On Friday, May 6th at 1.15 pm, Patrick McLoughlin MP called a meeting in Litton Village Hall to discuss the issue of buses coming through or not coming through Litton in the future. There were about 50 people at that meeting, most of whom wrote their names and addresses on a sheet of paper provided, hoping for feedback from our Honourable MP and Secretary of State.
Well, the feedback did arrive. It came in the post on May 12th but – as most of you who received it will have discovered – the contents of it had nothing to do with the issue of withdrawing the bus services that go through the village which was the main concern of those present at the meeting and the main subject of the discussion that day.
The feedback letter that we all received begins with the phrase ‘Thank you for your letter of 29th March’. None of us had written to him in March because that was well before the meeting took place! And the letter writer (surely not Patrick himself?) goes on to discuss, at length, the proposed introduction of ‘a flat fare for concessionary bus pass holders’. That had nothing to do with the pressing question of whether Litton will have any buses at all.
At the end of the same letter, we are ‘thanked’ for the ‘suggestion and for taking the time and effort to write’ to him – which of course none of us had done.
What does this mean? Is our Secretary of State ‘Right’ in the head? Is he ‘Honourable’? I’m thinking not. Unless … unless … he didn’t write it. Or perhaps he suggested to his secretary that this letter, originally addressed to some other punter, ‘would do’ to send to the people of Litton because – well it has, at least, something to do with buses.
Rosie Ford