I enjoy Michael Portillo’s railway adventures and whenever I see his TV programme I am reminded of the day when in 1989, as Minister of State for Transport, he gave the keynote paper at a Chartered Institute of Transport conference at Aston University, Birmingham.
After delivering his address he was about to leave when Professor John Hibbs suggested that he might stay to listen to what I had to say.
I was the next speaker and at the time I was Managing Director of the West Yorkshire Road Car Co Ltd.
My former Traffic Manager at GM Buses, Bob Jordan, was in the audience, and I ignored his long-standing advice that “the raised nail always gets the hammer” when I ripped up my script and instead spoke from the heart on issues that were dear to me.
I spoke of my frustration whereby sensible co-operation between bus operators, especially in terms of jointly operated services and co-ordinated timetables over common portions of route, was frowned upon.
I bemoaned the fact that I was forced to allow a competitor into a bus station owned by my company and I asked if any of the major fast food chains had been compelled to open their doors to local street vendors.
I urged vigilance from the government in terms of the continuing health of the bus industry who, having delivered the free market by way of competition and contestable markets, needed to defend and promote those principles to sustain the bus industry’s long-term commercial future.
I wasn’t to know at the time that 28 years later it would be a Chancellor, not a Secretary of State for Transport, who would create uncertainty for the bus industry through a type of re-regulation, and a Conservative Chancellor at that.
At the end of my presentation, Michael Portillo came up to the podium, gave me his business card and suggested that we should meet. Later that year I duly arrived at his office in Marsham Street, London.
I was really impressed by his understanding of the issues as he listened carefully to what I said and his incisive questioning ensured that I was up to the task.
This surely was a man with whom the bus industry could do business?
Regrettably he was promoted out of transport only a few months later. A very courteous and I believe able Michael Portillo was a loss to the industry.
And, when he lost his seat at a general election some might say that it was a loss to politics.
Yet, had he succeeded politically, the joy of his railway journeys might never have been. Yet had he not been Transport Minister, who else would have saved the Settle-Carlisle railway line?
A recollection of our meeting in London: When asked by Michael Portillo if what I was saying was correct, did the civil servant who accompanied him really reply, “Yes, Minister”?
