13 alpha, that is a VERY selective comparison.
most of these moronic politicians have never been outside of islington, so don't know what the rest of the world is like.
I would love to get the train, except I don't live in london. Granted I only live about 40 miles away, but that may as well be a different country.
If I want to get the train anywhere, first i need to get to london, by car that is a non starter in the week. By train I have to endure horrific delays, dire serivce, standing room only and a cost per mile that makes flying first class look cheap. Weekends, I have no trains. most weekends I would be forced onto a bus because of engineering works somewhere or another.
There should be (and already is) a choice between flying, train and driving, but it should be a choice. Not something forced upon us by a bunch of idots from whitehall. you want to get the train? fine, do it, i'm not stopping you. why stop the rest of us from flying.
And why don't we make this a real free choice. At the moment the airlines charge a genuine market rate in a free market. The trains are subsidsed to the gills by the government. Lets get rid of that subsidy and see what the real costs are.
Oh no, we can't do that, in typical socialist style rather than encourage the trains to compete, we're going to cripple the airlines instead. Talk about bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator.