Anyone could have been forgiven for thinking that Grant Shapps was rather pleased the railway strikes were going ahead. Certainly it’s a long time since the transport secretary was so animated. Probably the last time he was this chipper was as his alter ego, Michael Green, with the get-rich-quick scheme he promoted. Which never made anyone any money. Imagine. You’d have more luck with a Ponzi scheme.
This was Shapps at his most glib. The overexcitement oozed out of every pore. Somewhere in his head he’s made the calculation that the strikes are good for the government. That what the public really wants is another wedge issue that divides the nation. A fight with the unions.
Somehow he’s convinced himself that after three days of disruption, people are going to say: “You know what? The strikes are nothing to do with the Tories. After all, they’ve only been in government for 12 years. I tell you who I blame. I blame the opposition.”
It’s delusional stuff. There again, he’s always been a fantasist. Hard to believe that someone with his checkered career record could make it into the cabinet. But Boris Johnson likes to appoint people in his own image. Ministers with his own disregard for the truth.
Shapps was rushing on his run right from the start of his Commons statement. He felt just like Jesus’s son. Pumped. Ready to pick a fight with any member of the Labour party. Stoked to throw some red meat to the few Tory backbenchers who had made it to the chamber. Presumably the others have decided to work from home. There again, so few of them regularly turn up anyway, it will be a normal working week for them.
First Shapps tore into the unions. “Union barons,” he smirked, as if he was shouting out the name of a panto villain. We could almost have been back in the 70s. Except this time there would be no winter of discontent. Rather a summer of discontent, although Grant seemed anything but discontented. He was thrilled with himself. Thrilled with the chaos that had been caused. Thrilled to be the centre of attention.
“We’re doing our utmost,” he continued. Our utmost to be misleading; to tell half truths; to accuse the rail union of the very practices he was guilty of himself. He wasn’t the employer. That was Network Rail and the train operating companies. So it was only right that he had kept out of all the negotiations. It seemed to have slipped his mind that the government effectively owned most of these companies and they couldn’t reach a pay agreement without his say so.
But no. Shapps was unashamed about how little effort he had made to help resolve the dispute. It was only right that he had done next to nothing. In fact, the less he had done, the more it proved how cooperative had had been. No one wanted these strikes less than him, he lied.
Everyone wanted a decent pay rise, he continued. Only the dispute wasn’t about money, he insisted. Which will come as news to many of those going on strike. It was about terms and conditions. And by the way, revenues were 20% down since the pandemic, so strikers could whistle for the cash. Not that it was about the money.
The shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, was at her best in reply. A channel of righteous anger. She really did not want the strikes to go ahead either, but she respected the right of unions to go on strike. It was called the democratic process. And she knew where most of the blame lay. With Shapps himself. The minister who had gone missing in action. The man who had done most to ensure the strikes went ahead with his hands-off approach to industrial action.
How come he had barely lifted a finger? Only giving the employers a negotiating mandate at the last possible minute. It was a grave dereliction of duty. A failure of leadership. The talks were nothing but a sham. Set up to fail. Shapps held out his hands in a show of faux innocence.
Haigh pressed on. How was it also that he was now proposing to use the same P&O playbook of bringing in cheaper agency workers that he condemned only a few months ago? The Labour government in Wales had reached an agreement with the unions and there would be no strikes there. Why couldn’t he have done the same? Shapps had been quick to praise rail workers for keeping going during the pandemic, now he had turned on them. Whatever had happened to the Convict’s high-wage economy? That clearly depended on who was doing the high earning.
Shapps was unmoved. Nothing was going to spoil his day. Not now everything was falling into place. So he continued to bounce up and down enthusiastically. The strikes were evil. An assault on the country. The unions had done nothing but lie. He had put forward a pay offer. Just far less than inflation. And it wasn’t his fault if the government had no plans for dealing with that. And weren’t the railway workers paid too much already? Nurses got much less – though not less than the cleaners and catering staff – so the unions should just shut up. Apparently underpaying other workers was an incentive.
“I love the railways,” Shapps concluded. He’s just got a funny way of showing it.
