Read it and weep.
This from the Beeb yesterday...
The minister overseeing
the HS2 rail project has issued an official correction after getting
muddled over the size of his department's budget.
Robert Goodwill suggested in the Commons last week that the
transport department's overall budget was £50bn. The actual figure is
less than £13bn.
Only £37bn out.
FFS!
Another gem from the minister for rail!
Given as a written answer on the 4th November...
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon, Conservative)
It was never the intention to use the historic performance of directly operated railways as a comparator for future franchise bids. The nature of rail operations means that their circumstances change over time with infrastructure and rolling stock investment as well as changes in track access charges and the performance of the wider economy, which makes comparing any franchise to another or even to historical data on itself imprudent.
However, as with all franchise competitions, the Department has developed a comparator model to assess franchise bids against that is informed by base data from the current operator.
What's that sound? It's the sound of DfT taking a chainsaw to the only believable benchmark of a new operators' performance!
This from the Preacher...
It is easier for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, than for a camel to pass through the lie of a needle.
Here endeth the lesson.
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