bramling
Veteran Member
It seems like a clever move by Grayling for reasons already mentioned. Make it sound like the Government cares (perhaps in the budget you can freeze the fare rise and become a hero) and shift the blame on the rail industry for costing so much - in particular staff wages.
Then, as predicted, let the unions look bad by coming out to say they will fight reduced pay rises, thus looking greedy because there's now a seemingly direct correlation to wages and the general public paying them.
It'll certainly increase those comments from passengers to staff that 'I pay your wages'.
You've got to hand it to Grayling really. He, or those around him, are smart.
Smart or otherwise, I think people do see through this sort of nonsense. And surely there's a certain irony that many railway wages are determined by private TOCs?!
Back in the real world, fares are still rising, we still have the timetable fiascos on various parts of the network, we still have undelivered electrification, and Grayling continues to demonstrate himself as completely incompetent at dealing with any of these issues. As usual the unions could be smarter at drawing attention to some of these failings. It's this sort of rubbish which is exactly why Corbyn actually has a reasonable chance of power now and the Conservatives look likely for a repeat of 1997.