Margaret Thatcher like leadership is required to bring the rail unions in line - Sarah Todd

“They sold me a £200 ticket when they must have known there were no trains running to London,” one lady who’d travelled into the station from Scarborough confided, realising she would never get to see the West End show she had been looking forward to.

All of a sudden the penny dropped. The previous incumbent of these column inches, former Tory chief press secretary the late Sir Bernard Ingham, would doubtless raise a wry smile or maybe even one of his legendary eyebrows.

Yes, it’s obvious. This country is long overdue for somebody with the backbone to shake an iron fist about like the late former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Forty years ago, in 1982, the train drivers’ union ASLEF called a national strike, aimed at bringing the railways to a standstill. The industrial action collapsed when British Rail, with Thatcher’s wholehearted backing, threatened to close the network indefinitely and sack anyone refusing to return to work. Thatcher had shortly before won the Falklands War and there was just no messing with her.

It’s impossible to imagine Rishi Sunak walking down the platform with purpose and giving any staff not offering to help passengers a right old rollicking. Same goes for Sir Keir Starmer. He looks more likely to ask them if their gender identity was being respected than tell a workforce to pull their socks up. This country needs somebody to step up to the plate and flex a bit of muscle.

Well done to Suffolk County Council, which has shown it means business by becoming the third authority in the country to defy trendy pandering to vegans and instead show its support for livestock farmers.

Last Thursday its councillors passed a motion to ‘always’ provide locally sourced meat and dairy options at its events. The move follows in the footsteps of Cornwall and North Northamptonshire councils in voting to keep meat and dairy rather than follow others like Oxfordshire and Edinburgh which have imposed purely plant-based.

Mo Metcalf-Fisher, of the Countryside Alliance, is absolutely right in saying it's time rural communities started to fight back.

“If we were to lose livestock farming - as is undoubtedly the aim of those wanting to impose plant-based eating - our countryside would turn into a barren wasteland,” she warns.

Surely North Yorkshire County Council, given the vast rural area it represents, should be following suit? Schools, prisons, care homes - nationwide they are all having eating agendas pushed on them. Student unions at universities including Birmingham and Cambridge have jumped on the bandwagon, passing motions to phase in 100 per cent plant-based menus. Nobody seems to dare stand up to them.

Offering vegetarian and vegan options is fine, it is the right thing to do, but the blinkered pushing of certain foods and lifestyle choices should be stamped out. Yorkshire’s rural authorities need to work out which side their bread is buttered and publically throw their support behind farming.

Talking of food, The Husband had Christmas come early the other day with his favourite vegetable -sprouts. Yes, it’s true. He loves the much maligned sprout. They were part of a festive-themed promotion in the supermarket, together with stollen cake and mince pies. We always say it, but isn’t it ridiculous how quickly Christmas comes to the shelves each year?

Some could argue that stocking up early is a fiscally wise tactic to spread the cost of the season. That doesn’t seem to be the message though. The marketing seems to be all about persuading people to spend longer buying ever-more more items they don’t need and probably can’t afford.

There is no doubt the shopkeeper’s daughter who became Prime Minister would have had a pearl of wisdom to share on the subject of modern shop shelves.