Poor Chris Smith. Already blamed — unfairly, the Londoner thinks — for not holding back the floodwaters across the country, the Environment Agency boss is now doing battle with the nation’s rising parking bollards.
Yesterday Lord Smith was on his way to the London College of Communications when the white Fiat he was driving was crunched from below by the set of automated bollards at the car park gates. He was going there to give a lecture on cultural policy and the creative industries.
“They lowered the bollards briefly as I drove in,” Smith explained, “and as I was driving over they came up again.”
The Londoner was rather surprised to have Smith himself call back this morning. The man in the centre of the storm about flooding sounded forlorn and a bit perplexed by the interest, especially in the colour of his car. “Why do you want to know? It’s white.”
Smith said his Fiat would be off the road for the foreseeable future. “No one else was involved but it has caused rather a lot of damage,” he admitted. “It’s now in the garage. I suspect I will be using the Tube rather a lot,” added the former Labour Culture Secretary. “That’s about all there is to it.”
With fellow Labour peer Lord Adonis spending the week travelling the capital by bus, at least Smith won’t be short of company on London’s public transport.
