Rail chaos and a lousy bargain for taxpayers

WHO were the Whitehall numbskulls who negotiated the franchise that will land taxpayers with a bill of more than £50million for the rail strike, while the train company involved stands to save money from the stoppages?

Under this asinine deal, the Government will pick up the tab for a £38million shortfall in fare revenue caused by the walk- outs, while shelling out up to £15million compensation to passengers.

Meanwhile, Southern Rail’s parent firm is saving an estimated £1.1million in pay for striking drivers and conductors, while still receiving an all-but guaranteed flat payment from taxpayers of £8.9billion over the seven years of its franchise.

Isn’t this lousy bargain depressingly typical of the way sharp- minded businessmen run rings round the dullwitted guardians of the public purse?

With so little incentive to run a decent service, is it any wonder that even before the walk-outs, Southern had the worst punctuality record in the UK – or that its managers have let a pathetic dispute over who opens and shuts doors drag on for the best part of a year, inflicting untold suffering on 300,000 passengers daily?

It is no surprise either that the latest annual profits of Southern’s parent, the inappropriately named Go-Ahead Group, were a cool £99.8million, while its chief executive pocketed £2.2million last year.

True, nobody should forget that the worst villains of the strike are politicallymotivated union barons, whose lies about safety concerns over driver- only trains this paper exposes today.

The sooner the law is changed to punish their blackmail, the sooner we can be saved from a repeat of the 1970s, when union wreckers brought us to our knees.

But is it too much to ask that the next time the Government sells a public asset to a private firm, it finds a civil servant with a business brain to negotiate on our behalf – if such a person exists?