CASTLE'S SUSPECT MOVE

摘要

Remember flared trousers and kipper ties? When these were the height of fashion, possibly one of the best transport ministers we have ever had (and certainly one of the most forthright) was sent by her civil servants on a visit to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority or MBTA for short, the newly-created public transport agency for the Boston region of the United States. Barbara Castle's mission was to investigate the background to the creation of the MBTA and see if it had any relevance for the Labour Party's plans for bus and rail services in the UK, which prime minister Harold Wilson had tasked her with 'sorting out'. That task was an important one, given the explosion in private car ownership, the growth of urban traffic congestion and the already painfully evident financial woes of rural bus services and the Beeching Report on the future of the railways sitting on the minister's desk.