Labour’s Nandy: ‘We’re on side of the workers’

LABOUR was in chaos yesterday after a frontbencher appeared to back looming UK rail strikes.

Lisa Nandy, Labour’s levellingup spokesman, said her party was ‘on the rail workers’ side’.

But the party later backtracked, with a spokesman saying Miss Nandy ‘didn’t say she supports the strike’.

Miss Nandy told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘We want to avoid the strikes and we’re on the public’s side on this. We’re also on the rail workers’ side. They’re dealing with the same pressures that everyone else is – the cost of food, the cost of soaring inflation rates, taxes going up.’

However, she failed to mention many rail workers’ average salaries have increased beyond those of nurses, teachers, firefighters and police. Figures released by the Department for Transport showed that last year the median salary of rail workers was £44,000, about 70 per cent above the national average of £26,000.