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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Harry Taylor (now) and Andrew Sparrow (earlier)

Rail strikes will go ahead as RMT leader says government ‘actively prevented settlement to dispute’ – as it happened

Inflation Simon Clarke
Passengers in London walk past a travel information board, ahead of a planned national strike by rail workers.
Passengers in London walk past a travel information board, ahead of a planned national strike by rail workers. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Summary

That’s all for today, ahead of the first day of this week’s strike for RMT staff on the rail network and on the London Underground.

Tomorrow’s strike will be the biggest strike on the railways since 1989.

  • The RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, said the union had “no choice” over striking and that the government was not allowing rail companies to negotiate freely.
  • Lynch said a “wave” of industrial action was coming amid the cost of living crisis and said the Labour party should find a way to “ride that wave of resistance”.
  • Last-minute offers by train operating companies (TOCs) had been rejected today, he said in a statement.
  • The. transport secretary, Grant Shapps, told the House of Commons that the strike was being organised by “some of the best-paid union barons representing some of the better paid workers in this country”.
  • Shapps added that there was no place for the government in negotiations.
  • The shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, accused Shapps of a “dereliction of duty” by not intervening.
  • The TUC and the UK’s body representing recruiters had told the government to drop plans to lift a ban on agency staff filling in for workers who are out on strike.

Away from tomorrow’s industrial action

  • Criminal barristers have voted for strike action over legal aid funding, that will begin next week.
  • Downing Street has confirmed it asked the Times to withdraw a story that made allegations that Boris Johnson offered his now-wife, Carrie, a job while was foreign secretary.
  • The TSSA rail union said it would be “outraged” if the government closed all ticket offices in England.
  • Johnson successfully underwent an operation on his sinuses.

That’s all for today, thanks for following along. Here’s our story this evening on tomorrow’s strikes.

Updated

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is still ahead in one poll on who would be the best person to be prime minister compared with Boris Johnson.

His comparative ratings have dropped by 1%, according to pollster Redfield and Wilton Strategies, but still has a lead of four points over the prime minister. The “don’t know” option accounts for almost a third of respondees.

Updated

The RMT general secretary Mick Lynch has just finished speaking to Marr.

He said that unless the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is willing to help settle the dispute, he should “get out of the way” and give train companies what they need to come to an agreement. Lynch said that every time that a deal with train companies looks possible, they need to then refer to the Treasury and Department for Transport.

“I believe that if the companies were operating under normal negotiating conditions, we would have a settlement to this dispute already.”

He added: “We will talk to the train companies this week. If there is a settlement to be done, we will be a constructive partner in this. If Grant Shapps can’t help he needs to get out of the way.

“The government is stopping a settlement to this dispute. They need something to cover up all the other ills and sins that they have committed.”

Earlier in the interview he said that there was an “element of class tension” in the UK, where people were becoming poorer year-on-year.

“There is plenty of affluence and plenty of money in this society, and people on low wages and on modest wages are becoming poorer, because their wages just aren’t keeping up with the cost of living,” Lynch said.

“Railway companies are making profits right now. Their directors are being paid massive salaries. Everyone seems to be getting richer apart from the people doing the work, and that has got to be addressed.”

Updated

Business minister Paul Scully is on Andrew Marr’s drivetime show on LBC, where he is being asked about the strikes.

He tells Marr that there is no place for the government in the negotiations between employers and employees, and that FirstGroup, a train operator that runs significant franchises including Great Western Railway and Avanti West Coast said today it agrees.

However Marr then asks Scully, who is also the minister for London, why he and his social media team are calling it Keir Starmer’s strike, despite him having no part in the dispute at all.

Scully replies: “He is trying to play it both ways in terms of his response to the strike. I have seen Wes Streeting saying he would be going out on strike, they are trying to have it both ways.”

The Conservative MP had earlier said a ban on striking in essential services is “worth looking at”.

Updated

My colleagues Clea Skopeliti and Jedidajah Otte have been speaking to people today about their views on the strikes.

One man is planning on cycling 13-miles into central Manchester tomorrow as he can’t travel by train, and in another case the head of a NHS mental health team in south London says the whole group will be affected by the action, because many of them live far away from their workplace due to the cost of rents. However, both support the strikes.

You can read more here:

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) have told the government to drop its plan to lift the ban on agency workers filling in during strikes.

The two bodies issued a joint statement asking ministers to “abandon its proposal to repeal the ban on agency workers filling in for employees who are on strike”.

They said the plan was unworkable and that they “opposed it in the strongest possible terms”.

They added:

Using agency staff to cover strikes will only prolong the conflict between employers and their staff. Strikes are industrial disputes within a single industry or firm.

Government needs to step up and do the work around resolving industrial disputes rather than inserting a third party in the form of agency workers into a dispute. That does nothing to solve the underlying issues between the company and their staff. This will only prolong the dispute and inflame tensions. Negotiations should be the obvious priority – rather than potentially putting the safety of agency workers and company employees at risk

The proposal is not practical. There are currently 1.3 million vacancies in the UK, a record high. REC data shows that the number of candidates available to fill roles has been falling at record pace for months. In this tight labour market, agency workers are in high demand and can pick and choose the jobs they take.

