by Jonathan Todd
George Osborne’s journey south on Friday enlivened the afternoon and made a bad week even worse for his party. Most attention has focused on his unwillingness to travel pleb class and allegedly to pay the full fare for the standard that he thinks he requires.
All of which strikes me as ill-considered. But it’s the watching films on a train journey on a Friday afternoon that strikes me as profoundly odd and a touch troubling. It makes me worry about the man and our politics.
So, he wants to travel first class?
That doesn’t look good these days. The leader of the opposition was informed a few weeks ago on the Thick of It: “It is career suicide. You may as well shit in the aisle.”
I travel quite frequently on the same west coast mainline as Osborne. I manage to work in standard class. The main barrier is the unreliability of Virgin’s wi-fi but it is perfectly possible to put a shift in before pulling in at Euston.
That said, as much as few politicians would admit it, I imagine there is something in Gyles Brandreth’s view that politicians of Osborne’s standing only meet people who are right and people who have problems, eager to put them right and share their problems. Such people would be a hindrance to work. But, these days, even those in first class are likely to consider themselves to have problems and to be eager to share with the chancellor their thoughts on putting right our moribund economy.
Overall, then, a politician in first class is as attractive as shit in the aisle and may not add to the politician’s productivity.
