Woodrow Wyatt .sx THE VOICE OF REASON .sx Major's charter lets the customer take charge .sx JOHN Major calls his wheeze 'The Citizen's Charter' .sx A Pity .sx This is as though it were something to do with the 1789 French revolution .sx I call Mr Major's brainchild 'The Customer's Charter' .sx That's what it really is .sx It's first class .sx We're all customers .sx If we don't like a greengrocer , a store , a pub , a car dealer , we have a remedy .sx We can shop around till we find one we do like .sx But in an enormous part of our lives there's no alternative supplier .sx We're stuck with the NHS , the Post Office , our local electricity and gas providers , British Rail , the social security offices , our local councils .sx Mostly we have no say in how they treat us .sx Mr Major aims at customer power we haven't got now .sx Take the NHS .sx There'll be guaranteed maximum waiting times for hospital appointments and operations .sx If a hospital lets you down you'll be found another .sx Mail That's merely one area in the NHS in which customer power will advance .sx Properly kept appointment times will save hours of hanging about in hospitals waiting to be summoned .sx The Post Office will cease to be the only carriers of cheap mail .sx Rivals will be allowed .sx Next day deliveries will be a certainty , not a lottery .sx The railways will be privatised .sx Before that and after , if trains don't run on time you'll get compensation .sx London buses will be privatised .sx Then you can choose the cheapest and speediest bus to suit your purpose .sx London Underground will have targets for faster and better service .sx If they're not met the staff will have their pay docked .sx That penalty will apply throughout the public services .sx Police will have targets for the time taken to answer calls for help .sx Along with other public servants they'll have to publish figures to prove their performance is up to standard .sx The average waiting time for driving tests is nearly eight weeks .sx It's to come down fast .sx There'll be tests on summer evenings and Saturday afternoons .sx It'll be compulsory to allow telephone bookings for test times everywhere .sx Parents will have to be given more information about the standards in their children's schools .sx If they're dissatisfied they'll be able to do much more about it than they can now .sx Time Social security benefit payments will become quicker and easier to collect .sx You can shop around for the best place to get them or have them sent automatically .sx Making complaints against those who provide public services will be simpler .sx They'll have to be dealt with promptly or the officials will be penalised .sx In John Major's new world the customer will be king .sx Not someone to be ordered about .sx That's true democracy .sx And it'll make life a good deal more pleasant for millions .sx It'll take a bit of time .sx But Mr Major will arm himself with the powers to make sure it happens much sooner than later .sx The guarantee he'll see it through rapidly is that he's banked his political reputation on it .sx A new shake-up for the unions .sx IN the 1970s we lost every year nearly 13 million working days through strikes .sx Since the trade union reforms there's been dramatic change .sx In the last four years the average working days lost yearly through strikes have been less than 3.4 million .sx That's why Britain now has the highest share of American and Japanese investment in Europe .sx But union reform isn't finished .sx The shenanigans over voting for the executive in the T & GWU showed the rules against ballot rigging aren't strict enough .sx And strike ballots at the workplace can be fiddled .sx Only secret postal ballots will ensure that a strike is genuinely supported by the majority .sx And another thing .sx Members can't change to the other union .sx That's because of inter-union agreement made by the seaside at Bridlington in 1939 .sx You're stuck in the same union you first joined however dissatisfied you may be with it .sx It's like being tied to the same employer for life though you may hate him .sx Promise Mr Michael Howard is the able and energetic Secretary for Employment .sx He intends to remedy these and other defects in the new law .sx There'll be the usual rage from the union leaders and the Labour party .sx Mr Kinnock isn't only against further modernisation of the unions .sx He's promised to reverse reforms already made .sx But to compete with the world we must adapt to the 21st century .sx Not the 19th .sx WHY DO THE FRENCH HATE US SO MUCH ?sx A FRIEND had her car transported by train across France to Nice .sx It was the takeoff point of the summer holiday .sx Twenty cars were vandalised .sx All with British number plates .sx Nothing much was stolen .sx But one mother was distraught over the loss of her child's birthday presents .sx On the way back 50 cars were vandalised .sx All with British number plates .sx My friend and others had all their windows smashed , with glass strewn everywhere .sx Vandalised car owners trying to clear up the mess safely enough to carry children missed the ferry to England .sx Attacking British cars on French trains is a national sport .sx That's how much they dislike us .sx Sounds jolly for future cooperation in the European Community .sx The French can never forgive us for winning the war after they'd surrendered to Hitler .sx BT tangle the wires .sx BRITISH Telecom have made a terrible mess with their 071s and 081s for London telephone numbers .sx They were meant to produce enough London numbers for the next 30 years .sx They haven't .sx So in 1994 a 1 will be put after the 0 .sx That's supposed to increase the London telephone numbers available by ten times .sx In Paris and Tokyo they simply put a single different number in front for each district exchange .sx None of that 071 and 081 stuff .sx The Office of Telecommunications calculates that BT's longer dialling time for and to London will waste 16.7 million hours a year .sx That's what BT's extra seconds for dialling eleven digits add up to .sx How you can be a genius .sx