Think Westminster’s a mess? It’s nothing compared to the north’s mismanaged rail system

‘The government needs to take immediate action with an urgent injection of funds into both ailing Northern franchises and the failing Avanti West Coast.’ Photograph: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images

If you want to truly understand the full extent of this country’s present dysfunction, forget about the chaos going on in Westminster and instead spend a day trying to travel across the north of England.

By now, if the 2019 Tory manifesto is to be believed, we were meant to be experiencing the joys of being levelled up. Instead, people’s spirits are being downtrodden by a daily diet of rail chaos.