TODAY I’d like to say a big ‘Hello’ to the politicians in charge of our railways.

You see, I read in the Adver that the electrification of the Great Western Main Line might not be finished by the time the deadline rolls around at the end of next year.

Apparently construction and planning consents are posing unexpected problems, which is a bit bewildering, as you’d think securing the necessary consents before work started would be a pretty big priority.

Perhaps whoever was responsible for securing them was distracted, as so many of our senior officials are. What with juggling matters of national importance, travelling between meetings, engaging the services of prostitutes and vacuuming Class A drugs up their hypocritical snouts like there’s no tomorrow, they barely get a moment’s rest.

Not that I’m suggesting every member of the Establishment is a coke-addled vice-monger, of course. That would be potentially libellous. Only a limited number are, just as only a limited number engage in or have engaged in acts of criminal depravity compared to which drugs and prostitution are about as shocking as the Teddy Bears’ Picnic.

The rest don't do that at all. Instead they either tolerate it or else seem in no particular hurry to put a stop to it.

Anyway, back to the subject of electrification.

If you’re an official whose role includes delivering the project on time, I hope my message reaches you somehow, even though neither I nor most of the readers of this newspaper live in London and therefore don’t count as full human beings.

If you could see your way clear to ensuring the electrification project is completed as soon as possible, that’d be great.

You see, some of us use the line to commute – to get to those things ordinary people have which are known as jobs.

We do not generally use the train voluntarily, as being gouged for some of the highest mile-for-mile fares anywhere in the civilised world is not fun.

Nor are delays, paying three and a half quid or more for a cup of coffee and a bag of crisps, and occasionally being shovelled on and off buses because bits of track have broken.

Obviously, those of us obliged to endure such things do so because we have no alternative. Were we, for example, able to call on the services of a chauffeur and a car, both paid for by somebody else, we’d generally do so like a shot. The same would apply were certain of us able to claim at least a three-figure sum simply for being bothered to turn up at work and clock in.

Unfortunately we cannot do this, which is why those jobs we have are so important. We need the jobs because without them we wouldn’t be able to pay for the roofs over our heads and those of our children, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the household bills we face – or any of the other things people such as yourselves are generally able to claim on expenses.

Electrifying the line, which is the sort of thing many other countries managed decades ago, will make it a lot easier for people living here to reach employers elsewhere, and for people elsewhere to reach employers here, for that matter.

The more we work, the more prosperous we and our employers will become – assuming you don’t knacker the economy by handing it over to greedy, crooked sociopaths again.

And the more prosperous we become, the more money we’ll be able to hand over in taxes, which you can then use to keep yourselves for years to come in the style to which you’re accustomed.