Daft even for a politician
IT IS the job of shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh to come up with ideas for making the trains run on time and at an affordable cost.
How criticising the Thomas The Tank Engine stories for their lack of female characters relates to that brief is difficult to discern.
The paltry number of women train drivers in Britain would be the "national scandal" that Mrs Creagh proclaims only were there evidence of employers indulging in discriminatory practices to keep them out. But such evidence seems remarkably thin on the ground.
If the disparity is caused by women in general having a lower regard for train driving than men do then there is no scandal at all.
In fact Mrs Creagh is herself behind the times as the Thomas & Friends television spin-off has recently unveiled a new engine called Emily whose biography says: "She can be a little bossy and think she knows best."
Now who could that character possibly have been based upon?