Agency staff are very unlikely to choose a role that requires them to cross a picket line versus one that doesn’t. Additionally, many roles that may be on strike require technical skills or training. Training agency workers to do these jobs would be expensive and time-consuming.

Only recently government ministers came out to condemn what P&O Ferries did. Surely that example cannot have been forgotten so soon? That case showed how unfair these situations can be for agency workers, as well as the negative attention they and the agencies would receive.

Updated

Taxi-app Uber says it is expecting a “significant” surge in demand during the stoppage this week.

It has said that users will see pricing increase, when fares rise at times of high demand when there aren’t enough available taxis. The company caps surge pricing during periods of significant disruption.

A spokesperson has told PA Media: “We are expecting significant increases in demand as a result of strike action across the rail network next week.

“We are informing drivers of the expected increase in demand to help ensure there are enough cars out on the road.”

Updated

A reminder that it’s not just rail staff striking this week, as the latest meeting in West Yorkshire between Unite and bus company Arriva over pay has ended without a deal.

Passengers have been without any services in part of the county for three weeks so far, with the union saying it will continue for “an undisclosed period of time”.

The mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, tweeted:

Updated

The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said the rail strikes will deliver a double blow to the capital. In a statement Richard Burge, the LCCI chief executive, said:

Strikes are a lose-lose situation and will hit London’s economy with a double blow. First, there is the short-term hit of fewer visitors to the city, reduced footfall, and less tourism spending. This comes at a time when businesses, particularly those in the hospitality sector, have already fought so hard to recover from the pandemic. The second hit is the damage done to London’s reputation as a global city for business. Continued transport disruption creates risks to future foreign direct investment and could deter international partners from doing business in the UK.

The railways are an industry that, from top to bottom, had no job losses and no furlough throughout the pandemic, and unlike the NHS, they had little to do and low exposure to Covid. The solidarity that they were shown then, now needs to be repaid. We urge all parties involved in the dispute to re-engage and find a resolution that will end this reoccurring economic self-harm.

That’s all from me for this evening. My colleague Harry Taylor is taking over now.

Another Labour MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, has tweeted about his response to an inquiry from the Daily Telegraph about his decision to accept donations from the RMT.

Keir Starmer has been visiting Nato Allied Maritime Command, he says.

In response to the final question of the statment, Shapps ends as he started - saying it is a “disgrace” that Labour is refusing to condemn the strikes.

He also suggests the rail unions are guilty of ingratitude. Taxpayers, through the government, subsidised the industry to keep it going through the pandemic, he says, but the unions have repaid that by going on strike.

Shapps has repeatedly accused Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary, of misleading people in saying rail workers are not getting a pay rise.

He and Lynch are talking at cross purposes. Rail workers are being offered a notional pay rise, which is why Shapps is able to say they are not being offered nothing. But Lynch’s point is that their pay rise does not match inflation, which means that it amounts to a real-terms cut.

Shapps told MPs that he was arranging for annual season ticket holders, “rather than having to rely on the delay-repay system”, would be able to “apply and get their money back for the days they’re unable to travel this week”.

Anna Firth (Con) asks Shapps if he agrees that MPs who refuse to condemn the strikes do not care about the impact on pupils who are taking exams who will be affected.

Shapps says Firth is “abolutely right”. This is callous, he says. He says his daughter is taking an exam on Thursday. She will have to go in by car, and this is making it more stressful, he claims.

Shapps tells the Commons he has a list of 20 areas where the railways need to modernise. Asked if he is insisting on these as preconditions for a deal, he says he isn’t. As an example, he says pay sheets need to be completed on paper. That is unnecessary, he says.

He says the railways ought to be able to run a seven-day service. But he says that is not fully possible because of the rule saying Sunday working must be voluntary. That rule dates from 1919, he says.

Charlotte Nichols (Lab) says her mum is one of the RMT workers who are going on strike. She says most of the RMT members going on strike are people like cleaners and catering staff. They are not on the real living wage, let alone earning the sorts of sums Shapps is quoting.

(Shapps likes quoting the figure for train drivers. See 11.28am. But train drivers’ salaries are much higher than other salaries in the industry, and largely they are not even represented by the RMT anyway. They are more likely to belong to Aslef.)

Shapps claims “there has never been a government more pro-rail”. It just needs a union to cooperate in running it, he says.

These are from Network Rail on the strike.

John McDonnell (Lab) suggests the public are more likely to trust rail engineers on safety issues than government ministers. He says safety checks are going to be cut by 50%.

Shapps says Lynch uses that 50% figure. (See 4.11pm.) But he says this ignores the impact of new technology. He says trains can now pass over track with a camera taking 70,000 images a minute. And drones can be used to inspect track too. He says it would be negligent not to use these techniques to ensure passenger safety.

And he says McDonnell asked why people should trust him. He says, as transport secretary, he has to read reports on rail fatalities. He recently read one about a worker killed as they were walking alongside a track.

Shapps says falling passenger numbers, not government cuts, to blame for £2bn shortfall in rail funding

In the Commons Shapps says that Mick Lynch is wrong to say the government has cut £2bn from rail budgets. (See 4.11pm.) He says rail revenues have fallen by a fifth. It is not the government that has taken the money out of the sector; it is passengers, who are not buying tickets any more.

