Overpaid rail union chiefs are heaping yet more misery on ordinary families with their politically-inspired strikes

Rail wreckers

THE overpaid dinosaurs leading the rail unions imagine they are giving the Government a bloody nose as they go ahead with more politically inspired strikes this week, but who are they really targeting?

The latest crippling industrial action will heap yet more misery on ordinary families just trying to get on with their lives in tough times.

Football fans trying to get to Wembley for the FA Cup final; mums and dads hoping to make the most of the half-term heatwave with a trip to the coast; and staff in pubs and restaurants which face another £100million of lost sales on top of the £3billion hit they have already taken thanks to the “brothers”.

Do union leaders care that they are threatening the livelihoods of workers who can only dream of earning as much as train drivers already do? Do they hell.

The real stupidity is that they are putting another nail in the coffin of the massively subsidised rail industry, and threatening rail workers’ own jobs, as passengers are forced to find alternative transport and learn to live without an unaffordable, unreliable train service.

For another three days this week, the only people the unions will be taking for a ride are their members.

Parole boost

AT last some sanity as Justice Secretary Alex Chalk tells The Sun that vital parole reforms will go ahead before the next election, giving ministers new powers to stop the release of dangerous criminals.

The family of Joanna Simpson, whose story so moved Mr Chalk, will be praying the reforms come into force soon.

They live in fear that Joanna’s airline pilot husband Robert Brown, who avoided a murder conviction despite beating Joanna to death with a claw-hammer and hiding her body, will be released early by the Parole Board in November having served half of his 26-year manslaughter sentence.

The Board’s shocking previous record of thinking it would be acceptable to release the likes of taxi rapist John Worboys and murderer Colin Pitchfork has understandably left them in dread.

Drives you mad

ACCIDENTS on the road can happen to the best of drivers.

But how many people will regard it as “accidental” when MPs put their driving fines on expenses and, “Oops”, repay the wrongly claimed money only if and when the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority notices?

You might hope the parliamentary expenses scandal of more than a decade ago would have cured MPs of sticking their snouts in the public trough.

It’s hard to believe it has, though, when some are still submitting claims with such a lack of due care and attention.