Diary – 9 November 2002

I am in the midst of a tour promoting a book, The Political Animal. Like all journeys in this country, it is almost impossible to travel anywhere with any confidence that you will arrive within a day of your anticipated time. A trip to Norfolk, which ought to have taken three hours, lasted five. The return journey, involving jams on the M11, closure of the M25 and so on, took five and a half. Complaints about the ludicrous state of the British transport system have become so commonplace that we all just ignore them. ‘It took me two hours to get through the Dartford Tunnel.’ ‘I travelled five miles on the M6 in an hour and a half,’ they go on. The trouble (and reassurance) is that the British are a people with very low expectations in almost everything. The state of the roads is an excuse for smug people who never have to travel anywhere off the beaten track to drone on about the superiority of the railways.