Updated

Labour accuses Shapps of 'grave dereliction of duty' for not getting involved in talks to try to avert strike

Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, accused Shapps of a dereliction of duty. In her response to his statement, she said Shapps should have got involved. Labour did not want the strikes to happen, she said. But she said he had failed to get involved. She ended by saying it was not too late for him to get round the table and “do your job”.

Even at this 11th hour they can still be avoided: to do so it requires ministers to step up and show leadership.

To get employers and the unions round the table and address the very serious issues on pay and on cuts to safety and maintenance staff behind this dispute.

The entire country is about to be ground to a halt but instead of intervening to try and stop it, the secretary of state is washing his hands of any responsibility.

On the eve of the biggest rail dispute in a generation taking place on his watch he has still not lifted a finger to resolve it.

Not one meeting, no talks, no discussions only media interviews and a petition to the Labour party. This is a grave dereliction of duty.

In response, Shapps criticised her for not condemning the strike. He said Labour had taken £250,000 from the RMT, and £100m from trade unions over the past decade.

He also claimed that the RMT was making misleading claims. Workers were being offered a pay rise, he said. He said reforms were not a threat to safety; a train taking photographs of track could check for faults much more effectively, and safely, than having a worker walk along the line, he said. And he said workers were coming forward willing to accept voluntary redundancy.

Updated

Grant Shapps says rail unions to blame for this week's strikes

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has just delivered his Commons statement on the rail strikes.

  • Shapps opened by attacking the rail unions, saying the strike was organised by “some of the best-paid union barons representing some of the better paid workers in this country”. (The RMT disputes this - see 11.28am.) He accused the unions of misrepresenting who was to blame for the strike.

We are now less than eight hours away from the biggest railway strike since 1989.

A strike orchestrated by some of the best-paid union barons representing some of the better-paid workers in this country, which will cause misery and chaos to millions of commuters.

This weekend we’ve seen union leaders use all the tricks in the book to confuse, obfuscate, to mislead the public.

Not only do they wish to drag the railway back to the 1970s, they’re also employing the tactics of bygone unions too - deflecting accountability for their strikes onto others, attempting to shift the blame for their action which will cause disruption and cause damage to millions of people, and claiming that others are somehow preventing an agreement to their negotiation.

  • He defended the government’s decision not to get involed in the talks, saying the dispute needed to be resolved by managment and the unions.
  • He said the government’s emergency planning team was working to keep critical supply chains open.
  • He said the government intended to legislate for a minimum service level in the rail sector. This was proposed in the Conservative manifesto, he said, and would mean rail operators would have to maintain a minimum level of service during strikes. He said this worked in countries like Belgium and France.
  • He said the railways needed reform because “obsolete working practices” were rife. As an example, he said in the rail industry Sunday working was voluntary.
  • He said the government was not proposing a pay freeze in the industry.

Lynch says further strikes coming and he urges Labour to 'ride that wave of resistance'

Taking questions from journalists after delivering his statement on the strikes (see 4.11pm), Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary, said he thought that a wave of industrial action was coming and that Labour should be in harmony with it and find a way to “ride that wave of resistance”. He said:

Well, the Labour leadership have got a problem, haven’t they? They’re against workers being exploited, and they’re against this Tory government.

They’ve got to find a way to connect to working-class people in working-class communities so they can get their votes back. They’ve got to find their message. They’ve got to find some policies that get back to where working people are.

We saw many working people out on the streets on Saturday. I think there’s going to be more of that. And I think there’s going to be a wave of industrial action, a wave of ballots, and a wave of campaigning.

So Keir Starmer and his team have got to work a way how they can connect with that and how they can ride that wave of resistance and are in harmony with it. Rather than standing to one side and waiting for somebody to tell them what to do.

Updated

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, told BBC News that there had to be reform in the rail industry. There were “Spanish practices” that had to change, he said. He said only the management and the unions could agree on those.

Asked when the government would intervene, he said calls for that were a “stunt” staged by Labour and the trade unions. The unions funded Labour, he said.

And he said in the past Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary, said he would never negotiate with a Tory government.

Downing Street has said it is “deeply disappointing” that the strikes are going ahead. At the afternoon lobby briefing, the PM’s spokeperson said:

This is deeply disappointing, that these disruptive, these self-defeating strikes will take place this week. Striking does nothing to address the long-standing issues that we need to sort to make sure our railway, that the public use and treasure, is fit for the long term.

RMT leader blames 'transport austerity' as he explains why union has 'no choice' but to strike

In his statement outside the RMT HQ Mick Lynch, the union’s general secretary, said the union had “tremendous support” from the public.

He said that, contrary to claims from Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, the union had never walked out of talks. It had maintained “cordial relations” with employers.

But what we’ve got come to understand is that the dead hand of this Tory government is all over this dispute. And the fingerprints of Grant Schapps and the DNA of Rishi Sunak are all over the problems on the railway, and indeed the problems in this society.

And until they allow these employers to negotiate freely, I can’t see that we’re going to get a settlement to the issues that are in front of us.

He said Network Rail and the train operating companies had now both submitted offers. The RMT had rejected both - the Network Rail one on Friday, and the one from the TOCs this afternoon.

