Rishi Sunak brought in rail strike laws…now he needs to fine train firms if they do not enforce them
NEW week, new rail chaos — but this time with a nasty twist.
PM Rishi Sunak brought in fresh laws to ensure minimum services will run during train strikes like the one Aslef is starting on Tuesday.
For good reasons our elected Government drew up these tough measures to keep 40 per cent of services running.
More taxpayers’ money was spent bringing in the new laws and our MPs devoted considerable time to debate them.
Yet in the latest wave of strikes, not a single train company will enforce them.
Apparently they are “too confusing’’ to work.
And the operators are not compelled to apply them.
The taxpayers who paid for the laws now have to face forking out again to get to work during another wave of pointless disruption.
What is Transport Secretary Mark Harper doing about this mess?
Train operators are expected to “explain themselves’’ if they don’t apply the law, but they don’t face any punishment.
That’s not good enough.
These operators are helping militant unions cause mayhem while making a mockery of the will of Parliament.
They should be hit with huge fines until they enforce their new powers.
It will stop Aslef’s agents of chaos from grinding Britain to a halt.
Questions of killer
THE Attorney General is rightly looking into the sentencing of Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane.
Two police forces failed to arrest him before his killing spree, and we are still waiting for the Crown Prosecution Service to explain the reasons why he was not put on trial.
Prosecutors charged Calocane with manslaughter for stabbing three people.
But when he drove his van at three others he was charged with attempted murder, implying he had an intent to kill.
Police and prosecutors face serious questions amidst the fallout of this case and victims’ families deserve answers.
Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson should provide them, fast.
Illogical, Captain
THE EU’S 61-page guide has targeted “gendered phrases” such as Star Trek’s “to boldly go where no man has gone before”.
Before Brexit, this would have been dismissed as barmy Brussels nonsense we would be glad to see the back of.
But in Woke Britain our own institutions fire out similar diktats almost every week.
Even Eurocrats are struggling to keep up.