OK! I have just watched another sixty-something woman, hobbled on a four-pronged walking stick, make like Mufasa as a stampede of City boys charged into a Northern line carriage. This isn’t Charli XCX’s Glastonbury set. We are not vying for a glimpse of the latest K-pop sensation in town. It is a Transport for London service no one wants to be on, and maintaining group courtesy is the only thing holding it together. What’s happened to behaving on the Tube?
There are rules. Some infractions (letting your child stand on the left side of the escalator) can be forgiven — for tourists. Others (cramping comrades to get hold of a rail during rush hour) are expiated with a simple four-word spitfire (“sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry” — a British superpower, not to be underestimated). But now the deficit of decency has gone too far.
