The little engine that couldn't
NatRail is the biggest mistake the SNP has made in, oh, at least 24 hours.
This is my sketch of First Minister’s Questions, held on Thursday, May 19, 2022.
‘Here we go!’
The Nationalist benches heaved in collective disdain. They were not enamoured of Douglas Ross demanding an apology from the First Minister.
The reason this week? A mere seven weeks into her nationalisation of the railways, the whole shebang was a shambles. Pay disputes. Driver shortages. Services cut. She's been like Beeching on an express timetable.
'"Here we go”, SNP members say,' Ross sputtered. 'Well, yes. Here we go: will the First Minister apologise to the thousands of passengers who have faced disruption since the SNP took control of Scotland’s railways?'
Whenever Ross gets angry, his eyes bulge and his head thrusts forward like a farmyard chicken that's just realised what the 'F' in KFC stands for.
Sturgeon said 'ScotRail' had 'taken the decision to put in place a temporary timetable', that 'ScotRail' had considered this 'preferable to unplanned cancellations', that she expected 'ScotRail' to 'make sure the temporary timetable is just that, temporary'.
She talked about the rail provider as though it were some shady operation that had just come to light. In fact, it's now part of the shadiest operation of all: the Scottish Government.
Ross sketched out the service cuts coming down the tracks: 'Passengers deserve an apology and not only for the cuts up to now. From next week, there will be even more, with 700 services being lost every day. Almost a third of services will disappear.'
You have to hand it to the hapless busybodies in St Andrew’s House. Only that nettlesome nidifice of nincompoops could take over ScotRail and make it worse.
Ross read out union boss Kevin Lindsay's comments on dealing with the Scottish Government over the pay dispute: 'Quite frankly, it’s the worst negotiations I have been part of in 30 years as a union representative.'
Transport doesn't seem to be their forte. They took over a railway and lost 700 train journeys. They took over an airport and cut passenger numbers in half. They took over a shipyard and can’t build a pair of ferries. Put them in charge of NASA and the Moon would go into administration.
'I expect the timetable to return to normal as quickly as possible,' Sturgeon offered. 'That expectation is being made very clear to ScotRail.'
Again with the made-clear-to-ScotRail patter. The franchise is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sturgeon Inc and yet somehow the big cheese is still not responsible when things go wrong. It's a very Sturgeon form of public ownership: she's nationalised the assets and privatised the blame.
That wasn't even the best spin of the day. In the dying minutes of FMQs, Fiona Hyslop steamed in with an absolute doozy.
She opined: 'South of the border, the UK Government is pursuing a dispute with the rail unions for what can only be described as political and ideological purposes. Does the First Minister share my concern that events elsewhere in the UK are souring industrial relations in Scotland and affecting the new beginning of public ownership of Scotland’s railway?'
Of course! It was the Tories' fault all along!
The Nats blame Westminster for a lot of things but this was a first: the Conservative government had inspired Scottish train drivers to get industrially bolshie. It conjured an image of an anoraked Grant Shapps outside Glasgow Central Station, a loudhailer in one hand and an unsold slab of Socialist Workers in the other, straining to raise the class consciousness of passing locomotive operators.
'It is not surprising the Conservatives do not want to hear that,' Sturgeon retorted over Tory jeering. Don't want to hear it? They'd beam that clip into every train station in the land if they could.
Sass of the Week goes to Anas Sarwar. Sturgeon scolded him for the last Labour government's failure to nationalise the railways, prompting this rejoinder: 'The First Minister wants to talk about what was happening when I was in school, not what’s happening in the 15 years when she’s been in government.’
The cheek on him. Kids today.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on May 20, 2022.
What a great line “… she's nationalised the assets and privatised the blame.”
Superb article as always