I SUPPORT Manchester United and it’s a painful experience.
Not just because they’ve been pretty crap this season but because — and I’ll do the gag before you do — like all true fans of the club, I live in the South.
And that means relying on the p**s poor Avanti trains to get me and my lad to Old Trafford.
Last time, after shelling out the usual £80 to this shameless monopoly service provider, we sat on the floor.
A previous trip was an hour late leaving. Another was cancelled due to the latest maddening strike. The time before that . . . you get the picture.
Britain’s trains are broken. A rip-off. A global embarrassment.
Something has to change.
Labour think they have the answer and yesterday reminded us that if, when, they get to power this year they will re-nationalise this train wreck of a service.
In other words, bring back British Rail.
The party’s plan is to refocus the nascent Great British Railways being set up by the Tories to replace Network Rail and use it to drive this renationalisation, reabsorbing the franchises not already taken back under state control.
It is a bold move given that for many, notably John Major who did away with BR by 1997, the phrase “nationalised rail service” brings back memories of smoke-filled carriages and filthy trains and, yes, those sandwiches.
But Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, who fleshed out the policy yesterday, knows the increasingly exasperated public likes it — 69 per cent according to a YouGov poll this month.
She insisted her party will nationalise the “failing system” within five years in England, which will “top to bottom work in the interest of the passenger”.
Well, it could hardly get much worse for us.
Latest figures, for 2022/23, show only two thirds of trains arrived on time.
Complaints rocketed by 23 per cent from the previous year.
Customers are stuck in a doom loop of ever-rising prices, late or cancelled services and endless crippling strikes (more are planned for next month).
The dogmatic dinosaurs who run the rail unions are also effectively the Fat Controllers of the railways.
These money-grabbing Marxists still think we’re living in the steam age, protecting jobs that should have been binned or automated years ago while demanding eye watering wage rises.
Train drivers can’t live on £60,000 a year, they must have more, more, more.
Under a new £600-a-shift overtime deal announced last month, some drivers at Avanti — which had its franchise renewed last year despite running what Haigh then described as “an abysmal service” — could earn a reported £100,000.
Union negotiations with the train operators only ever end up with another massive bill for the taxpayer, who already prop up the train industry to the tune of £21.1BILLION.
This is the culture that Labour has to extinguish if it stands any chance of fixing this monstrous mess and stopping the train operators taking us for a ride.
The party formed out of the trade union movement must now get tough with those unions.
Has Sir Keir Starmer, who recently praised union-smashing Mrs Thatcher for affecting “meaningful change” in Britain, and his new New Labour got the bottle for that fight?
At present the signs are not great. TFL, the publicly owned London travel network, is forever being held to ransom by unions threatening to shut down the Tube unless their ludicrous pay and working practice demands are met.
They have had much success.
During their heist in January, Labour mayor Sadiq Khan magically found £30million of public cash — syphoned from business rates and council tax — to accede to their pay demands, to shouts of “blackmail” from the Tories.
This money with menaces could get worse if the unions, licking their lips at this plan, think their team is in power.
Already Haigh has hinted that she has a mountain to climb, admitting she could not guarantee fares would not go up, despite promising a “best-price ticket guarantee”.
So a shiny new train may be coming into the platform but we shall have to wait to see if it arrives on time . . . or just ends up hitting the buffers.
LOOKING at the acres of coverage about that old bat who said Sydney Sweeney was “not pretty”, you’d think only women were allowed to wade into the row.
Presumably, red-blooded men like me can’t be trusted not to say something “inappropriate”.
You know, something like how she looks so utterly stunning and cool you’d burn your Cup Final tickets just to sit next to her on the bus.
No, men aren’t allowed to say things like that because it’s sexist.
So I’m staying out of it.
MASSIVE k*** spotted on This Morning this week.
No, Phillip Schofield hadn’t made a surprise return, it was courtesy of guest Matt Barr, 40, who has the dubious honour of owning Britain’s largest penis.
His 12in school ruler size whanger is TWICE that of the average todger. But rather than helping him collect notches in his bedpost and being hero worshipped by his pals, it’s driving him to despair.
A visibly nervous Matt – presumably poised for a barrage of pecker puns – told the admirably restrained hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley that he’d even considered REDUCTION surgery but had baulked at the £15k price tag. Apparently such surgery is very rare. No surprise there, perhaps, but it did get me wondering. What do they do with all the bits they cut off?
Do they follow the hairdressers route of handing the offcuts over to those who could use them more?
Asking for a friend.
HONOURS are handed out like sweets to celebrities these days, many undeserved.
So it was nice to see Glastonbury founder and good egg Michael Eavis being made a Sir by the Princess Royal for his charity work and running the world’s best music festival.
It felt especially heartwarming as it will no doubt annoy the right-on Glasto hippies, who reckon such trinkets are a throwback to the evil British Empire.
My only complaint was Eavis turned up for the ceremony in a suit rather than his trademark shorts.
That really would have been a “Glastonbury Moment”.
YOU have to feel for Taylor Swift’s latest “boyfriend”, Travis Kelce, as he dissects her latest album and its indelicate dissing of her exes.
The peculiar pop star seems only to enter into a relationship in order to find material for her next record.
A staggering 14 former flames have now been, er, flamed by her caustic cuteness.
It must make date nights pretty awkward with every move big Trav, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, makes having the potential to become the soundtrack to a future teen drama montage or perfume ad.
Already AI geniuses have created Taylor’s first break-up single with a saccharine-soaked ballad bursting with American Football wordplay.
Sample lyric: “You put the ‘end’ in ‘tight end’.”
Check it out on @ThereIRuinedIt on Instagram.
JIMMY CARR has become the latest comedian to do a Netflix special, which means only one thing: A new volley of “offensive” jokes.
Now, I like a bad-taste gag, especially one at my expense, and am rarely shocked.
So I streamed Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer with interest.
How low could he go?
The answer was very low indeed.
Carr, whose bizarre physical transformation now makes him look and act like a ventriloquist’s dummy, seems to be mildly obsessed by jokes about rape.
I won’t repeat them here because we’re a family newspaper.
Suffice to say they are extremely edgy and will not be to everyone’s taste.
But then he goes a bit weird.
In an effort, presumably, to look like a decent guy who isn’t just preoccupied by rape, he breaks out of the routine for a spot of “serious face” virtue signalling.
“Those are very clearly jokes about rape, but we don’t take rape seriously enough as a society, as a culture,” he informs us, before expressing irritation about the idea of “date rape”.
“We shouldn’t be calling anything date rape. It’s rape,” he insists to a fulsome round of applause, burnishing the “one of the good guys” halo he evidently craves.
But, alas, all is not so simple in the world of the former tax avoider.
This apparent outrage over the assault and violation of women comes just minutes after a sinister “joke” so knucklehead-in-the-pub unfunny I’m surprised it made the cut.
It goes: “My girlfriend snores quite a lot…but luckily I’ve got these noise cancelling fists.”
Oof!
That’s Jimmy Carr, ladies. He’s on your side.
CRACKING pun from my daughter after I explained how a recent spicy Thai meal had left my guts feeling a little tender.
“You know what you’ve got, Daddy? Fire-rrhea.”
Gold star.
