“I cannot simply operate outside the law, however much I might be tempted to, however much people might want me to,” a pained Chris Grayling said on TV yesterday. As the first all-out drivers’ strike shut down the entirety of Southern’s network, the Transport Secretary insisted to interviewers he was powerless in this struggle between unions and a private rail operator.
But rewind to February and Grayling’s Department for Transport was putting out a very different message. “Over the next three years we’re going to be having punch-ups and we will see industrial action and I want your support,” Peter Wilkinson, the Department’s passenger services director, told a public meeting:
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