Dan Munford: Wrexham and Shropshire's Mid Wales Express

Dan Munford, Chairman of the I Want a Referendum Campaign in Wales, pays tribute to Owen Paterson's campaign for a new train service.

America’s next first lady famously nearly ended her husband’s Presidential campaign with the truth that his popularity made her, for the first time in her adult life, proud to be an American. Not much has engendered the same British emotions in me in recent years. But, thanks to the campaign of one Conservative MP, there may now be light at the end of the tunnel.

Owen Paterson may not have created his own personal railway but he must certainly take much credit for a small, independent new “Wrexham & Shropshire” line train service that has appeared, like a ghost train in a Thomas the Tank story, to spirit Mid Wales business folk to London direct.

Spain may now have 190 mph trains but Britain has always been bad at big. We tend to cock it up. Even Branson’s American-like corporate magic doesn’t quite make it on the tracks. I have memories of waving goodbye to two generations of Munford business traveller from Shropshire stations. But the lines grew rusty, the direct services were cut and the only rail way to London was through a hell of missed connections in the Midlands.

Dan Munford: Quite frankly, we should give a damn

Dan Munford, Chairman of the I Want a Referendum Campaign in Wales, explains the importance of the EU Treatistution ballot being organised in Aberconwy.

The United States of America has a more mature approach to politics than we do. Sitting in a Chicago bar last week as CBS charted the progress of McCain, Obama, Clinton and Romney in the primaries, one thing was clear. US citizens distinguish between their political system on one side and the individuals and governments who operate within it on the other. We cannot. Their flag unites them. The office of President retains their respect while their lame duck President faces their overwhelming scorn. Their patriotism and their political heritage and democratic republican tradition is either side of the very same quarter dollar. 

Unfortunately, much to our cost, we have forgotten how important the maintenance of this distinction is to our rights as citizens. Politics is unanimously derided as bad and as a society we have no interest and no concern with its outcomes. Because we have as little respect for our institutions and our political processes as we do for hate figure politicians, we fail to hold our leaders to account properly. We find ourselves subject to establishment figures who compete to sell our country down the river and express shock and surprise when their judgement and motives are questioned. The common law, product of centuries of sophisticated Western civilisation can be abandoned on a whim by the leader of our established Church. And the ancient democratic rights fought for by ordinary men and women long dead can be signed away in European treaties without our approval.

Dan Munford: Petraeus may have saved our special relationship

Dan Munford, former Montgomeryshire Assembly Candidate, explains why an American General may have saved the Special Relationship.

If public opinion has regarded centralising European treaties with less concern in recent years, it is because the nightly news has been dominated by Iraqi car bombs and US foreign policy failure. But Europe may be set free to dominate the political agenda in 2008 and the man we may have to thank is an American General with Dutch ancestry, David Petraeus, Commander of US forces in Iraq.

In wartime, civilian government and military incompetence are as typical as they are in peace, but severe setbacks in war sometimes result in the right man getting the top job.

It took President Bush over three and a half years to sack the main culprit, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Little more than a month later, Major General David Petraeus was confirmed as Commander of US Forces in Iraq on January 27th 2007 by the US Senate.