Afternoon summary
- Labour has announced a raft of new transport policies as the South Western Railway strike took its toll on commuters this morning. The party says it will bring the railways back into public ownership and cut regulated rail fares by 33% from January 2020. Children aged 16 and under would receive free rail travel under the plans, while part-time workers would be guaranteed “fair” fares. The party is also promising “a London-style ticketing system across the nation” to simplify prices using zonal fares, which would be applied to all types of public transport, and allow contactless payments. The plans would only affect fares in England as those in Wales and Scotland are devolved
- A 40-year-old train driver employed by SWR, with nearly 20 years of rail experience, described guards as “the human face of the railway, ensuring there is a safe, secure and accessible environment”. The driver, who wished to remain anonymous, got in touch with the Guardian to call on more drivers to support the strike. He said: “Running a train without a guard is akin to flying a plane with no cabin crew: 99.99% of journeys would occur without incident, but if and when something does go wrong, the consequences are much more likely to be catastrophic.”
- Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, has backed the striking railway workers and said South Western Railways need to “give their heads a shake”. He accused the company of reneging on deal agreed with the union. McDonald, who has been doing the media rounds this morning, told LBC: “This is so frustrating. Right across the country, those issues have been resolved to everybody’s satisfaction. Putting those safety-critical guards on trains has happened everywhere.”
- The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a business networking and support organisation, has said the strikes will have a “detrimental impact” on key sectors of London’s economy.Sean McKee, director of policy and public affairs at London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “London businesses recognise the right to strike, but this prolonged strike action is a cynical move deliberately designed to cause inconvenience to the travelling public in the run to, and through, Christmas. It will have a detrimental impact to key sectors of the capital’s economy, which rely upon festive and tourism trade.”
Labour promises 'biggest ever' plan to cut rail fares in England
Labour has announced a raft of new transport policies as the South Western Railway strike takes its toll on commuters.
The party says it will bring the railways back into public ownership and cut regulated rail fares by 33% from January 2020. Children aged 16 and under would receive free rail travel under the plans, while part-time workers would be guaranteed “fair” fares.
Corbyn officially launched the policy outside Finsbury Park station in the Islington North constituency he has held since 1983. “They are not giveaways, they are rebalancing what we had, which was 10 years of austerity in which living standards have often fallen, income levels have been static, and in some cases fallen, and public services have been damaged and reduced,” he told the press in north London.
“And if all of our spending commitments, the whole of our manifesto, is carried out to every last letter we still barely reach the levels of public services of France or Germany and that’s how far behind we’ve fallen because of the strategy that’s been followed.”
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Here is the Guardian’s transport correspondent, Gwyn Topham, latest report on the strike. Some commuters have reached out to speak of their frustration:
Commuters who found seats described “horrendous” journeys. Richard Clarke, from Farncombe, on a delayed 7.01am train to Waterloo, said: “I am on the 7.01 and it is horrendous, full and standing … No one could even force their way on once we arrived at Woking.”
Passengers expressed anger that SWR laid on shorter trains than usual. Clare Moriarty, permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU, tweeted the train operator: “I cannot believe that on a strike day when there are only two trains from my station in the peak hour you have *shortened* train length by a third. Please have some thought for your passengers.”
Within Greater London, where passengers were held outside busy stations such as Earlsfield, local bus services were quickly filled and not stopping as people sought alternatives.
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A 40-year-old train driver employed by SWR, with nearly 20 years of rail experience, described guards as “the human face of the railway, ensuring there is a safe, secure and accessible environment”.
The driver, who wished to remain anonymous, got in touch with the Guardian to call on more drivers to support the strike. He said: “Running a train without a guard is akin to flying a plane with no cabin crew: 99.99% of journeys would occur without incident, but if and when something does go wrong, the consequences are much more likely to be catastrophic.”
He added: “Transferring door control to drivers is a necessary first step towards getting rid of guards altogether, which is why SWR and the Tories are so determined to make it happen. This is not about technology or automation, this is about the vital safety responsibilities of one grade of staff being dumped on to another grade who already have plenty to deal with.
“We regularly carry in excess of a thousand passengers on a single train and the idea of having to single-handedly safely manage that number of people in a major incident is frankly terrifying. Every year the industry already sees serious incidents and near-misses which are directly caused or made worse by the absence of a guard.”
