Taking the Mick
ARTHUR Scargill’s bone-headed stupidity accelerated the end of the mines. Mick Lynch now seems determined to do the same to our struggling railways.
They are already in dire straits, propped up by bailouts from taxpayers and with usage down to about 80 per cent of pre-Covid rates.
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And the minority who still regularly use trains are increasingly sick of an unreliable service battered by walkouts from militant unions who simply relish waging war on the Government.
The RMT now has a mandate from its members for six more months of pay-strike chaos.
And customers’ faith in the rail network is further eroded.
The only way for it to survive is via new technology and a sweeping-away of archaic, costly 1980s work practices.
Union leaders like Lynch are dinosaurs unaware of their impending doom.
Get building
BORIS Johnson said the Tories would “build, build, build”. They didn’t — and some MPs fear they will pay a heavy price.
The party has been cowed by older NIMBYs in the South who back new homes everywhere, except near them.
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Opposition parties, the Lib Dems especially, campaign on their behalf locally while — with sickening cynicism and hypocrisy — berating the Government in Westminster for keeping young people off the housing ladder.
The Tories appear to have surrendered to it. Housebuilding targets have been axed.
The Government talks instead about empowering communities to decide on developments. Those communities will mostly just say No.
In 2010 more under-35s voted Tory than Labour. Hard to believe now. One of the biggest differences since has been the soaring cost of buying or renting a home.
The Tories have prioritised their elderly core vote and all but given up on the young.
They need a new plan. Because if they’re banking on Millennials and Gen Z shifting to them naturally as they age, they should think again.
No one will become a Conservative with no bricks and mortar to conserve.
Woke jokes
WHO is the trigger-warning on the classic comedy Pygmalion designed to protect?
Are ANY theatregoers so fragile they might be distressed by Prof Higgins’ controlling attitude towards Eliza Doolittle?
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Or is it meant to warn overbearing language professors that, no, in 2023 it is NOT OK to try to transform Cockney flower girls into Duchesses for a bet?
We are baffled. And so, we feel sure, are staff at London’s Old Vic.
Woke folk do not really know why they issue these bovine alerts.
They just vaguely think the world would be nicer with every conceivable edge filed off.
Even if adults get treated like infants.