Boris must face down these union wreckers

TRAIN drivers are among the most featherbedded of all public sector workers. Average pay is £59,000 a year, nearly twice that of nurses.

A four-day week is the norm, and Sunday working optional. They retire at 62, with a full pension of around £40,000 plus a substantial lump sum.

Yet their union, along with those of other rail workers, is the last bastion of knuckleheaded, Scargillite militancy.

They claim their threatened forthcoming campaign of rolling strikes is about pay and conditions.

This is merely a smokescreen. It is overwhelmingly a political act – an attempt by diehard class warriors to damage and even bring down a Tory Government.

As for the potentially calamitous effects on the economy and travelling public, they couldn’t care less. Indeed they brag about bringing the network to a halt.

During the pandemic, the taxpayer shelled out a staggering £16billion (£600 for every household in Britain) to keep the railways going when trains were virtually empty. No jobs were lost, or even furloughed. Yet the rail unions are back – demanding money with menaces. Some gratitude!

As the mail explains today, an all-out strike would devastate freight as well as passenger services.

Network rail warns of food and materials shortages and even blackouts, as power stations fail to receive crucial supplies.

margaret Thatcher showed in the 1980s that union militancy can be beaten. But it takes resolve and it takes courage.

Boris Johnson must now roll up his sleeves and draw on her inspiration.

He should treat this as the civil emergency it is. Paying ransom money won’t work. The blackmailer always comes back for more.

The Pm must face down the wreckers. And if that means new labour laws to keep Britain moving, then so be it.