First class travel for third class education?

Lord Adonis must be rejoicing that he is no longer in the Department for Education and Skills.

The LibDems are claiming that civil servants in the education sector have spent £10 million on first class rail fares over the last three years.

According to the website of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, shameless Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Diana Johnson MP claimed that education officials needed to travel first class to ensure they have enough peace and quiet to work during their journey.

Indeed.

Eye is uncertain if the peace and quiet is achieved by travelling first class or by not having to teach in the four schools that the £10m would have built.

Stitched up like a kipper

Captain Deltic of Modern Railway's fame is renowned for the surgical skill with which he wields the stiletto.

Therefore The Fact Compiler was much looking forward to the latest Informed Sources ePreview which plopped into his inbox this morning.

With numerous hacks swanning around Manchester for the Labour Party conference this week perhaps one of them could tax the Secretary of State or one of her ministers on the following insight from the good Captain:

"Didn’t Rail Minister Tom Harris say that the mythical 1300 (new vehicles) didn’t include the 1100 Thameslink vehicles? Well they do now, leaving poor old Tom stitched up by his officials yet again."

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first...

Fix!

More mutterings following the late publication yesterday of the National Passenger Survey.

InterCity operator National Express East Coast is absolutely furious with watchdog PassengerFocus .

When the survey was published the PassengerFocus press office went into overdrive, screaming that the survey was a "red alert" to a number of long distance operators where overall passenger satisfaction "had plummeted 4% points."

But what's this?

Amongst the list of dire operators singled out for attention was NEEC - this despite the fact that their rating had actually gone up by 4%.

Meanwhile no mention was made of piss-poor operator Worst Great Western who are so loathed by passengers that they have been told more than once by Daft that they are drinking at the last chance saloon.

If the Fact Compiler didn't know better he might be tempted to think that the two month delay in publishing the figures had something to do with their being massaged. As PassengerFocus is funded by DafT one wonders who might do such a thing?

More examples of spin over substance please.