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The Liberal Democrat candidate Monica Harding, who is running against Dominic Raab in Esher and Walton, has called on the RMT and South Western Railway (SWR) to end the strike impasse. Residents in the constituency depend heavily on SWR to commute into central London.
In a recent blogpost, Harding said: “Under the Tories, Esher and Walton commuters have been catastrophically let down. People are paying way over the odds for what has often been an appalling service and fixing this is high on their list of priorities. Yet Dominic Raab has done little to represent them and even his voting record shows he has consistently voted against slowing the rises to rail fares.”
The situation in Esher and Walton is being closely watched as pollsters suggest it could provide this election’s “Portillo moment”. The foreign secretary now only holds a five-point lead over the Lib Dems with less than two weeks before voting, according to a Deltapoll survey. In 2017, Raab had a massive 23,298 majority.
The fact he now faces such a close race means he is vulnerable to a so-called Portillo moment – a reference to the shock defeat of Michael Portillo in the Labour landslide of 1997.
Harding is also calling for rail fare freezes and the creation of a “Railways Agency” to hold companies to account, removing the Department for Transport from day-to-day decision-making.
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SWR’s managing director, Andy Mellors, said the company was running more than half of its normal services.
He said there had been further disruption on Monday morning after police had to board a train in Woking because of an incident unrelated to the industrial action.
Mellors told PA Media: “We are running over half of our services today, so clearly there is potential for some customers to have trains that are busier than usual.
“But we are here at Waterloo station and passengers are moving freely.”
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Here’s some responses to the Guardian’s callout to those affected by the strike.
Gary from Walton-on-Thames said he had to call work to explain he cannot get in:
“Not only is SWR on strike today but they have also decided to reduce the number of carriages on their trains! I stood outside with the temperature at -2 degrees this morning for almost an hour and both trains that were due to arrive were late and had reduced carriages. People couldn’t get on the train (including myself). I have now had to call my work and explain that I cannot get in. This is a disgrace. The government needs to step in to do something about this. I’m sick of it.”
Kate, who works in the City and travels from Winchester, said she feels the strikes are following her:
“Over half of the trains to and from Winchester are cancelled and whilst I have a very understanding boss and can work from home, I prefer to work from the office. I moved to Winchester three years ago after being on the Southern Railway route for many years and subjected to their strikes for the same reason – guards on trains. I feel the strikes are following me! I agree with having a guard on every train, without question. What is frustrating for this strike is that both sides seem to be strongly disagreeing with each other and so no-one quite know what the actual issue is.”
Michael Aaronson, 70, a freelance consultant from Wanborough says he and other passengers feel abandoned:
“I normally travel to London Waterloo. There are no trains and no replacement bus services from our station for the duration of the strike, so I and my fellow passengers from Wanborough are effectively abandoned by SWR for the whole of December. What makes this doubly absurd is that Great Western Railway (GWR), also runs trains through our station but hardly any of them stop here. So we are all thrown back to using our cars, adding yet more pressure to the congested roads around Guildford.”
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Labour backs the strikes
Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, has backed the striking railway workers and said South Western Railways need to “give their heads a shake”. He accused the company of reneging on deal agreed with the union.
McDonald, who has been doing the media rounds this morning, told LBC: “This is so frustrating. Right across the country, those issues have been resolved to everybody’s satisfaction. Putting those safety-critical guards on trains has happened everywhere.
“Yet South Western, who had an agreement with the trade union, have reneged on that agreement and we now find ourselves in that terrible situation.”
Speaking to Nick Ferrari, he said: “They should have stuck to the agreement that had been reached, then this wouldn’t be happening.
“I’m hugely disappointed that they have taken this step and if they would do what the other train operators have done and give that guarantee and put those guards on the trains, this matter would be resolved imminently and people could go about their preparations for Christmas without any interruption whatsoever.
“They need to give their heads a shake.”
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This was the scene outside Earlsfield station, in south-west London, just after 8am. It later grew even bigger snaking round the corner.
It also had a knock-on effect on local buses which quickly filled up and didn’t stop at many stops due to lack of room.
Here’s another picture from Earlsfield station
Avoid Earlsfield Station if you can #swrstrike pic.twitter.com/k6RnWfGOvd
— Sophia Griffiths (@SophiaGG) December 2, 2019
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Here’s a great Q&A from Gwyn Topham, the Guardian’s transport correspondent, about today’s strike:
When are the strikes?