So the strike would go ahead, he said.

The source of the problem was the government’s decision to slash rail funding by £4bn. The government had cut £2bn from the national railway, and £2bn from Transport for London. That was forcing the industry to implement “transport austerity”, he said.

Proposed pay rises were “massively under” the rates of inflation, he said.

And he said the companies wanted to cut thousands of jobs, and had failed to give any guarantee against compulsory redandancies.

As a result of the need for transport austerity, the employers had also attacked the railway and TfL pension schemes, he said. Staff would have to work longer for reduced benefits.

And safety inspections on infrastructure were being cut by up to 50%, he said. That was the equivalent of the jobs of 3,000 track workers, he said. “Their jobs are for the chop,” he said.

Lynch also said a form of “fire and rehire” was being used. Existing salaries were being cut, and staff were being asked to work longer hours. He went on:

These attacks mean that no trade union in this country could accept that agenda. And in fact, in many ways, it’s similar to what P&O have put before us; either you take diluted terms or you leave the industry.

They even want to go so far as to restart the dispute on the role and responsibility of [guards on trains]. And they’re going to put massive cuts to the catering services on our railway. So we’re going backwards, many years in fact, to the cuts agenda that we’ve had under Thatcher and under British Rail when that was seriously underfunded over decades.

They’re going further and have told us, today and last week, that they intend to close every single ticket office in Britain, regardless of the accessibility needs of the public and the diversity of the passengers that use the railway system.

They’re cutting real pay for our members and their spending power through what are now lengthy pay and pay freezes, for nearly three years for many of our members. Snd the offers that we have are way below the retail price index, which is the relevant measure of inflation for us.

Lynch said the RMT had “no choice” given what was being proposed.

He urged RMT members to “stand firm” and support the action.

This was part of a more general campaign for properly funded public services, he said.

The union was still available for talks, before, during and after the action, he said.

But he said the dispute would only be resolved if Shapps allowed the companies to negotiate, and reach a “reasonable agreement”.

Mick Lynch making his statement outside RMT HQ.
Mick Lynch making his statement outside RMT HQ. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Updated

RMT leader Mick Lynch says Tory government has 'actively prevented settlement to dispute'

Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary, is making a statement about the rail strikes. He said:

The RMT national executive committee has now found both sets of proposals [from Network Rail and from the train operating companies] to be unacceptable and it is now confirmed that the strike action scheduled this week will go ahead.

It is clear that the Tory government, after slashing £4bn of funding from National Rail and Transport for London, has now actively prevented a settlement to this dispute.

The rail companies have now proposed pay rates that are massively under the relevant rates of inflation, coming on top of the pay freezes of the past few years.

At the behest of the government, companies are also seeking to implement thousands of job cuts and have failed to give any guarantee against compulsory redundancies.

Mick Lynch
Mick Lynch. Photograph: BBC News

Updated

Tomorrow’s proposed strike is being reported as the biggest walkout by rail workers since 1989. Here’s how the Guardian’s front page looked on 21 June 1989, on the first of a series of official one-day strikes by the National Union of Railwaymen. The dispute ended six weeks later with a victory for Jimmy Knapp, leader of the NUR, who got his members an 8.8% pay rise – 1.8% more than was offered by management.

Guardian front page from 21 June 1989.
Guardian front page from 21 June 1989. Photograph: Guardian

Updated

The Labour MP Clive Lewis has posted this on Twitter, setting out his reply to a question from the Daily Telegraph about a donation his office received from the RMT rail union.

Rail strike to go ahead after last-minute talks fail to resolve dispute, RMT union says

The rail strikes are to go ahead after last-ditch talks failed to resolve a dispute over pay, jobs and conditions, the RMT union has said.

Passengers will be 'outraged' if government closes all rail ticket offices in England, TSSA union says

Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA transport union, has written an open letter to Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, about reports that the government wants to close or repurpose all rail ticket offices at stations in England. He said:

It’s vital that our union is able to discuss these troubling plans with you, so they can be properly evaluated and scrutinised given the extreme position you seem to be taking. It’s also important that you are upfront and come clean with the British public, millions of whom place great value on booking offices being open and fully staffed ...

As I have stressed to you before, closing ticket offices and moving to online-only sales would badly impact millions of elderly, disabled and disadvantaged people who are unable, or far less able, to use online services, yet still need to access public transport ...

Let me be clear, closing ticket offices across the country would be a grave misstep, undermining the whole notion of a people’s railway, because people need ticket offices and ticket office staff. These proposed closures are in no-one’s interest and make a mockery of your so called Great British Railways reforms.

Our members know passengers will be outraged if you were to go ahead with these plans. With trust at rock bottom between rail workers and bosses, what you are doing, in effect, is further entrenching our dispute with you which is not only about jobs, pay and conditions but the future wellbeing of our rail network.

The Department for Transport has said that, although no final decisions have been taken, there has been a significant decline in ticket office use in recent years.

A report in the Sunday Times yesterday said the rail industry had “drawn up a confidential strategy to phase out paper tickets and close or ‘repurpose’ 980 ticket offices in England, starting in September”. It said:

The switch to online ticket sales will worry those who struggle with digital services or do not have smartphones. While many people already download train tickets to their phones, some older people are used to paper ones and will not welcome the switch to online-only.

