Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Bad trip

Melissa Kite starts her new column for <em>The Spectator</em>

issue 20 October 2007

Your ordeal starts innocuously enough. ‘Welcome aboard the south east trains service to London Waterloo. This train will be calling at…’ You settle back in your seat and for a few moments wallow in blissful ignorance of the ruthless campaign of mental torture that is about to be unleashed on you as part of a complete moral and intellectual reconditioning by state agents for anti-democratic purposes.

‘The ticket inspector will shortly be making his way through the train.’ You recognise the silkily patronising voice of Patricia Hewitt but think no more about it. She can’t have had that many offers when Gordon took over, and it’s regular work. Of course, time was when we didn’t need to have the ticket inspector introduced, least of all by the former health secretary. We knew who he was by instinct. Something in the blue uniform and ticket-punching device spoke to us on another level.

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