Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
What a soft job speech writers have at the Department for Transport.
All they have to do is dig out an old speech and change a couple of initials around.
This top secret draft of Lord Adonis' talk to the Fourth Friday club has reached the Eye from an anonymous source:
"As an organisation, XX combines the classic shortcomings of the traditional nationalised industry.
"It is an entrenched monopoly. That means too little responsiveness to customers' needs, whether passenger or freight; no real competition; and too little diversity and innovation.
"Inevitably, it also has the culture of a nationalised industry: a heavily bureaucratic structure; an insufficiently sharp awareness on the part of employees that their success depends on satisfying the customer - indeed, on attracting more customers; and an instinctive tendency to ask for more taxpayers' subsidy and to feel that public subsidy will always be there as a crutch whenever things look difficult..."
Can Eye readers guess which of Lord Adonis' predecessors first uttered these words and when?