In his recent speech on housing, which touched on this topic, Boris Johnson said some ticket offices “barely sell a ticket a week” and that staff and passengers would benefit from a more cost-effective means of selling tickets.

Updated

In the Commons Kevin Foster, the minister responsible for the Passport Office, told MPs that in March, April and May it processed 3m passport application. He said 98.5% of applications from the UK were processed within the target of up to 10 weeks, he said.

Regulations for buy now, pay later credit agreements are being toughened, the Treasury has announced today. It says:

Lenders will be required to carry out affordability checks, ensuring loans are affordable for consumers, and [the government] will amend financial promotion rules to ensure buy now, pay later advertisements are fair, clear, and not misleading. Lenders offering the product will need to be approved by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and borrowers will also be able to take a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

This is from Dominic Ponsford, editor-in-chief of the Press Gazette, on the Times’ decision to pull its story about Boris Johnson proposing to give Carrie, now his wife, a job in the Foreign Office in 2018. (See 1.13pm.)

James Cartlidge, a justice minister, has described the decision of criminal barristers to vote for strike action (see 11.41am) as “disappointing”. He said:

The 15% pay increase we consulted on would mean a typical criminal barrister earning around £7,000 extra per year and only last week I confirmed we are moving as quickly as possible to introduce fee rises by the end of September.

We encourage the Criminal Bar Association to work with us, rather than escalate to unnecessary strike action, as it will only serve to harm victims as they are forced to wait longer for justice.

Five British nationals who were being held by the Taliban in Afghanistan have been released from detention, PA Media reports. The Foreign Office issued an apology on behalf of the families of the five for “any breach of Afghan culture, customs and laws” and said it was a “mistake” for them to have gone to the country against official travel advice. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said she was pleased the five had been released and would soon be reunited with their families.

Updated

Rail strike will make travel 'extremely difficult' for commuters, No 10 says

And here are some more lines from what was an unusually long Downing Street lobby briefing.

  • No 10 accepted that the rail strike would make life “extremely difficult” for commuters this week. The PM’s spokesperson said:

For those that have no choice but to come in it will be extremely difficult tomorrow and I think the public will understandably want to know why they are being put in this position.

We believe we are seeking to offer a fair and reasonable pay rise and modernise the railway services for the long term, and we need to get rid of some of these outdated rules and procedures, some of which have not been updated for decades and which don’t serve the public.

  • The spokesperson said it would not be “helpful” for the government to insert itself into the talks with rail unions “at this stage”. He said:

Talks are continuing today but the government won’t be taking part in them. You’ve heard from train operators themselves who have said that it isn’t the government’s place to be at the table and it wouldn’t be helpful to the ongoing discussions to insert the government into the negotiating process at this stage.

  • The spokesperson refused to restate No 10’s criticism of the governor of the Bank of England, from February, over his suggestion that workers should not ask for big pay rises. Andrew Bailey was effectively reprimanded by Downing Street when he said this earlier in the year, but this morning Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, delivered what was effectively the same message. (See 9.21am.) Asked if No 10 still thought what Bailey said was wrong, the spokesperson replied:

The government wants a high wage, high growth economy and, as I said at the time, it’s not down to governments to dictate to private companies what wages they set. Everyone has different circumstances, so a top-down approach is not our position.

But, clearly, the government is taking heed of the economic situation in which we find ourselves and we expect private-sector companies will do so as well.

  • The spokesperson said the government had not yet taken a final decision over whether to retain tariffs on Chinese steel imports (the issue that prompted Lord Geidt’s resignation as No 10’s ethics adviser last week).
  • The spokesperson admitted that Geidt “may not be that well known publicly”. He was responding to questions about whether No 10 agreed with Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, that voters did not care who replaced him. On an LBC phone-in Dorries said:

You call him Lord Geidt. I think the rest of the country had never even heard his name before and used to call him Lord Geddit. I don’t think they give a fig who replaces him or even who he was, or what he did.

Updated

No 10 unable to explain initial reluctance to deny story saying Johnson wanted to give Carrie top FCO job as affair started

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson denied a claim that Boris Johnson wanted to appoint Carrie Symonds - now his wife, but at the time his partner - to a government job in 2020. The denial came during a set of curious exchanges about a story saying that he wanted to make her his chief of staff when he was foreign secretary that was published, and then mysteriously dropped, by the Times on Friday night.

The Times story prompted Dominic Cummings, the PM’s former chief adviser, to post this on Twitter yesterday. Cummings seems to have a particular vendetta against Carrie Johnson, whom he holds partly responsible for forcing him out of No 10 in 2020 and he has repeatedly argued that Johnson is not fit to be PM. But many of the allegations he has made, since his resignation, about misconduct within Downing Street have turned out to be well founded.

Asked about the claim that Johnson wanted to give his partner a job in 2020, the spokesperson replied:

My understanding is that that claim is also untrue. These claims have been reported before and denied before.

But the spokesperson was more circumspect when asked about the claim in the Times story that Johnson wanted to make Carrie his chief of staff at the Foreign Office in 2018, when their relationship was still secret and he was married. The spokesperson declined to give a direct denial, saying: “As a function of my role, I don’t comment on what the prime minister did before he was prime minister.” But he did point out that the story had been denied by Carrie Johnson, and by political aides in No 10.

