Take on the wreckers

PARALYSING Britain with vindictive and damaging rail strikes tomorrow and on Saturday shows the greedy hard-Left unions’ withering contempt for the public.

The RMT and Aslef’s well-paid members were kept in jobs when demand for train travel collapsed during the pandemic by a £16billion taxpayer bailout.

And this is how they show their appreciation. Shutting down the network when their ludicrous demands for doubledigit pay rises, which would entrench the deadly cycle of inflation, are rejected.

So Miss Truss deserves applause for vowing to take on the belligerent barons and tame their powers if she wins the Tory leadership.

She would introduce sweeping legislation to curb militant disruption, including minimum service levels on strike days, obliging the rail unions to provide at least a skeleton staff to keep the country moving.

That reform was in the Conservative Party manifesto at the 2019 general election, which they won by a landslide, so it carries democratic force.

The right to down tools will, of course, be retained, but it would become more difficult to authorise. For once, passengers’ needs would come before the unions’ entitlement to wreak havoc.

With Labour in hock to its union paymasters and refusing to condemn the rail strikes, there couldn’t be a better time for the Tories to face down the wreckers.