The strikes started at 0.01am on Monday and in effect run for the rest of the month. RMT union members will strike for 27 days – for all the rest of December except Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when no trains run anyway, and 12 December, general election day, a hiatus too short to bring back full services.
How much disruption will they cause?
South Western Railway (SWR) expects to run about half of its trains most weekdays, with no trains after 11pm. Peak services are likely to be extremely busy where frequencies are cut, with queueing systems in place at busy stations. For commuters already used to standing on overcrowded trains, it could be a grim month even if their trains are running.
Why are they taking place?
The strikes are part of an ongoing row about the role and responsibilities of guards. New trains allow driver-only or driver-controlled operation – including closing the doors – and unions want to ensure guards keep a safety-critical role. Although SWR says it will guarantee a second crew member onboard, unions say they have not had sufficient assurances and believe that guards could be axed in the future if companies choose to do so.
Read more below
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The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a business networking and support organisation, has said the strikes will have a “detrimental impact” on key sectors of London’s economy.
Sean McKee, director of policy and public affairs at London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “London businesses recognise the right to strike, but this prolonged strike action is a cynical move deliberately designed to cause inconvenience to the travelling public in the run to, and through, Christmas. It will have a detrimental impact to key sectors of the capital’s economy, which rely upon festive and tourism trade.”
McKee added: “With peak services under increased pressure due to so many cancellations, and long queues expected at busy stations, it’s sadly inevitable that this cynically long strike will have an impact on commuting workers and businesses during peak commuting times. With trains due to finish earlier it will also impact shift work and the night time economy – key to the festive economy.”
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While commuting has been a nightmare for most passengers using South Western Railway this morning, the Guardian’s editor for community, Caroline Bannock, had, to her surprise, a problem-free journey.
She said: “On Monday morning at 6.30am Salisbury station car park can be quiet, but on the first day of the 27 day strike by RMT staff at South Western Railway, it was nearly empty.
“The train departures board in the station showed that all the trains were running on time and there was no reduced service during heavy commuter times before 0800. After that trains were scheduled every hour, instead of every half hour.
“The 6.47am left Salisbury on time. From Basingstoke, it was standing room only on my train, which didn’t bode well for the next stop Woking. However the platform there was almost empty when we pulled in around 0745.
“The train arrived at London Waterloo on time at 0816. That’s the first time that’s happened in a while.”
Lucky for some ...
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Steve Hedley, the senior assistant general secretary of the RMT, told Sky News this morning that the strikes were about safety, not pay.
He said: “This dispute is not about more money and it’s not about a shorter working week. It’s about the safety role of the guard. Eight out of 10 most serious accidents happen on driver-only operated trains. Assaults have gone up over 100% in the last five years on driver-only operated trains. Sexual assaults have gone up 140% in the past five years.
“It’s critical that there’s a guard there and a guard has safety responsibility for that train.”
When asked whether 27 days of commuter chaos was a way to fix the issues, he raised, Hedley said: “It’s the only option that people have left. We’ve called off strikes in the summer and early autumn because we thought we were very, very close to a deal.
“In fact, three weeks ago we had a deal on the table that everybody had agreed to that had been safety validated … And then that had been pulled and our members our absolutely furious. Look, no one wants to lose 27 days of pay coming up to Christmas, they don’t want to do that, but they’ve already lost nearly 40 days of pay over the past two years.”
You can watch the interview with Kay Burley below.
"No one wants to lose 28 days of pay coming up to Christmas"@SteveHedley3 of the @RMTunion says the rail strikes are about safety and not about pay. MR#KayBurley at #Breakfast#RMTStrike #SWRStrike pic.twitter.com/qvqUohLMDM
— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) December 2, 2019
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Union bosses and South Western Rail blame each other
Talks between the two sides collapsed last week, with the union and company blaming each other for the strike action.
The RMT general secretary, Mick Cash, said:
RMT members are standing rock solid and united on South Western Railway this morning as we begin a full month of strike action in support of the safest method of train operation and dispatch. This strike is solely about protecting safety and accessibility on SWR trains.
“RMT is angry and frustrated that a set of proposals that would have guaranteed the safety-critical role of the guard at the point of despatch, and which would have cost the company absolutely nothing, were kicked back in our faces last week. There is no rational explanation for the company position and we can only assume that either they or their paymasters in government wanted this strike action to go ahead for politically motivated purposes.
