Two jobs (an MP and running a get rich quick scheme) Grant Shapps alias Michael Green and Sebastian Fox is still making it up as he goes along claiming in a BBC TV interview that Labour was responsible for the Beeching plan that decimated t Britian’s railway network.

The facts are that the brief for Beeching, former chairman of ICI, was  provided by the Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, in 1960 thus: “First, the industry must develop modern conditions and prospects modelled to meet current needs and with the premise that the railways should be run as a profitable business.

Over 4,000 route miles axed on cost and efficiency grounds, leaving Britain with 13,721 miles (22,082 km) of railway lines in 1966.  There were no proposals to improve or repurpose the usage and efficiency of the existing network or how to maintain or dispose of redundant infrastructure

Thee sceme was carried though by Ernest Marples of Marple rIDGEWAY  construction, roAD BUILDERS Minister of Transport (1959–1964). He b oversaw significant road construction (he opened the first section of the M1 motorway) and the closure of a considerable portion of the national railway network

Initially, Harold Wilson‘s Labour government continued with the policies A further 2,000 miles (3,200 km) were lost by the end of the 1960s. In  1966, a White Paper on Transport Policy identified economic utility, rather than commercial viability, as the major objective of railway policy. This resulted in a revised railway network plan with 3,000 miles of additional track surviving Beecham’s scheme

On 16 February 1965, Beeching had announced the second stage of his reorganisation of the railways. To cut 7,500 miles of trunk railway throughout Britain. These  proposals were rejected by the then Labour government and Beeching, sacked  by Labour’s transport minister Tom Fraser, returned to the ICI.

Following a policy review in 1967, the Transport Act of 1968 made provision for major capital reconstruction on the railways and deficit relief. In 1970 Ted Heath and the Tories were back in power