Lord Adonis - the quietest of revolutionaries

By David Higgerson on Nov 19, 09 02:16 PM

He might sound, and indeed look, like a train spotter and therefore someone to avoid in a train station pub, but you've got to hand it to Lord Adonis.

He's transforming the way politics is done, probably without even being aware of it.

Tony Blair swept into Downing Street talking about changing politics with his notion of "big tent politics." David Cameron talks of creating a more open and accountable political system if he wins office next year, while continuing to confirm or deny allegations that he dabbled with strong drugs during his university days.

But like most train spotters, Lord Adonis has opted not to make a big fuss, and get on making his own changes.

As I've mentioned on here before, I believe there's more chance of lining up a fleet of flying pigs to connect London to Birmingham and than there is of seeing high-speed rail in the UK within the next 30 years.

Part of my argument is that a) there's a recession on and everyone is talking about cutbacks and b) that projects as grand as this are always at the whim of the political party in power at the time. Fine details such as routes and stations can be tweaked and changed to suit the political landscape.

And in the latter days of a Labour administration, it's very easy for a Labour minister - especially an unelected one like Lord Adonis to pop up with a mind-bogglingly expensive idea which he probably expects not to have any role in implmenting.

So it's almost exciting - in a "ooh that's a rare loco pulling through Crewe today" kind of way - to see Lord Adonis actually pulling in the opposition parties to work up the plan for high-speed rail so that, regardless of the polticial colour behind the door at Downing Street after next June, the project goes ahead as planned.

Therefore, if Gordon Brown gets booted out of Number 10 next June, the plan for high speed rail can, in theory, continue and not get shunted into the sidings (Geddit?) while a new Fat Controller (!) decides whether to rip up the plan or come up with their own version.

Adonis hasn't sought publicity about this fact - it was a throwaway line on a piece The Politics Show did at the weekend about high-speed rail. But, to me, it's highly significant.

Yes, you could argue it's a senior Labour minister effectively admitting defeat at the General Election, but at the same time it's a politician who is prepared to rise above the politics and try and come up with a way for a project to progress with common consensus.

In short, he's putting the country's best interests ahead of those of a political party.

At the same time, he doesn't shirk away from being associated with the problems within the rail industry. Anyone who has used Manchester Victoria, Preston, Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay or Liverpool Central stations will have been less than surprised to see them make a list of the 10 worst in the UK put together at the request of Lord Adonis.

This is the same Lord Adonis who, after getting the brief to cover transport, spent a week travelling around the UK by train - neither undercover nor making seeking publicity - finding out what it was really like on to rely on trains in the UK. He discovered train companies which didn't increase capacity on coastal routes in the summer. He found a confusing lack of information about tickets. He found stations - big stations - where it was night on impossible to get a brew after teatime. And he discovered how utterly crap Birmingham New Street station is.

He then commissioned a report looking at how things could be improved quickly. This, in many respects, is a typical Labour tactic: Grab the headline, order a report, then disappear. Only Lord Adonis actually made the report public yesterday, and then went on a tour of what today's LDP calls the UK's 10 slum stations. £50m to be spent. It's peanuts in transport money terms so there's no reason why that won't happen.

How many times have ministers talked loftily about improving facilities/lives/communities by holding press conferences in either Westminister or in areas which have been tarted up to look good for the cameras, but which still have the problems they always had?

Lord Adonis did interview after interview from rundown railway stations and had no objection to being photographed there either. He wasn't seeking to paint a picture of something which didn't exist.

Of course, as I said before, he perhaps is better off than most ministers in that he doesn't need to worry about being elected. But what does it tell us about politics that it takes a member of the upper chamber to show elected MPs how a honesty and determination to get things done can make all the difference?