Not everyone has found these denials convincing. Here is an extract from the story by my colleagues Rowena Mason and Jim Waterson.

The story [in the Times] expanded on claims in a biography of Carrie Johnson by the Tory donor and peer Lord Ashcroft that Johnson had tried to appoint her to a £100,000-a-year government job when he was foreign secretary in 2018.

It said the idea had fallen apart when his closest advisers learned of the idea to hire the Tory press chief, then known as Carrie Symonds, whom he later married. Johnson was then still married to Marina Wheeler, a barrister.

A source with knowledge of the situation told the Guardian this account was correct.

However, a spokesperson for Carrie Johnson was categoric. “These claims are totally untrue,” she said.

At the lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson denied that Johnson spoke to Tony Gallagher, the Times deputy editor who was in charge of the paper on Friday, to get the story dropped. But the spokesperson did not deny that someone else from No 10 may have called to get the story pulled after the first edition. “I don’t know exactly who spoke [to whom], but as you all know, when claims are put to us, we regularly spoke to those journalists involved,” the spokesperson told the lobby.

The Times story was written by Simon Walters, a veteran political correspondent who until recently was assistant editor at the Daily Mail. He told the New European that he stood by his story 100% and that, although he approached No 10 and Carrie Johnson’s office before the story was published, neither of them offered an on-the-record denial.

Asked why No 10 did not tell Walters on the record that his story was not true before it was published, the PM’s spokesperson was unable to give a clear explanation. He just said:

I think statements have been issued by Mrs Johnson and my No 10 colleagues over the weekend.

Updated

Johnson has had operation under general anaesthetic on his sinuses, No 10 says

Boris Johnson had an operation under general anaesthetic on his sinuses this morning, Downing Street has revealed. The operation went well, Johnson is back at home recovering, but it has emerged that Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, has been on standby today to deputise for him - in the event of No 10 having to deal with an emergency.

The disclosure came at this morning’s lobby briefing, where the prime minister’s spokesperson said that Johnson had a “very minor, routine operation” at an NHS hospital in London that had been “scheduled for a while”. He went into hospital at 6am, and was back at No 10 soon after 10am, the spokesperson said. He said Johnson was now at home resting.

The spokesperson would not give further details of Johnson’s medical condition, or say how long he had been waiting for an operation.

Asked who was in charge of the UK’s “nuclear button” while the PM was under general anaesthetic, the spokesperson said the deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, was aware of the PM’s operation, as was the cabinet secretary, Simon Case.

It is understood that, under standard No 10 procedure, if the PM has to undergo an operation under general anaesthetic, for the next 24 hours any “significant decisions” can be referred to the deputy prime minister. But it is not expected that this will need to happen in this case.

Johnson is still expected to chair cabinet tomorrow, and he is due to travel to the Commonwealth summit in Rwanda later this week.

When William Hague was Conservative leader, he underwent surgery for sinusitis. Ed Miliband also had surgery on his nose when he was leader of the opposition.

Boris Johnson photographed on Friday, after his return from Kyiv.
Boris Johnson photographed on Friday, after his return from Kyiv. Photograph: Joe Giddens/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

There will be an urgent question on Ukraine at 3.30pm in the Commons, followed by a statement from Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, on the rail strike at around 4.15pm.

Tim Shoveller, the chief negotiator for Network Rail, told the Today programme this morning that he did not think the government needed to get involved in the talks on the rail dispute. He said this was an issue for the industry to resolve with trade unions.

He said managers wanted to make the rail industry “more efficient to generate the funds so that we can make the pay awards that our colleagues want”.

He also said a prolonged dispute would be a “disaster”. Asked if Network Rail was willing to see the dispute run throughout the summer, Shoveller replied:

I think it would be a disaster for the country. It would be a disaster for our passengers and, look, really bad for our employees, who would lose loads of money by having a long, drawn-out strike – that really is the worst place we can get to.

At the end of the day, the facts about the support the government’s provided in terms of the £16bn through Covid, etc – all of those are well-known and documented.

It’s a tragedy that the union have brought the strike action around so quickly because one day there will be a resolution to this, it will only come through talking and the fact is that the strike action really doesn’t help that, in fact, it only makes it so much worse.

Updated

Criminal barristers vote for strike action over legal aid rates

Barristers have voted to go on strike in a row over legal aid funding, PA Meda reports. PA says:

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA), which represents barristers in England and Wales, said several days of court walkouts will begin from next week.

The promised industrial action, announced on Monday following a ballot of members, comes at a time of significant backlogs across the court system.

They are the latest profession to go on strike, ahead of planned action by rail workers later this week, and reports of unrest among teaching staff and NHS employees.

The CBA said around 81.5% of the more than 2,000 members to respond supported industrial action.

Jo Sidhu QC and Kirsty Brimelow QC from the CBA said:

This extraordinary commitment to the democratic process reflects a recognition amongst criminal barristers at all levels of call and across all circuits that what is at stake is the survival of a profession of specialist criminal advocates and of the criminal justice system which depends so critically upon their labour.

Without immediate action to halt the exodus of criminal barristers from our ranks, the record backlog that has crippled our courts will continue to inflict misery upon victims and defendants alike, and the public will be betrayed.

