THE railways are in crisis and getting worse with no Governmental vision of a future for Railtrack. The roads are becoming more congested; the National Air Traffic Control Service has had to be bailed out with £30m of taxpayers' money and the London Underground is going nowhere.

For sure, the Transport Secretary is in trouble. Big trouble. But, amazingly, it's not because of the manifest failings of the services he's supposed to be running.

He's in trouble because he may - or may not - have intervened in the sacking/resignation of a civil servant who may - or may not - have been leaking confidential e-mails to the press.

So which is more important to the ordinary man on the railway platform: the internecine battles of egos within the Department of Transport or the fact that the Department of Transport is failing to run the transport system?

IS any of it importance to the ordinary man on the telephone? A 192 call this week went like this: "Hello, Directory Inquiries, how may I help?"

"Hello, I'd like a general switchboard number for the House of Commons, please."

"The House of Commons, sir, which town is that in?"

Events in the Mother of Parliaments are clearly being followed closely the length and breadth of the land.

LOVERS of the language will no doubt be distressed by Sir Richard Mottram's eloquent summary of the crisis within the Transport Department. "We're all f*****," he said. "I'm f*****. You're f*****. The whole department's f*****. It's been the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely f*****."

It may have been limited in its vocabulary, but at least you got a vague notion of what he was trying to say.

By contrast, when asked if the new Wembley Stadium would be holding athletics events, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell (if there's ever a vacancy in her department, Sir Richard's her man) told the House of Commons: "The design of the stadium is athletics-capable but there is a difference between being athletics-capable and actually being able to host athletics events."

Yes, you've guessed it. Athletics is f*****.

A SCOTTISH National Party MP has suggested that his countrymen should forget their "national chip on the shoulder" and support England in the World Cup.

Scots were furious, saying that they'd rather support Germany - as usual.

But this question of nationality is very vexed. Six million Britons stayed up to watch the fantastic curling team win gold at the Winter Olympics, the English just as keen as the Scots on supporting the ladies who happened to come from Scotland.

Yet if it had been an English quartet curling for gold, the Scots would probably have been rooting for the Swiss opponents.

Should the Scots be applauded for their dogged nationalism or laughed at for their insular childishness?

Or is it that the English have become so mixed up that they'll cheer any Tomasz, Ricardo or Henry who pulls on their shirt?