Last week, on Question Time, David Dimbleby asked Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, why the taxpayer would be paying for HS2, after she had commented that the development of the railway network built on the work of the Victorians. He pointed out that the Victorians had funded the expansion differently.
She replied, “I think it is the Right Thing To Do.”
This week, Ed Miliband ran around giving interviews after the unions went potty at his plans to back pay freezes. “I am doing this because I think it is the Right Thing To Do,” he told anyone who would listen.
Has ‘the Right Thing To Do’ become the most vacuous cliche in politics? Even Boris Johnson was at it the other day, and heaven knows he can string an erudite word or two together.
How many people in the country do stuff – anything – because they think it is the wrong thing to do? Surely almost everyone does whatever it is they do because they think it’s the right thing to do. If they didn’t think that, they wouldn’t do it.
Why doesn’t anyone ever ask them, and why do they never explain, why they think that? Surely that’s the… er… RTTD?
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