The increase in demand for Sunday services has been the case for some years now, and definitely pre-dates Covid. For example it’s been a good decade and more since shops tended to be closed Sundays. Ironically, there’s still plenty of quite important functions which have very limited weekend functionality - banking being one, and none other than the NHS being another example.
Regardless of political views, I don’t think anyone could have reasonably expected this government to have degenerated and sunk to the extent they have. Even John Major’s turbulent government was an absolute dream by comparison. Okay Covid was an unfortunate external event, but their handling of it was abysmal, and we are now left picking up the pieces.
Two things immediately spring to mind. Firstly I’m not sure there’s an appetite for a landslide election result, but there’s a possibility that’s what we’ll get (especially bearing in mind recent by-election trends, though of course these aren’t always representative of what might happen at a general election).
Secondly the non-stop chaos in the Conservative Party has meant Labour, as well as everyone else, has received very little scrutiny.
If one thinks about it, this is actually a rather dangerous combination.
I disagree on not being able to predict the Government would not have descended to where it was. People in the north who voted for them in the last election had ample warning that the following things were true:
- they are a disorganised chaotic bunch of self-interested, often actively corrupt, often lying, often bullying, often disgustingly over-privileged twerps,
- they had already cancelled their own promised key upgrades to northern infrastructure upgrade plans
-they had developed an approach to ruling by a terrible mix of arrogant instruction from the centre mixed with no concept of understanding of or attention to detail
- it was incredibly clear that their pretended affection for the north was very much less than skin deep, treating their own newly elected northern MP’s and constituencies as something to handled at arms length, not properly understood and engaged with.
- their warped brains have decided the way to engage the average northern voter is to bang on about immigrants (whilst issuing more immigration visas than ever before in UK history x3), the tiny proportion of our population that is trans etc etc. It is borderline racist to northerners who tend to be kind, compassionate people who are a lot more interested in societal improvement and renewal including having a decent, reliable train service.
All of this has directly affected rail in the north. DfT mismanaging pretty much everything, the northern franchise staying as broadly the same basket case it was when they came in - if not more unreliable, TPE and absolute disaster, HS2 cancelled, northern powerhouse rail as nebulous as the day they promised it, absolutely no sense of the north moving towards the integrated transport system it has needed for decades and many, many European regions enjoy.
It is reasonable for Northern not to run trains on Sundays (both Christmas Eve and at other times) should they wish to do so, if it is not a statutory part of their employees' working week. Only limited bus services operate on Sundays, and generally not in rural counties.
What is less acceptable is for Northern to give only short notice of this intention, as they publish a timetable with relatively extensive Sunday services.
Gibberish. It is not acceptable that the Government allows that position to exist.