ASA says railway not screwed - Official

This from the Mail on Sunday...

Former Tory Minister Edwina Currie has defended a rail union banned from publishing an 'offensive' advertisement which uses her affair with John Major to mark the 20th anniversary of the then Prime Minister's decision to sell off Britain's railways.

The advert shows a cartoon of Mrs Currie and Sir John with the slogan: 'It wasn't just Edwina who John Major screwed. He also screwed our railway and millions of passengers.'

The Advertising Standards Authority is refusing to allow the TSSA rail union to publish the adverts this week to commemorate Sir John's rail sell-off in 1993, unless it removes the 'offensive' word 'screwed'.

Seems fair enough to Eye, although perhaps a little prolix...

UPDATE: This from Dr Trumpet...

Hmmm... another bright decision from the ASA. 

You can call a clothing store “FCUK” and get it past the advertising regulators, but not apparently use “screwed” in conjunction with the railways.

UPDATE: This from Captain Delitc... 

This gives me the opportunity to air my theory that rail privatisation is all the fault of the News of the World and Private Eye.

Had they been doing their job properly, they would have exposed the affaire, John Major would not have become Prime Minister and the destruction of 'deeply inefficient' British Rail would not have become a virility symbol.

The downside would be that we wouldn't have Railway Eye. (Hmmm... a tuppenny-ha'penny blog versus an integrated railway... Not that hard a choice Deltic! Ed)

Busted flush

After Metronet went bust it couldn't be long before the wheels fell off Tube Lines as well.

Today they have - see BBC piece here.

One piece of good news.

Metronet overspent by £2bn, Tube Lines by a mere £1.4bn

And the name of the two dullards behind the disastrous PPP scam?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lady Shriti Vadera. Hang your heads in shame!

Sorry is the hardest word

The Fact Compiler is a fan of Rail Minister Tom Harris MP.

Not least for his witty, self deprecating and frequently off-message blog which somehow escapes the attention of the party's thought police.

However, there are concerns for his sanity following an interview last night with Christian Wolmar on the BBC Wales programme "Week In; Week Out".

Harris told Wolmar that had the railways still been nationalised in 1997 "then I think we (Labour) would have privatised them."

Unfortunately for Harris and co the Tories had already buggered-up the national rail system by the time the party came into power.

Not to be outdone New Labour turned its attention to the London Underground.

The Big Grin himself promoted the disastrous PPP that saw contractor Metronet bite the dust saddling the tax payer with a bill likely to top £1bn.

Of course the Tories have had the good grace to apologise for breaking BR but as yet from Labour not a word.

So perhaps it was better for Tom to focus on what Labour might have done to BR rather than the real damage they did to LU.