Transport Secretary Grant Shapps' rail strikes failure is outrageous - Yorkshire Post Letters

It is outrageous that Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is behaving like Pontius Pilate – washing his hands on the rail dispute and saying that it has nothing to do with him.

When an issue is affecting the economy of the country and the welfare of the public, it is right and proper that the Government does intervene to convene a meeting with both the rail workers and their employers.

Furthermore, is not he Government the owner of the nationalised East Coast mainline? Clearly, a two per cent pay rise is unacceptable when the cost of living has gone up five and six times higher.

It is essential that both sides meet to agree on an acceptable level of pay increase, giving a profit for shareholders and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

From: Bob Watson, Baildon.

The appalling article by Andy McDonald, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough, (The Yorkshire Post, June 21) told us exactly why we should never again have a Labour Government running our country.

Give the striking railway workers everything that they want, and then do the same for various other public sector workers. He simply confirmed that the Labour way forward would bankrupt the country, one already struggling due to the effects of Covid and the war in Ukraine, and relegate us to third world status.

His 1970s’ attitude, one hoped, had been consigned to history, but with MPs such as this still in Parliament we must certainly not rest on our laurels. Danger lurks in many corners.

I suspect that the railway workers will engender little sympathy from the public who realise that much belt-tightening is necessary, and pain will have to be endured for some time yet.

Unfortunately realism is in short supply with the blinkered railway union leaders and people such as Andy McDonald.