The ever polite Noel Coward used to have a special saying which he reserved for occasions on which he found his peers' work to be less than satisfactory :

"Darling , you've done it again!"

Remember these quotes?


And who can forget these? (link below.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2090057,00.html

"Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, admitted that he was partly responsible for the West Country cuts. He said: “I am not seeking to avoid blame. We cannot be in the business of carting fresh air round the country. If we are terrified to go near any service for fear of flak, then sooner or later we will come a cropper.”

"Mr Darling said that the Liskeard-to-Looe branch line, in Cornwall, which is losing five of its thirteen daily services, had attracted an average of only nine passengers a train in the twelve months to last April. But the Devon and Cornwall Community Rail Partnership said that Mr Darling was using misleading figures based only on tickets sold."

"Richard Burningham, the partnership’s manager, said: “Trains on the Looe branch are so crowded in summer that the conductor cannot get down the aisle to sell tickets.”

"First is understood to be reconsidering some of the December cuts after 5,000 passengers wrote in to object."

Elsewhere , thousands of postmasters yesterday converged on Westminster to demand that the government saves as many as a third of post offices from closure , delivering a petition from four million people to Downing Street.

The appeal , said to be the largest ever domestic petition , urges ministers to continue subsidising the network and reverse the decision to phase out the Post Office card account , one of the network's largest sources of income.

Here are some links on this.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2410906,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/post/story/0,,1925498,00.html

And here are some quotes :

"The number of outlets has already fallen from 18,000 in 1999 to 14,000. But the network is losing £200m a year and ministers have made it clear that more branches must shut. Alistair Darling, the trade and industry secretary, has promised to announce plans for the future of post offices within weeks. But yesterday he ruled out the Royal Mail's estimate that a sustainable network would consist of around 4,000 branches."

"No one in their right mind would suggest you should come down to that," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "But if you take the smallest post offices, where some are are seeing less than three customers a day - you can't make a living off that; it is not viable. What I am anxious to ensure is that people up and down the country, particularly in rural areas, have reasonable access to post office services."

"The Department of Trade and Industry said yesterday that the 800 least-busy post offices in rural areas had only about 16 customers a week. At present the more vulnerable rural network is supported by a £150 million-a-year subsidy but that is set to end in 2008."

Darling , you've done it again!