jury. A new Crossrail scheme is being built, connecting Paddington and Canary Wharf, at huge expense - between £10 billion and £16 billion. I'm no expert on the economics of transport, but it seems to me completely obvious that the existing network is inadequate and highly expensive to maintain. The annual running costs of maintaining the Tube greatly exceeed - by about £500 million - the fare revenue of around £1.4 billion. Perhaps there were good reasons that Marek rejected the then Crossrail scheme in 1994, but he never stated his reasons. I hope that if he surfaces at public meetings now he'll be pressed on them. |
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