Friday, 21 November 2008

Sense and sensibility

Is My Lord Adonis a good or bad thing?

Does he know his stuff or is he talking through his coronet?

You picks your commentator, you takes your choice.

For instance Nigel Harris made the following observation in a blog posting on Monday:
"What most of these commentators missed – or got completely wrong – was Andrew Adonis’ deep and detailed interest in railways. He comes to the transport job with an existing knowledge and support for rail which is going to be intriguing to watch."

Intrigued, we watched.

And lo it came to pass, a mere three days later, that Lord Adonis made clear his existing knowledge and support for rail:

Lord Adonis, House of Lords, Thursday 20th November (Hansard source)
"However, a perfectly sensible report was published, commissioned, I think, by the Department of Transport and possibly British Rail. This was the Serpell report, although it, too, proposed options that could have led to significant network cutbacks in the 1980s."

Presumably his Lordship means sensible in the sense that Raymond Ian Burns might understand it?