Why would you want to travel First Class, anyway?
Bubble — By Adam Higgitt on February 18, 2010 4:18 pm
Plenty of empty seats in First Class, chaps...
POOR old Nick Winterton. The veteran Tory MP has got himself, and his party, into a spot of bother by insisting on the retention of First Class rail travel for MPs. Those who travel in Standard Class “are a totally different type of people” fumed the Macclesfield MP in an interview with Five Live. Cue lots of faux egalitarianism from opposition politicians (travelling “second class…keeps you in touch with your constituents” insisted Labour MP John Mann, apparently without irony) and a stinging put down from CCHQ.
It makes you wonder why Winterton bothered. Not to put his head above the parapet, but to make use of the paltry additional facilities that comprise today’s First Class. These were available to me in a former job, and I used them. Nowadays, I make the same journey via Standard Class, and the difference is barely noticeable. Paper thin cushions instead of actual paper seat head covers? Check. Ever-so-slightly wider seats? check. A free newspaper and cup of bad tea? Excuse me while I contain my excitement. Yes, you get fewer children and Special Brew swillers up front. Instead, you have to make do with people talking even more loudly into their mobiles, and enough electromagnetic radiation via laptops, BlackBerries etc to fry an egg. The real difference is, of course, the price – that’ll be twice as much please. But we’ll still be as rude to you as we are to those in steerage.
Actually, there is a reason for going First Class, at least on my regular commuter route: you might actually get a seat. Nice to know that several thousand pounds a year in Standard Class season ticket doesn’t give you such luxuries, isn’t it?
Tags: expenses, public debate, transport
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13 Comments
While I admire your relentless desire to take the contrarian view and strike out against the middle class, organic Chilean Shiraz-swigging, fair trade olive-munching, self-appointed faux egalitarian majority, I think you are wrong. “Poor old Winterton”, as this interview highlights (listen to the audio, don’t just read the transcript), is at best an appalling communicator, and at worst hopelessly out-of-touch. I don’t think you can be an effective modern politician with either of these failings.
Right then, I had better pop of to Waitrose to stock up on the latest organic wine recommendations from the Guardian’s Saturday colour supplement. Ciao.
I resent that, Hirst. I’m actually very fond of olives (though I prefer mine cruel trade, there’s something about the sweat of exploited workers that gives my picholine’s a most agreeable tang).
As for listening to the audio, I’ve been at home all day assembling flat pack furniture with the radio on in the background. I think I can probably recite it verbatim by now.
I thought only plebs drank Chilean Shiraz.
I trust that the flat pack furniture was made from illegally logged wood from a rain forest that is close to extinction, from the Congo basin, for example?
You just can’t get the same lustre from sustainable forests. Like decaf tea or methadone, there’s no substitute for the real thing.
Shafting the workers – typical Labour…
How many times have I got to tell you, Dunc? Outside of office hours you’re allowed to deactivate the chip.
I happen to think I’m harder than anyone in your party, so I challenge you all to a fight, round the back of Tesco’s in Port Talbot, at 10am on Saturday morning. We’ll be ready for you…
Not exactly in the great pacifist tradition of your party, is it? Dafydd Iwan would be most upset…
“Cue lots of faux egalitarianism from opposition politicians (travelling “second class…keeps you in touch with your constituents” insisted Labour MP John Mann, apparently without irony)”
Labour MP’s are ‘opposition politicians’ now?
Lower case “o”, WC. Last time I checked, they opposed the Tories.
I’m glad you started off with ‘poor old Nick Winterton’ – after that, Adam, you take the exact line of argument someone who hadn’t listened to the full programme would have taken.
Let me start by saying I’m not defending Winterton’s comments… it was a silly thing for him to say, and you’re right, Clayton, he did come across as a poor communicator and hopelessly out-of-touch.
But, I listened to the entire lengthly broadcast and it very much felt as a listener that the MP was being cornered into uttering a line which was designed to be taken out of context.
The interviewer Stephen Nolan deliberately provoked him into a bit of a flap – talking about how he travels to and from London – trying to weedle out any signs of him overspending taxpayers money. When Winterton said he often made the trip by car, Nolan asked how he would be able to work during the journey, so Winterton mumbled that his wife sometimes drove, but conceded that, yes, it would be impossible to work while driving…
…So Winterton explained he also sometimes caught the train, and he said from the outset he enjoyed getting the train because it allowed him to catch-up with constituents (the exact argument thrown back at him). When Nolan asked if he worked on the train Winterton spluttered the inflammatory comments that if he was going to work he would travel frist class so that he had the peace and quiet to concentrate.
Now, as I said, I’m not defending Winterton’s remarks… but I feel like the old man was cornered and now his comments have been taken out of context. If you listen to the whole interview, what he is clearly trying to say is that when he wants to work on a train he decides to travel First Class because people are quieter in those carriages… then Nolan pushed him and now his comments sound extremely class ridden and pompous. He definitely wasn’t saying he liked to travel First Class for the physical comfort as you suggest – his comment came from talking about how he can work when he travels.
Now if we take the comment in it’s proper context the debate is: is it easier for an MP to work in First Class or Standard Class? Personally I find I am quite able to work in Standard Class. Does that make me faux egalitarian? I don’t see the logic there, Mr Higgitt.
“Personally I find I am quite able to work in Standard Class. Does that make me faux egalitarian? I don’t see the logic there, Mr Higgitt.”
Ouch. That’s me told, Hannah.
But the funny thing is: we agree. I find Standard Class almost the same as First Class in every respect save for the greater likelihood of getting a seat. As far as Nick Winterton is concerned, you are doubtless correct about him being cornered. My only query was why he found First Class worth the effort, let alone the cost.