The Economy

[DVL418]

RE: The Economy

(22/10/2012 10:16)wirralbus Wrote:  

(22/10/2012 09:41)DVL418 Wrote:  

(21/10/2012 22:36)wirralbus Wrote:  Just wonder if this had been Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling would it have been the same .

Your point?

Don't forget that rules introduced in around 2009 specify that MP's traveling to/from constituency (Gideon was travelling back to London from Wilmslow in this Tatton consituency) only get re-imbursed for second class travel. If they want to travel 1st class , they pay for the upgrade out of own pocket. Also pay for any political flunkies' travel costs from own allowance.

If travelling in connection with ministerial, duty special branch do risk assesment - Virgin West Coast is deemed as 'low risk' whilst most suburban railways a understandably deemed to be higher risk, so rarely passed as appropriate for high profile ministers, although Vince Cable insists on using South West Trains to travel into Westminster from his Twickenham constituency each day.

Virgin Standard class i would also call high risk , First Class though would reasonably be deemed low risk .

Tell Special Branch that then as they include issues such as access points onto the station and onto the train, number of stops etc amongst the risk assesment criteria - not just the presence of the odd anti-social idiot(s) that on train plain clothes SB personel can deal with.

I spoke to a plod that spent some time with SB and he said gangs of trainspotters were a nightmare for them to assess as chatting away in their own dialect whilst kitted-out in big parkas/anoraks with plenty of deep pockets to hide things in, rucksacks full of bulky items (flask of bovril, cheese & pickle sandwiches, Ian Allan ABC, etc.) and got very excited when they saw a train - a sight SB guys thought was fairly frequent when actually travelling on one