A Labour minister vanished into thin air this morning, midway through a gruelling conversation about why the government has scrapped elections next year. Local government minister Alison McGovern had already endured a stuttering interview as she struggled to explain how the government will lift people out of poverty.<\/p>\n
LBC\u2019s Nick Ferrari appeared incredulous at one point, as Ms McGovern claimed the government\u2019s freeze on rail fares would help the poorest. Mr Ferrari pointed out: \u201cHow will freezing train fares help people? I very much doubt they\u2019re regularly using trains minister. You think someone on the edge of poverty is regularly getting on trains?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McGovern insisted it would help as they want to get more people into work. After also failing to recall the median income in Britain, Mr Ferrari turned to the Government\u2019s highly controversial decision yesterday to scrap mayoral elections<\/a> across swathes of England.<\/p>\n The star LBC<\/a> host asked: \u201cWhy has it been deemed necessary that 7.5 million can\u2019t vote for their mayors next year?\u201d<\/p>\n Ms McGovern began answering: \u201cSo the new mayors you\u2019re referring to, they\u2019re inaugural mayors, they\u2019re new posts, the process we\u2019re undergoing is to reorganise local government so we have unitary councils, where at the moment we have districts and counties.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the reason for that is there\u2019s a lot of confusion about who does what in areas where you have districts and counties. Large areas of the country already have unitaries and we think that\u2019s more effective so we want to introduce the mayors when we\u2019ve got a stronger system of local government.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Ferrari pointed out that in all the areas where the mayoral elections have been delayed, the council elections are going ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cCan I put it to you that your party knows you\u2019ll lose!\u201d<\/p>\n Ms McGovern insisted \u201cthat\u2019s not the case\u201d, but shortly later completely disappeared from the interview. After a few seconds silence Mr Ferrari asked \u201chello? I think the line\u2019s just frozen. Can you hear me?<\/p>\n \u201cI sense we\u2019ve lost the minister there\u2026 it\u2019s gone. Oh the line has completely gone.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI was just going to ask how we managed it in two months during World War 2 but not today.\u201d<\/p>\n