Ed Vaizey

May I wholeheartedly endorse The Evening Standard’s Campaign for Cyclists, launched today.  As someone who cycles to Westminster about twice a week, I can confirm that it is murder out there.  I am lucky enough to spend half the journey going through Hyde Park and the Mall (where I ride, illegally I assume, along the space set aside for parked cars adjacent to the Mall).  Outside this tranquility zones, there are basically no cycle lanes.  Another point I notice is that traffic lights are not sequenced to allow cyclists to cross a series of junctions in one go.

While The Standard is at it, they could take up this point; a member of my arts task force cycled to our meeting today in Parliament.  She wasn’t allowed to bring her cycle into Parliament, nor is there any where for her to park it outside (she was helpfully told it would be removed if she attached it to any railings.)  She ended up having to park it at St Thomas’s, across the river!  Surely Parliament should take a lead?

And another thing - why is the bicycle parking so rubbish at all our mainline stations?

My colleague Lee Scott has just secured his fourth Prime Minister’s Question in just five weeks.  This is apparently a record (lee has also had eight in total since being elected; for comparison, I have had two.)  And the only reason it is four out of five is because he didn’t put in a for a PMQ last week, as he had a meeting scheduled with the PM straight after!  After Lee had told us this (and the fact he had won the Lottery on Saturday), Peter Lilley ruefully remarked “I’ve had one in five years”.

OK, that headline is probably an insult to the third world…

Since I have been commuting to Parliament by bike, I have been spared the worst of London’s transport system.  But every time I have used the tube recently, it has basically broken down.  I have just given up trying to get to a meeting near Baker Street - three stops on the Jubilee Line - because it has just been suspended.  No explanation of course - why don’t the people who run things like the tube realise that informing passengers is half the battle?  And it cost me £1.50 on the Oyster Card for my ten minute wait on the platform.

I could go on about the First Great Western service between Didcot and London, but as I have had a whole parliamentary debate on that, I won’t.

Returning from holiday to Stansted (annoyingly Ryanair were punctual and efficient, even if they are Gordon Brown-esque in terms of stealth taxes) we had an hour long wait at passport control because BAA like to land 50 planes in 2 hours on a Sunday night, and the Home Office/BAA can’t be bothered/say it’s impossible to lay on extra passport officers.  Apparently it’s like that every Sunday and most evenings.  When are we going to break up BAA’s monopoly?  They’re better at running shopping centres than airports.

Rant over.

UPDATE: The following received from a technologically challenged friend…

I’m not very good at online posting though I read your blog everyday.  I am sufficiently moved today to say: I am so pleased someone with influence has cottoned on to BAA.  Stansted is indisputably shocking but what is far, far worse I think is Heathrow Terminal 4.  Every morning it is the same at passport control.  Total shambles.  What visitors to this country must think one dreads to think.  The physical environment is worse than any airport I encountered in Africa and they cannot even have all the immigration desks open.  Is it BAA or the Home Office or the Immigration Service?  Who knows?  The cost to this country is incalculable and I feel like writing to Gwyneth Dunwoody or John Denham to see if they couldn’t summon these people to a Select committee.

Andrew Rosindell has made a red rose (from a Romford florist) available for all Conservative MPs at the Opposition Chief Whips Office.  Although the sight of lots of Tory MPs wearing red roses might confuse Labour MPs from the Kinnock/Mandelson years…

UPDATE:  many Tory MPs wearing the Rosindell Rose.  They don’t look like Labour MPs.  More like ushers at a wedding…

iain Dale is the President, Chairman and Secretary of the Nadine Dorries blog fan club, constantly praising it on his blog.  Now, at last, having secured an entry! - HERE - I too am a fan.  It is, as usual, hilarious and brilliantly written.  Perhaps that’s why, as Nadine tells me, she now gets more than 300,000 visits a month to her blog.  This must make her (a) the most popular MP blogger by a mile and (b) [alert - possible sexist comment coming…] Britain’s most popular female political blogger?

After these comments, Nadine is a friend for life ( and a friend for life of the wife too).  My other new best friend is Boris Johnson.  Although I already love him, I was getting a bit complacent about Boris’s charm, until he came up to me in the Lobby and told me had read my dad’s autobiography, Scenes From Institutional Life , not a widely read work.  Boris is now a friend for life.  And Nadine can read it to get an idea of my privileged background…  

UPDATE ONE: never tell your wife that she is mentioned in a blog where she is described as “ordinary” (however well meaning).

UPDATE TWO: I should have made clear that Iain Dale has been a “friend for life” for longer than I care to remember - certainly since he published my books… 

UPDATE THREE: > You must not underestimate the popularity of Boris’s website either - currently striking an amazing 450,000 hits per month! Come over and visit…Melissa, Webmaster to boris-johnson.com 

I am not sure Tony Blair’s speech on the arts at the beginning of last month has had quite the effect he expected.  Here is what the art world is saying the morning after the night before… 

I don’t know much about Sir Michael Lyons, the new chairman of the BBC Trust.  I do know he used to be a Labour councillor.  I do know he refused to say whether he was still a member of the Labour Party when interviewed in 2004.  I do know he has undertaken three projects for Gordon Brown for which he (and his team?) were well remunerated.  I do know that he has run three councils.  I do know that he is a trained economist with a limited experience of broadcasting.  I am not sure that this disqualifies him from the chairmanship, which is now much more of a regulatory role.

The point of this preamble is that I would like to know more.  Surely, whatever else one thinks of Sir Michael Lyons’ appointment, the need for parliamentary scrutiny of these kinds of jobs is now overwhelming.  There is one well-worn argument against: that it would make theses jobs “political”, with opposition parties scoring points (or making legitimate criticisms!) against the Government’s choice, and therefore put off well-qualified people from applying.

But surely that is a point in favour of parliamentary scrutiny- these jobs are already “political”, they are very much in the public eye, the Opposition already does criticise appointees, and so the appointee should surely welcome a formal process to address concerns and set out his or her suitability for the job.

Lyons should be the last person appointed to a major public job (and announced in the recess) without formal parliamentary scrutiny by a Select Committee. 

And here’s another local blog, from my friend Bill Melotti, who is standing in Wantage.  Bill and I first got talking over our shared loathing of ID cards, and he’s gone on from there to become chairman of the Conservative Liberty Forum.  I think it’s fair to say he had no involvement a few years ago in politics, and now he’s involved in many local and national issues. 

One of our local election candidates, Jeremy Renwick, has set up a blog for the local election campaign in Grove.  It looks brilliant, and it will be interesting to see what impact it has locally.  You can view it HERE