The next train will arrive at platform woke

A TRAIN company has come under fire for issuing a grovelling apology to a ‘nonbinary’ passenger who complained about a conductor who greeted travellers with the words ‘ladies and gentlemen’.

LNER promised to take action after responding to the tweet by the customer that they had felt excluded by the announcement. But its response prompted a backlash, with the firm accused of being ‘ridiculous’ and pandering to ‘woke nonsense’.

The passenger, who uses the Twitter name Laurence, stated in their post: ‘“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...” so as a non-binary person this announcement doesn’t actually apply to me so I won’t listen @LNER.’ In reply, the rail operator said: ‘I’m sorry to see this, Laurence, our train managers should not be using language like this.’

Mark Jenkinson, Tory MP for Workington, said: ‘You’d be forgiven for thinking this train manager had unleashed a tirade of abuse. He’d actually said, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls”. Can we stop this nonsense?’