It’s a great life on the buses

[Inspector Knacker]

Hill's on about the local bus service and how it's a lifeline etc, etc, etc.
He'd do well to shake his head and remember just who it was who did away with bus subsidies in the first place. It was our Labour Council under the Dear Leader.
They cut them long before other Labour authorities in the North East did and as I recall, didn't they blame them darn pesky cuts?
Just what was the reasoning behind it, as it affected a sizeable portion of the Labour electorate? Was it some cunning plan to show how cruel the Tories were whilst failing to point out the choice was theirs?
Why didn't he bring this up when the the cabal were in charge, it was their cuts that lead to services disappearing, he could have went straight to the cause of the problem. Has he got bolder now they've left the building?
Our previous MP went on about bus deregulation, but only became concerned when out of office, prior to that we had the sound of silence, in fact Blairs government could have reversed it, but just didn't bother.

[mk1]

Go Northern are changing their bus timetables this weekend. They have decided to end the 'fast' bus (X6) between Hartlepool and Sunderland. We now have to use a 'new' service (which in reality is the slowest X5 bus now renumbered) the  55X which adds an extra 17 mins to the journey and as the X6 was the advertised connection for the 'fast' bus from Peterlee to Newcastle that link has now been broken.
I am sure that Mike was aware of this and he moved heaven and earth in 'behind the scenes' talks with the bus company to try and change their minds. Only a cynic would suggest not a single representative of Hartlepool Council knew about any changes, not a single person in Hartlepool Council cares about the changes and not a single person at Hartlepool  gives a flying fcuk about about any deterioration in our bus links. 

[pieface]

Always been a mystery why no direct express bus services to Newcastle etc.
After all Train services were reduced to hourly and moved times subtly so that the train operators could charge peak rates with no improvement in seating or service. Of course the Local MP acted upon this...

[Inspector Knacker]

Go Northern are changing their bus timetables this weekend. They have decided to end the 'fast' bus (X6) between Hartlepool and Sunderland.

The 'X' used to stand for express on bus services, but now it's slapped on any old round the houses bus journey as a market exercise . I suspect the 'X' now stands for 'extremely slow'.

[Inspector Knacker]

Smiling Mike has only one role as MP and that's to smile, raise topics when instructed and maintain a benign profile.

[Disgruntled voter]

the x is for the extra charges soon to be announced .