As PA Media reports, the strike action is intended to last for four weeks, beginning with walkouts on Monday and Tuesday 27 and 28 June, increasing by one day each week until a five-day strike from Monday 18 July to Friday 22 July. It means cases at which barristers are required will likely have to be postponed, including crown court trials.

The strike has been called over the legal aid rates paid to defence barristers.

Updated

The government has been seeking to reduce public support for the rail unions by stressing that train drivers are well paid. At cabinet last week Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, told colleagues that the median pay of rail workers was significantly higher than other public sector workers – with nurses receiving a median of £31,000 compared to £59,000 for train drivers.

But the strike does not just involve train drivers, and other workers in the rail industry earn less. The RMT says the median salary of its members is £31,000.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, is being investigated over allegations believed to centre on the late registration of financial interests, PA Media reports. Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, is looking at possible breaches to the MPs’ code of conduct under areas covering earnings, gifts and foreign travel. The disclosure was included in an update on parliament’s website.

UPDATE: PA adds:

Under the rules, MPs must register changes to their financial interests within 28 days. Lammy’s financial register contains a series of interests registered after that period, including a speech in the US on the invasion of Ukraine. A sum of £3,280 received from the Canary Wharf Group on 1 December for a speech and question-and-answer session was not registered until 27 May.

A spokesperson for Lammy said: “David Lammy takes his declaration responsibilities seriously and as soon as this was brought to his attention he wrote to registrar of members’ financial interests to apologise for the administrative errors in his office which led to late declarations in December last year.

“He has assured the registrar that he has put revised systems in place so that declarations are made in a timely manner. We are happy to provide the parliamentary standards commissioner with any further information.”

Updated

RMT says its members have 'grit and determination' for long dispute if necesary

John Leach, assistant general secretary of the RMT rail union, was on the Today programme this morning talking about the proposed strikes. Here are the main points he made.

  • Leach criticised the government for being “nowhere to be seen” in the dispute. He said:

We’d ... like the government to rise to the occasion. They are absolutely abjectly failing in their responsibilities. They are nowhere to be seen apart from name-calling from the sidelines.

  • He said that Network Rail staff had been offered a 2% pay rise, and that this was “nowhere near enough”. He said the union also wanted a package ensuring job security, because Network Rail wanted 3,000 job cuts. And he said train operating companies had not yet offered any pay rise. The train operating companies also wanted to close all ticket offices, he said.
  • He said management had not explicitly promised no compulsory redundancies. If they were to say that, the union would be “a third of the way through this negotiation”, he said.
  • He said his members had the “grit and determination” for a long dispute if necessary. Asked if the union had the stamina for a “war of attrition”, he replied:

The men and women in my union who keep Britain moving across the entire railway network are some of the most determined, professional, dedicated people you’ll ever meet.

They kept this country moving through the pandemic, they keep the railways moving every single day and it’s that kind of grit and determination that’s going to mean that they will stick with this negotiation and justice for themselves in that regard, right through to the end.

That’s why we’re so clear about this. We didn’t want to be in this situation – that has to be said – but we are determined to see this through.

  • He said his union would like to see more support from Labour. He said:

We want political support wherever it can come from and the Labour party really should refocus here on its responsibility to represent those in society that are looking for a better situation. That’s us on this occasion, so we would like more.

Updated

Labour accuses ministers of 'hobbling' talks to try to avert rail strike by not getting involved

Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, claimed this morning that the government was “hobbling” talks between unions and rail operators. She told the Today programme:

At the moment, without the government there, the negotiations are a sham.

It’s not possible for them to find a resolution and avoid the dispute without the government being represented at the talks, setting a mandate for the train operators and providing genuine scope in order to find a resolution. Without them there, it’s impossible for them to find a way forward and, therefore, it is inevitable that industrial action will happen.

Asked about claims by ministers that it would be wrong for them to be in the talks because they are a matter for management and unions, Haigh replied:

The Department of Transport are a party because they set the negotiating mandate for the train operating companies and they have so far refused to do that, so not only are they boycotting the talks, they’re actually hobbling them and therefore that’s why it is imperative that they step in.

Updated

More than half of trains to Glastonbury cancelled due to rail strikes

More than half of the trains due to serve the Glastonbury festival have been cancelled because of rail strikes, PA Media reports. PA says:

Tens of thousands of revellers will be forced to find alternative routes to the site in Pilton, Somerset.

Great Western Railway (GWR) is operating just five services from London Paddington to Castle Cary on Thursday, with a total of 24 between Wednesday and Friday.

Before the industrial action was announced, 51 trains were expected to run on the route over the three-day period.

GWR told passengers: “We plan to maintain timetabled trains between Castle Cary and London Paddington throughout the course of the Glastonbury festival.

“Some services might be subject to alterations to train times and we will be in contact with customers who have already booked seats on board those trains.”

It added: “Other parts of the GWR network are likely to be more affected by the strike action and customers may need to consider alternative ways to travel to a station serving Castle Cary.”

Updated

Clarke rejects claims from airline bosses that Brexit to blame for staff shortages affecting passengers at airports

In his Sky News interview Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, was also asked about the chaos that some travellers have been experiencing at airports this summer because of staff shortages.

