To be fair, one railway promise made in the 2019 Conservative manifesto was sort-of kept. No, it wasn’t this one: “We will have an infrastructure revolution for this country.” During the current parliament, the desperately needed High Speed 2 rail project has been progressively pruned to leave only a pathetic link between Birmingham and a patch of wasteland in west London.
Yet the Tories also vowed: “We will require that a minimum service operates during transport strikes.” A law was duly enacted, and train operators can require striking staff to work to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services.
