"How was your holiday?"
Him: "Great."
Her: "Terrible."
Both (doing a cartoon-like double take of each other): "What?!"
Mark Harper, the new Transport Secretary and Mike Lynch, the very established RMT General Secretary, emerged from a meeting yesterday (Thursday 24 November) having apparently occupied different rooms for the duration of it. Will they, won't they? It depends upon which room you spent most time in. Mike allowed the word 'positive' to escape his lips, whilst asserting that those nasty rail strikes will continue. Mark appears to have been in the room containing the booze.
Just down the road in the newly opened Kings Ears public house, hospitality bosses gathered to plead for swift resolution of the rail workers’ dispute to prevent a fresh round of strikes from condemning the industry to its third bleak Christmas in a row. They seem to think that there is £1.5 billion waiting to be spent on drink, nuts, crisps and food in their establishments during the upcoming busiest period of the year, and are unimpressed that rail strikes planned for 13, 14, 16 and 17 December might stymie their best interests.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, is striking Mr Lynch off her Christmas card list, grumbling that: the planned rail strikes would “deal a hammer blow” to pubs and restaurants in city centres up and down the country. She said: “This will be catastrophically bad for hospitality workers, customers and businesses - it’s the biggest trading week of the year and vital to securing viability for many businesses after three years of turmoil.”
Kate is prepared to spread the blame around, adding: "The Government should not let this happen." Let's hope Mark Harper is yet another avid reader of the NTI news bulletins, reads this article and comes to his senses. C'mon, Mark; you should not be permitting this to happen.
It is not just soaring costs, energy prices and labour shortages, but also the loss of tips and bonuses for staff which are then fed back into the economy via more booze, food, plastic Christmas gifts made in China and (ironically) rail fares. The circle of our financial system needs to turn, so Mark and Mike - get onto that.