  • Clarke rejected claims from airline bosses that Brexit was to blame for the problems the travallers are facing at airports. Asked if Brexit was responsible, he replied:

No. I think what we’re seeing here is the results of the airline industry, having obviously massively contracted during the pandemic, now it’s facing this surge of pent-up demand as things stand back up. And, truth be told, it isn’t resourced and manned for that challenge. That’s why I think it is sensible that what we’re starting to see now is some of the airports revising their schedules.

When it was put to him that people like Michael O’Leary, head of Ryanair, and József Váradi, head of Wizz Air, are blaming Brexit (see here and here), Clarke replied:

Ultimately, I think the British people made their views very clear on unlimited immigration from the EU. And there were very good reasons why we voted to have a controlled immigration policy.

But I do not accept that this is simply a direct, pass-through effect from Brexit. What I would say is this is a result of an industry which massively slimmed down, and understandably so at a time when flying was well nigh impossible for a year and a half, two years.

It’s now massively expanded its operations and the pressure is enormous and it hasn’t managed to align the two.

Clarke, a Brexiter, is one of the ministers most reluctant to admit that Brexit has caused problems for the economy. Last year he refused to accept that Brexit was a factor in the UK experiencing a shortage of HGV drivers – even though Boris Johnson subsequently argued that higher wages paid to HGV drivers in response to the labour shortage would be part of his Brexit bonus.

  • Clarke said that airlines were currently “offering flights they simply can’t honour” and that that was “terrible for passengers”.

Updated

Minister suggests Bank of England governor was right in February to warn about dangers of inflationary pay demands

And here are some more lines from what Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to and the Treasury, said in his morning interviews about the rail strike, and pay awards generally.

  • Clarke was unable to explain why No 10 slapped down the governor of the Bank of England earlier this year for saying people should not expect big pay rises – when he is now saying exactly the same thing. (See 9.21am.) Asked why Andrew Bailey was rebuked by No 10 for his comment, Clarke just said: “Ultimately what a spokesperson has said is for them.” In February Bailey said:

I’m not saying nobody gets a pay rise, don’t get me wrong, but I think what I’m saying is we do need to see restraint in pay bargaining otherwise it will get out of control.

This morning, asked if he was saying people in the public sector should not expect a pay rise in line with inflation, Clarke replied: “Correct.”

  • He defended the government’s decision not to get directly involved in the talks between management and the rail unions ahead of this week’s strike. “Ultimately, it will only confuse things if we add a third party to these negotiations,” he told the Today programme.
  • He said the rail industry needed structural reform. He told Sky News:

The train operating companies and Network Rail are working to deliver a sensible programme of reform and a sensible and fair pay deal with the trade unions.

The practices that are in place across the network are out with the ark, frankly, and need to be reformed.

It cannot be the case that we have put in £16bn during the pandemic as taxpayers, worth £600 per household, and still have a railway system where some of what goes on occurs and where, frankly, fares are higher than they need to be and efficiency is lower than it should be because of the way the trade unions operate.

  • He said he thought “very, very few people” – in the private or public sector – would be getting pay offers in double figures. “I think it would be highly unsustainable if they were to do so,” he claimed.
  • But he also claimed that he expected public sector workers to be offered “good” pay offers – even though he stressed that they would not match the level inflation is due to reach this year. (See 9.21am.) He told Sky News:

From what I understand, and it is early days, [proposed public sector pay] awards are coming in at a sensible level, which is great. It does mean that there will be a good pay offers, I think, on the table for public sector workforces.

It’s important that we wait and see what those awards are, and then obviously it will be for individual workforces and the trade unions to respond.

But I do think people have to recognise, if we’re going to forestall the evil of inflation – inflation destroys savings, it destroys growth. It damages any economy where it gets an endemic grip – then we are going to have to show collective, society-wide responsibility.

Updated

Treasury minister says workers in private and public sectors should not expect pay rises to match inflation

Good morning. Inflation is at its highest level for 40 years and Britain’s return to the economic landscape of the 1970s/1980s will take a step forward this week with the biggest national railstrike for a generation. In several other key public services, unions are also threatening strike action this summer. This is from my colleague Gwyn Topham on the rail strikes.

The issues are slightly different for different sectors, but at the heart of this week’s rail strike, and all the other potential walkouts that may come later, is pay. With inflation heading towards 11%, real-terms pay is falling.

Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, has been giving interviews this morning and he delivered what may be the bluntest message yet from a government minister that workers can’t expect pay rises that will match inflation.

Stressing that this was a message for people in the private sector as well as in the public sector, Clarke told the Today programme:

In the current landscape of inflation at 9, bordering 10%, it is not a sustainable expectation that inflation can be matched in pay offers. That is not something that’s going to be seen – across, frankly, the private sector as well as the public sector.

We cannot get into a world where we are chasing inflation expectations in that way because that is the surest way I can think of to bake in the repeat of the 1970s which this government is determined to prevent.

I will post more from Clarke’s interviews, and the strike-related items on the morning programmes, shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Priti Patel, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

3pm: Alistair Jack, the Scottish secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Scottish affairs committee.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com

Simon Clarke
Simon Clarke Photograph: Sky News

Updated

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