Ministers are obliged to find a fudge to end rail strike misery
One of the skills of the modern politician is to be close to success and far from failure. For reasons best known to them, a host of greasy pole-climbers felt obliged to tweet out appropriately statesmanlike congratulations to Carlos Alvarez yesterday after his victory at Wimbledon, basking in some kind of reflected glory.
Yet many of them are also happy to absolve themselves of responsibility, especially when things are going – to speak plainly – spectacularly tits-up.
Take the ongoing strike chaos engulfing our railways and underground network. Whilst the lion’s share of the blame for the misery inflicted on commuters must fall on militant union leaders, there is plenty left over for those on the other side of the table.
For months last year the government handed off responsibility to the rail companies; the rail companies, in turn, said they couldn’t move without the government. Per Mick Lynch’s comments yesterday, it appears this rather absurd stalemate has continued into 2023.
At some point, government ministers – no matter whose responsibility a contract or an agreement suggests a pay dispute might be – are obliged to sit around the table, bang heads together, force some union concessions and, yes, occasionally dig into the coffers and solve seemingly intractable disputes. This model, extremely British in its fudginess, has worked for years.
It is hard then to dodge the conclusion that the reason it’s not happening this time is not some principled stand – for which the great British public will put up with endless rail strikes – but cold hard political calculus.
In short, the government must surely believe that by allowing rail strikes to continue, thereby guaranteeing Corbynite blowhards like RMT leader Mick Lynch more airtime, they are reminding the public of what we might one day see under a Labour government.
It’s infantile and it’s pathetic. It’s time for ministers to prove their worth – and get Britain running again.