Bad Car Day: Minister's Rover gets stuck on Nº 10 ramp

Minister's Rover gets stuck on Nº 10 ramp

By Valentine Low



Tessa Jowell may be the minister in the news, but here is Patricia Hewitt - having a bad car day.

The Health Secretary arrived at Downing Street for the regular Cabinet meeting and right up until the moment she got out of the car everything went swimmingly.

Then her driver did a U-turn and tried to leave Downing Street .... which is when things started to go wrong.

At the end of the street is a roadblocking ramp. Designed for use against terrorists and pranksters - but emphatically not against ultraloyal health secretaries - it stays up until the police officer on duty decides that the vehicle in question is safe to pass, in which case he presses a button to lower the ramp.

Something seems to have gone wrong today however. Wether the officer was confused by all the ministerial cars coming and going - or indeed whether he simply took an irrational dislike to Ms Hewitt's car - is not clear. But the car went over the ramp, the ramp came up and the result was one ministerial Rover which, very emphatically, was not goiung anywhere.

Because the other ministers could not get their cars past, they had to walk into the meeting. Transport Secretary Alistair Darling did his best to keep a straight face, John Prescott did not really bother trying. And even Ms Hewitt sa a funny side.



Eventually the ramp came down and the car was driven away. But somwhere there is a very embarrassed police officer with an awful lot of explaining to do.