The Sketch: Darling does neat U-turn on road policy and avoids a ram raider

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, who got a basinful of the Cherie/Carole Caplin affair when he appeared on Today, was at least brave enough, afterwards, to turn up in the Commons yesterday. Jack Straw, by comparison, had earlier managed to avoid Foreign Office questions thanks to a European Council meeting in Copenhagen. This was just as well since a Labour MP, David Winnick, kept referring to "lying and not to be trusted". Definite mutterings of "Cherie" could be heard from Tory MPs. So there was relief all round when we realised Mr Winnick was talking about Saddam Hussein. But it didn't help matters that there was a fellow by the name of Caplin, a whip, sitting on the government front bench.

Mr Darling reversed himself, and the Government's road transport policy, into the chamber of the House of Commons with little obvious outward sign of damage. But, internally, his political big ends and transmission shafts were, along with the Government's promises of five years ago, broken beyond repair. Driving the wrong way down John Prescott's 1997 pledge to reduce car usage, the Transport Secretary ignored the "no entry" sign that his predecessor had erected for additional motorway lanes, and did a U-turn in the middle of the integrated transport policy. The result is a spectacular disintegration of previous statements and policies.

The minister drove within the speed limits of the financial policy laid down for him by the Chancellor but nevertheless managed to spray several billions at the snarl-ups on the M1 and the M6. Intriguingly, Mr Darling decided not to read out the paragraph "All to reduce congestion and make journeys more reliable", that appeared in the script given to the press.

In summary, the Secretary of State has at last recognised that the trains don't work, the roads are clogged and the buses are a joke. Only the creation of a Los Angeles-style, six-lane freeway covering the whole of the distance between London and Leeds will give the impression that there is, finally, some kind of ministerial understanding of the problem.

Mr Darling seems to be fitted with automatic transmission. He effortlessly explained away the total failure of the Government's road programme to date and glided over suggestions that the Prescott policy was now in ruins. Perhaps the reference to "stop-go funding" was the most telling.

Tim Collins, the Tory boy, opposite number at transport, was positively a boy racer as he tore into Mr Darling. "Five and a half shamefully wasted years that motorists have been lectured, penalised and massively taxed." Quite why he was ramming and tailgating Mr Darling with such a reckless rant when Mr Darling was basically embracing Tory pro-car policies was unclear. Mr Collins is a late 80s/early 90s, end of the production line, special edition Thatcherite – he probably used to drive a Ford Escort XR3i cabriolet from the same period. Yesterday, he roared and crashed through the gears of his attack, at one stage appearing likely to lose control of his Tory policy – until Mr Darling pointed out that he had not even got such a device fitted.

Simon Carr is away