“The union believes that cutting the guard out of the dispatch process reduces the second person on the train to little more than a passenger in the longer term which would give the company the option of axing them all together at some point down the line. The stakes could not be higher.”
Meanwhile, a South Western Railway spokesman said:
We have done everything we can and more to meet the RMT’s outdated demands with our promise of a guard on every train, and a safety-critical role for that guard.
“What we are not prepared to compromise on is the much-needed modernisation of the service with improved performance, safety and customer service that our new fleet of modern suburban trains will vitally deliver for customers.
“We know our passengers will welcome over 10 million more passenger journeys a year arriving on time and this much-needed improvement to our service is too important to compromise.
“Throughout negotiations we have tried repeatedly to find ways meet the RMT’s aspirations. However, every time we find a way forward on one point, the union has moved the goalposts by changing its position.
They said at the outset this was about keeping the guard on the train – that is exactly what we have offered.
“They said they wanted a safety-critical role for that guard – that is what we have offered.
“Unfortunately it is clear to us that the RMT is unclear on what this dispute is about and intent on striking no matter what.
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Richard Clarke, who works in insurance and travels between Farncombe and Waterloo, sent this photo of his train this morning.
Clarke said: “I am on the 7.01 and it is horrendous, full and standing once we left Guildford.
“The trains, unsurprisingly when you consider their recent performance, were delayed. As expected, I didn’t get a seat and once we had left Guildford (the stop after mine) the train was so full that no one could even force their way on once we arrived at Woking. One lady tried to but gave up, turned around and left.”
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Some commuters are using the Twitter hashtag #swrstrike to vent their frustration about the strike. Here’s a selection from those commuting this morning.
Day 1 of the #SouthWesternRailway strike. This is going to fun 😪😪😪 #swrstrike pic.twitter.com/pSSkVziIAe
— Michelle (@chelle_akua) December 2, 2019
Day one of @SW_Railway strike, 6.30am. Already huge delays to few trains running, massive overcrowding & ‘signal failure’. This just isn’t sustainable for a month. The franchise should be taken away from them. @SW_Help #swrstrike
— Hattie C (@hatsa) December 2, 2019
Dear @SW_Help, I cannot believe that on a #SWRstrike day when there only 2 trains from my station in the peak hour against the normal 6, you have *shortened* train length by a third. Please have some thought for your passengers
— Clare Moriarty (@ClareMoriarty) December 2, 2019
It’s only 7am and already this train to Richmond is packed. Glad I didn’t leave any later. #swrstrike pic.twitter.com/kwmhH2D9eE
— Alison Bunce (@BattyBunce) December 2, 2019
Good start to the #swrstrike. Train from Shepperton to Kingston (only) delayed. Arrived at latter for the train to Waterloo - unsurprisingly, it’s delayed. @SW_Help @SW_Railway are a disgrace, but so to are the gov. for letting this farce continue (especially as fares go up YoY)
— Adam Flowers (@adzflowers) December 2, 2019
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Are you taking part in or affected by the South Western rail strikes? We’d like to hear your experiences
A month of strike action by South Western Railway (SWR) staff starts on Monday across its entire network.
RMT union members will walk out every day of the month apart from 1 December, 12 December – election day – and 25 and 26 December.
We want to hear about how the strikes have affected you or will affect you in the weeks to come. Are you a member of the RMT taking part in the strikes? What are your main reasons for doing so? Are you you are a commuter who uses SWR? How do you expect your journey to be affected? How do you feel about the strikes taking place?
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Morning, my name is Aamna Mohdin and I’m running the live blog on the South Western Railway (SWR) strike. SWR is one of the busiest commuter lines in the country – used by about 600,000 passengers daily – and all who use the service are expected to be affected.
Here’s some background from our transport correspondent, Gwyn Topham. He reports:
A month of misery for hundreds of thousands of rail commuters begins on Monday when RMT members of South Western Railway walk out on the first of 27 days of strike action.
Hundreds of guards and a small number of drivers will not clock on for work again this Christmas, apart from on election day on 12 December, in a bitter row over the role and responsibilities of onboard train crew. The train firm was among others to be hit by similar strike action last year over the role of guards.
Only about half of normal weekday services will run on SWR, the UK’s second biggest train operator with about 600,000 passenger trips a day from Surrey, Hampshire and beyond into London Waterloo, the country’s busiest station.
I’ll be bringing all the action and keeping you updated with all the developments. To send me tips, your best bet is to tweet me @aamnamohdin
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