Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: "We are investing in the biggest rail modernisation since the Victorian era and fares have a crucial role to play in funding these improvements.
However we diverge politically, I have enough faith in Eastwood's artistry and intellect to trust that he is not a black-and-white ideologue – or, at least, that he knows that the limitations of such a worldview would make for an extremely dull movie.
Fiercest opposition came from Patrick McLoughlin's Department for Transport, which flatly opposed Manchester's desire to regulate local bus companies.
There were mint-green pumps, polka-dot kitten heels with ankle straps, pointy-toed brown Dries Van Noten rip-offs and, my favourite, a red and white candy-striped pair with a buckle.
The path to the university, whose president is Donna Shalala, the long-serving health secretary during both terms of Bill Clinton's administration, is well trodden by White House hopefuls: Mitt Romney was here three weeks ago for a Spanish-language interview in an attempt to woo the Hispanic vote.
The White House is attempting to cultivate new ties with Egypt's new Islamist rulers following the removal of the Hosni Mubarak, the hardline president who was formerly backed by Washington, last year.
The flight's crew included four air stewards and the captain, Patrick Sonderheimer, whose attempts to enter the cockpit by hammering on the door and appealing to Lubitz to "open the damned door" were heard on the cockpit voice recorder.
"Kennedy had no great understanding of the impatience of African Americans or the intransigence of white southerners, while Johnson – from Texas – understood both," says Tony Badger, professor of American history at Cambridge.
Clancy also said the secret service was currently making plans for a new fence to be built around the actual White House, but it would take a year and a half.
Many commentators noted that the letter, like the Republican invitation to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to address Congress last week without consulting the White House, marked a dramatic break from the tradition that partisan politics should "stop at the water's edge" and not spread into critical US defence and security policy abroad.
Durkan could, as Tom Kelly argued earlier this year, find solace in a bigger, more professional club called Fianna Fail, where he can make a comeback in the green, white and gold colours of the Irish Republic's official 'Republican Party'.
