You won’t be standing on the verge of history. You will be beaten by Andy Roddick at Wimbledon on Friday, and so the long, long search for a homegrown champion will continue.
UPDATE: Just a I predicted….
It was announced earlier that the government has sacked the bus company National Express from running one the main rail franchise and aims to bring it back into state ownership.
National Express managed the East Coast mainline franchise, which runs trains from London and serves several cities in England and Scotland. It also manages three others: East Anglia, c2c and the Stansted Express. The East Coast service, according to some commentators, was suffering from a sharp decline in passenger numbers, but others argued the decision to strip the company of the franchise was a political one…. in other words, that the government was to blame.
This may be seen as further evidence that the privatisation of the national rail network since the mid 1990s was a complete failure. Indeed, parts of it had to be brought back under state control. However, many commentators have argued that if the present government had stopped regularly reorganising the rail system, it would have been able to work properly.
Meanwhile, many foreign commentators and observers wonder why we Brits regularly continue to put up with an inferior public transport network, with its frequent breakdowns, constant delays, and annual fare rises. This is a major long-time scandal, which ranks alongside the row over our politicians’ expenses.
Plans to sell off postal services may have been put on the backburner… until after the next General Election.
Business secretary Lord Mandelson had hoped to force through the sell-off before Parliament’s summer recess, but there has been so much opposition from the unions, staff, the public, and lately, Labour MPs. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown couldn’t bring what was left of his clunking fist to get anything done.
If any of you thought the sell off will now be scrapped, don’t you believe a word of it. When the Conservatives win power, they will certainly want to pick up where the present government will leave off… so the battle will have to continue for some time to come.
The infamous train robber Ronnie Biggs will not be released from prison to die a free man, despite his ailing health.
Justice secretary Jack Straw rejected a recommendation that Biggs be freed on parole. This may understandibly satisfy the victims’ families, but to many of us, like myself, too young to know or understand what happened at that time, can we accept that he is now no longer a threat to society?
It had to happen. The conspiracy theories have already started. I don’t think the world will ever get to know what really happened to Michael Jackson.
London
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