NAPOLEON knew how to be a genius .sx He said it was an infinite capacity for taking pains .sx Last week , at the British Association gathering of scientists , Michael Howe , a psychologist from Exeter University , spelled it out .sx Mozart didn't produce masterpieces as a child .sx He had at least 12 years of intensive musical training before they got anywhere .sx It didn't just come naturally .sx Don't be put off becoming a genius in your chosen field .sx If you've any aptitude or flair , dogged work will do the trick , or nearly .sx Bernard Shaw didn't learn to write a decent play till he was nearly 40 .sx Then , wow !sx .sx Major must wait for the darling buds of May .sx TORIES are cock-a-hoop .sx The Gallup Poll in Thursday's Daily Telegraph showed them 4.5 per cent ahead of Labour .sx It followed the 2 per cent Tory lead in the Sunday Times Mori Poll .sx Now Tories clamour for a November election while the going's good .sx They must be cuckoo .sx Renewed belief in the Government is fragile .sx Only a month ago Gallup gave Labour a 6 per cent lead .sx Always when Parliament's not sitting people feel better about the Government .sx The media aren't full of Labour's criticisms of Government boobs .sx Mr Major shines as a new world figure .sx The seven top industrial nations met in London last July .sx Riches Mr Major went as their representative to talk to Yeltsin and Gorbachev .sx He was the first Western leader in Moscow after the failed coup .sx His handling of the visit won international applause .sx It gave confidence to the new rulers .sx They now know that the Soviet Union will be saved from starvation this winter .sx And aid will come for sensible plans to unlock the country's great riches .sx They were frozen into uselessness by Communism .sx Mr Major also had a triumph in Peking .sx He forced the Stalinist Communists on the defensive over their vile treatment of dissidents .sx If he hadn't gone to Peking Hong Kong's splendid new international airport would have been blocked .sx Hong Kong's growing prosperity after we go in 1997 would've been reduced .sx No one , not even in the Labour party , can imagine Mr Kinnock having Mr Major's dignity , authority and skill at this high level .sx So top marks to Mr Major for foreign travels .sx But at elections voters are more concerned with what goes on in their pockets .sx Inflation for August will be well down on July's 5.5 per cent .sx Fine .sx Last week interest rates for mortgages and bank borrowers fell another half per cent .sx Since last November interest rates have fallen from 15 per cent to 10.5. All fine again .sx Now for flies in the ointment .sx There are signs of a recovery from the recession .sx But they're too small and hesitant for voters to believe we're on a steady upward turn by November .sx Unemployment will still be rising .sx Voters won't be convinced that inflation's downward drift is set to last .sx Nor that it won't start zooming again .sx They've been told the same story before .sx Labour will ensure that those who've forgotten it will be reminded .sx Norman Lamont is a first class Chancellor .sx He has courage and imagination .sx He toughly resisted the yells from commerce and the unions to cut interest rates deeper and quicker .sx If he'd agreed we wouldn't have our firm prospects of recovery .sx He ignored the call for devaluation of the pound .sx That's the instant easy way to make our exports cheaper .sx And the fast route for mammoth quantities of new imports .sx As it is , our exports have been rising remarkably .sx Our adverse overseas balance of trade is improving well .sx Mr Lamont is on course for a cheerful Budget next spring .sx Proof It'll be based on six months' solid proof that the recession's beaten .sx And there's no danger of its return .sx This will make a Tory victory with a healthy majority in May or June a dead certainty .sx Voters at heart don't think much of Mr Kinnock and his pals .sx So Mr Major could scrape by in November .sx It'd be with a much smaller majority than he'd get later .sx And he just might not win at all .sx If Mr Major keeps the good judgment sic !sx he's evolving , he'll wait for The Darling Buds of May .sx OUR KNOW-HOW GOES TO RUSSIA .sx JOHN Gummer , Secretary for Agriculture , is a bright lad .sx He got together a consortium of British distributors to supermarkets .sx They're sending a team to Moscow .sx There's plenty of food produced in the Soviet Union .sx More than half rots in the fields or in railway sidings .sx The appalling inefficiency of Communism prevents modern quick distribution .sx British supermarkets are the best of their kind in the world .sx Showing the Russians what to do to get their plentiful food distributed will help enormously .sx Far better than pumping masses of money into Soviet industry before they've learned how to make it profitable .sx With our technical aid we're leaders in teaching them that too .sx star A tip for Mr Kinnock if he wants a hope to win the next election .sx Turn the Labour party into the equivalent of the US democratic party .sx That wholeheartedly backs private enterprise .sx It never tries to interfere with business by government regulation .sx In collecting taxes for the purpose of running state services it doesn't unreasonably penalise top earners who create the nation's wealth .sx Labour's promise of higher taxes all round plus an increase of 29 per cent on top taxpayers is an election killer .sx So is anything which even hints at Socialism .sx Or does Mr Kinnock want us to share with China the honour of being the last big country to continue with chunks of Socialism ?sx star The Government could easily save the London Zoo .sx It'd only have to pay the annual cost of its important national and international animal research .sx It does that and more for Kew Gardens .sx It swamps Covent Garden with grants three times bigger than the Queen's Civil List .sx Mr Major is genuinely an ordinary person with ordinary likes .sx It ought to occur to him that ordinary people will be dismayed if he destroys the nation's traditional family outings to London Zoo .sx