Esther McVey
The Northern Powerhouse
WHEN I saw the pictures of Bee Rowlatt’s child stuffed into a train luggage rack and her accompanying furious tweet – now a news sensation – I knew how she felt. Only it wasn’t my child stuffed into a rack, it was me – squashed among suitcases for the full two-hour train ride to London.
The travelling public are being taken for mugs.We no longer have a rail service; it’s a rail sufferance – an unreliable system that has gone backwards to such an extent it is probably as bad as British Rail used to be when it was the butt of every comedian’s joke.
Trains might or might not arrive.
There are delays or random cancellations. The rail industry is a mess and is being slowly destroyed by the unnecessary industrial action of a militant trade union, which will ultimately lead to fewer people working in it. These union members really are turkeys voting for Christmas.
Mick Lynch talks about the pay and conditions of staff. He might want to worry more about the conditions of customers and how much they are paying to be treated like dirt.
I’ve been a lover of rail travel ever since I travelled everywhere on trains with my grandad who started working on the railways at Lime Street station in Liverpool aged 12 as a bag carrier, and stayed there until he retired.
So to see this self-inflicted destruction of the railways makes me want to weep.The RMT’s latest act of sabotage – 48-hour strikes between December 13 and January 7, wiping £1.2billion off the UK economy over Christmas – is unjustifiable, and it’s all because they won’t relinquish the most ridiculous working practices.
If they gave them up they could probably have the pay rise they want, but they would sooner destroy their industry (along with the country) to pursue Mick Lynch’s left-wing agenda than find a sensible solution.
Those who manage railway companies aren’t much better. Between them and the unions they will force people to travel by any means other than train.Those who will suffer most as a result will be people who work on the railways.
Mick Lynch is the new Arthur Scargill – both equally charismatic – and he too will only succeed in collapsing the industry, and the jobs of the people he claims to represent.
It seems union members don’t learn the lessons of the past. The railway workers need to give themselves a reality check before they sleepwalk into the same fate as the miners. They can’t say they haven’t been warned.