Knights and flights

Simon Calder’s Travel Week [View in browser]( [The Independent]( [Travel] Simon Calder’s Travel Week [Simon Calder]( Written by Simon Calder | January 28, 2022 Arise, Sir Grant. If the transport secretary fails to get a knighthood at the very least in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours, my faith in the rewards implicit in the British political system will be shattered. The transport secretary has outshone even Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg in supporting the prime minister in his hour of need. Grant Shapps loyally defended the “cake ambush” on Mr Johnson’s birthday, and is said to be masterminding the No 10 spreadsheet of MPs’ leadership loyalty leanings. You are not mistakenly reading the [Inside Politics newsletter](: the goings-on in Westminster are directly impacting on travel. In the course of a week when the [scale of the collapse of the UK’s once genuinely world-beating aviation industry]( was confirmed, Mr Shapps found time for a spree of announcements that a cynic might allege were designed to deflect attention from the prime minister’s travails. Public address: the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, in the video he made about train announcements First, the transport secretary finessed a concept originally unveiled in the political satire The Thick of It: a plan to [reduce the number of announcements on trains](. With rail use barely half of pre-pandemic levels, some say the focus should be on reforming the dysfunctional ticketing “system” or levelling up trains to their former frequencies rather than making a video addressing the public about public addresses. Next, the transport secretary announced: “It is obvious to me now that [border testing for vaccinated travellers has outlived its usefulness](.” The obvious course of action, then: abolish the post-arrival test immediately. Yet not for the first time, Grant Shapps surprised us all by insisting it remains in place until 11 February, two weeks today. During the 18 days between the announcement and the change, 2.5 million UK arrivals will waste a total of £60m on a test that is officially useless. Long-haul luxury: flight path taken by the foreign secretary on her trip from London Stansted via Dubai and Kuala Lumpur to Sydney and Adelaide Waste abounds in government these days, as became clear when [I tracked the foreign secretary’s trip to Australia](. Liz Truss declined the lie-flat business-class beds on the scheduled Qantas Boeing 787 to Sydney. Instead she made the 22,000-mile round trip aboard the government’s spacious Airbus A321 jet, a class above the rest of us. The number of the week is 500,000: the cost to British taxpayers in pounds of the foreign secretary’s trip, and the kilograms of CO2 it created. And despite some claims on social media that Rishi Sunak tipped me off about this Australian adventure to do down his Tory leadership rival, I can confirm I did my own digging. But I guess there goes my gong. Destination of the week: British Library, London Here, there and everywhere: British Library, alongside St Pancras station in London “Far have I travelled and much have I seen/Dark distant mountains with valleys of green/Past painted deserts, the sun sets on fire” – Beatles fans visiting the British Library in London NW1 are in for a double treat. The [Treasures of the British Library]( permanent exhibition includes original Beatles lyrics, including John Lennon’s words to A Hard Day’s Night scrawled on the back of a birthday card. And for the next six weeks (until 13 March) it is supplemented by a temporary exhibition of [Paul McCartney]( lyrics – from Hey Jude to Mull of Kintyre, the song from which the words at the start of this item are taken. Don’t miss my daily travel podcast [Green List Travel]( For all the latest travel tips, advice and news analysis, listen to ‘Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast’ – available from Monday to Friday for free on [Spotify](, [Apple Podcasts](, [Pocket Casts]( or [Acast](. Deals of the week: Back on the rails - Surely the most unusual rover ticket in Britain: the Great West Way Discoverer West. Any time at weekends or from 9.30am on weekdays, you can take a train from Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury or Swindon, venture from Westbury to Pewsey or Frome and even board the legendary Trans-Wiltshire express from Chippenham to Trowbridge for an all-day fare of £24.50 – less than a Bristol-Salisbury one-way ticket. Buses from Swindon to Oxford and Salisbury to Marlborough are also included. No need to book ahead; just pay at a staffed railway station. Travel voucher of the week [Voucher]( [Get 10% Off With Our Viator Promo Code]( Travel question of the week: To buy, or not to buy? Q We would like to book flights to Nice in May and Faro in June. At the moment the choices are very limited and also expensive. Is there a chance that more flights will be put on – should we wait and see? A Yes, there is every chance that airlines will expand their schedules if they sense there is lots of cash to be made. They have a fair amount of spare capacity (especially in June) and will deploy it if demand looks strong. This should mean that fares fall. But if I am wrong, and cheaper flights do not appear, then consider other gateways such as Marseille and Lisbon, with a lovely and leisurely train ride to your final destinations. 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