Hammersmith Flyover - 20 people turn up for meeting

Sit at the end and not at the table - Tories play schoolboy politics

After all the fire & fury generated around a political meeting about the Hammersmith Flyover closure called by the local Conservatives, and featuring not the MP for Hammersmith but a neighbouring Conservative instead, I understand only around 20 non political people actually turned up to spend their Saturday afternoon listening to TfL and the political class give us the benefit of their collective wisdom. 

I reported here how the proposed public meeting, at the West London Free School, had generated a row in Parliament with Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter rightly pointing out that this was a bit of a cheek. But Mr Slaughter turned up anyway, as you can see from the photo above, and was permitted to sit at the end. Playground stuff.

At the meeting David McNeill, director of public affairs and stakeholder engagement for TfL, announced that the flyover would remain partially open for around four months. The politicians generally criticised TfL for having been taken by surprise about the whole thing. And there were some angry questions from the floor, usually followed by Mr McNeill being unable to answer the "technical" questions because he wasn't an engineer.

I bring all of this to you courtesy of the excellent Boris Watch blog, who's intrepid reporter was one of those who attended the meeting, and who snapped the above image. Their description of the meeting in a tweet above kind of sums up the occasion, really. You didn't miss much.

And by the power of modern technology witness the exchange in the Commons below - scroll in to 15.32