Shropshire Star comment: Going off the rails
So services operated by Northern Rail are to be brought back under public control after a botched timetable revamp led to thousands of cancelled trains.
While stripping a failing provider of its franchise is undoubtedly necessary, excuse us for not breaking out the bunting and popping champagne corks. The ineptitude of a private sector operator is nothing to celebrate, particularly when the same thing could happen to West Midlands Trains early next week.
We know from bitter past experience that nationalisation is rarely, if ever, a satisfactory long-term solution. But while our rail networks remain blighted by punctuality and reliability problems, there is quite simply, no other way forward in the immediate future.
What we really need – and have needed for the past two decades – is root and branch reform of our rail networks. Sadly such a prospect comes across as a pipe dream when you look at what is currently going on regarding rail travel in this country.
In Grant Shapps, we have a Transport Secretary who is talking about reversing the Beeching cuts and reopening old stations, promises which sound ridiculous when they can’t even get existing services to work properly.
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It gets even more ludicrous when you consider the planned investment in this grand scheme is a measly £500m – a figure that is around half of one per cent of the estimated cost of the huge white elephant that is HS2.
If, as expected, HS2 is given the go-ahead, there is genuine cause for concern about the future of local train services. The Government will plough so much of its resources into the project that other areas of infrastructure investment are bound to suffer.
And with any benefits of the largely unwanted high speed line not likely to be felt for at least 20 years, rail commuters are likely to be in for a rough ride for the foreseeable future.
As has been proven time and time again in the past, as far as our railways are concerned, never fall into the trap of believing that things cannot possibly get any worse.
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And the award for the most downright daft suggestion of the year so far, goes to . . . Ann Francke, the esteemed boss of the Chartered Management Institute.
She claims employees should be discouraged from chatting about football in the workplace as it excluded women from the conversation.
Furthermore, such conversations could easily lead to “laddish” behaviour such as boasting about sexual conquests, Ms Francke added.
What a load of tripe.
A couple of pieces of advice for Ms Francke.
Firstly, she could try moving into the 21st century, where millions of women around the world watch and play football – and some of them quite like to chat about it at work too.
Then perhaps she could reflect on precisely what sort of a working environment we would be creating if managers dictated to their staff what they can and can’t talk about.
Maybe Ms Francke was trying to be controversial. Maybe she was guilty of over-thinking her subject matter. One thing is for sure, it doesn’t require a VAR intervention to work out that she was talking absolute poppycock.
