Hello and a very happy new year to you all, especially if you
are reading this on Rugby railway station wondering why all
the tracks are still in the ground waiting to be turned from
iron ore into something on which a train one day might run.
Or conversely, you might be at Birmingham International
pondering the vexing question of why the whole thing had
to be shut down for two hours because of what the emergency
services called a ‘small fire’ in a nearby cafe.
Well, I am afraid the answer is simple. In the olden days, all
that stood between the bosses and the work being done was
the trade union movement. And the unions could be silenced
most of the time with a corned-beef sandwich and a vague
promise of some jam tomorrow for the workforce.
Not any more. Now, when you want to get something
done, the union boys are the least of your worries. Because
you must also ensure that no Muslims or gingers are upset in
any way by what you’re planning, that no creatures, even if
they are rubbish ones like snails or foxes, will be dislodged,
that you won’t make any unnecessary carbon dioxides, that
all those involved will wear orange clothes, hard hats and
boots made from box-girder bridges, that they are all as sober
as a Sunday-best Swede and that, should a small fire break
out within 200 miles, provisions are in place to send everyone
home for at least a year.
That’s before you go to the government, which gives you
£2.50 to replace every railway line in the country because all
the rest of the money it gets each year is being spent on
arresting Pete Doherty and holding public inquiries into how
it lost the medical records, banking details, driving records
and previous convictions of everyone
in the world. These
public inquiries can be convened only once all concerned are
aware that they can’t kill a fox or upset a red-headed person
and that if there’s a fire nearby they must sail immediately to
a point midway across the Atlantic and sit there until it, and
every other fire in the world, has been put out. And an investigation
then has to be held to find out what caused it and
who’s responsible and how that person should be punished.
Unless they are ginger, in which case they will get a free tinfoil
coat, a bit of soup and some counselling.