Successful flop

No campaign ever dies

In these days of Google total recall, the past can immediately become the present.

The current edition of the Parliamentary Monitor Magazine has resurrected a minor campaign that amused me more than a decade ago. We like to believe that Prime Ministers have lofty concerns about the fate of the planet and the nation. John Major has small concerns -especially about traffic cones.

John’s Cones Hotline was a daft idea following up an urban myth that cones were maliciously placed to annoy motorists. This was to be Major’s crusade. Journalist Andrew Alexander has dug up my many questions on the ‘success’ of the hotline. There was no Freedom of Information then, so I had to be content with an assurance from the Highways Agency that the Cones Hotline had been a ‘resounding success.’ I did not believe it.

It was announced by John Major to an applauding audience at the Conservative Conference in 1992. I heard that one of the calls received was from someone claiming that Martians had landed in Estonia.  My questions on the cost and usefulness of the hotline were always evaded. This idea was in the top league of idiotic ideas that spring from the heads of Prime Ministers.

Eventually I did get answers. The Highways Agency confessed that the scheme was costing net £20,000 a year. The number of calls received between June 1992 and June 1995 was 17,700. The number that resulted in the removal of unnecessary cones was 5. That’s a good £10,000 for each line of cones removed.

No wonder that it was said that John Major’s Government was bankrupt of ideas.

 

...

or capital punishment?

The witch-hunt against Alun Cairns has deteriorated into a salivating lynch-mob. Apparently he has been sacked as a Tory Candidate. All for suggesting that Italians are 'greasy wops'. Stupid? Yes. A hanging offence? No. What more do they want, an experimental hanging just to teach him a lesson?

Former Europe minister Denis MacShane MP said "Xenophobic language against Italians is the same as other racism." No it's not. Italians have never been a despised minority - with the posible exception of in Slovenia which is a long way from Wales. Certainly not in Wales where the Bracchis Anzanis and Bacigalupos have long prospered. They are a vital part of Welsh life - especially the  Sidolis in our rugby teams. Italians are far too sane, good humored and sensible to be annoyed by a mis-fired joke.

From a private scientific poll I have conducted on the number of Italians listening to Dau o'r Bae on a Friday lunchtime, I can reveal that it peaked at one and a half.

As the other David Davies for Monmouth has said on 2894 occasions 'This is political correctness gone mad.'