The six years he spent in a children's home shaped his education policy. It may also explain why the transport minister Andrew Adonis is still brimming with enthusiasm for his new job, despite the collapse of National Express Andrew Adonis is the only transport minister I can remember who regards his job as a project rather than a brief: more than something to be learned and endured until promotion beckons, or not, as the came may be. This hasn't been a particularly good week for him. The collapse of National Express's East Coast mainline franchise and its return, however temporarily, to state ownership provides yet another episode in recent British life when taxpayers have needed to rescue an ill-directed piece of private enterprise that gambled stupidly on everlasting growth. When we met at Marylebone station, in London,... [read full story]
