I never thought I'd say this to passengers on the UK railways, but: 'Stop whinging!'
| Of course the British railway system is terrible. It was bad before the Tory government privatised it in the mid-1990s, privatisation made it a whole lot worse, and as Austin Williams spells out on spiked today, there are a host of reasons why New Labour has compounded the situation (see Facts about the tracks). But what is the Great Rail Debate really all about?
| The ongoing discussion about the problems with the UK rail system is conspicuous by its lack of solutions. When the government announced on 14 January 2002 that it would provide the beleaguered system with £4.5billion funding over 10 years (1), there were immediate complaints that this involved 'no new money' on top of what had already been budgeted. But there is no groundswell of support for spending more of taxpayers' money on the railways, and still less for raising ticket prices.
| This is understandable of course - scepticism about the government's 10-year plan abounds (the Financial Times even said it should be read as 'a work of fiction') (2), and if the alternative to a bad railway system is an even more expensive bad railway system, no wonder people balk at coughing up. Yet when nobody has a solution, this endless chewing over the problem is little more than miserablist small talk.
| That, however, is part of the point. The key whingers in this debate are not, in fact, rail passengers. Apart from the obligatory, loaded commuter vox-pops, the 'voice of the commuter' tends to be embodied in the likes of David da Costa of the Better Rail Advisory Group, who is organising a 'commuters' strike' for 1 March 2002 (3). How is he supposed to represent commuters? Who voted for him?
| Beyond these self-appointed pressure groups, the key whingers are commentators wanting to feel our pain. For those in the media preoccupied with how to 'connect' with their audience, the commuting discussion is a godsend. They swap horror stories about morning rush-hour hell on a Kent platform or underground station, content in the knowledge that they are, on this issue at least, 'one of us' - and not part of the political elite responsible for the whole mess.
| Even those who are obviously part of the political elite manage to gain from the 'commuters R us' game. Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics and omnipresent in the recent transport debates, wrote a two-page 'open letter' to UK prime minister Tony Blair in the London Evening Standard on 7 January 2002 (4). In his rant against the 'degrading' nature of train and Tube travel, he comments: 'Ministers are spared the misery and indignity of London commuter travel, whisked to their offices by chauffeurs', before referring to the well-worn example of John 'Two Jags' Prescott, the former transport secretary.
| So we're all commuters now (except for government ministers). This phoney war might make insecure commentators feel more rooted among their audience, but it does little to help solve the railway problem.
| The Great Rail Debate reflects the warped nature of much of contemporary political debate. At the beginning of 2002, when the rail strikes started, transport secretary Stephen Byers was verbally flogged in the press for daring to leave the country. He retorted - quite reasonably - that he had a right to take a holiday; which was duly greeted as further evidence of the government's arrogance and insensitivity to the plight of commuters. But what was Byers supposed to do about the situation? The main purpose of him coming home simply seemed to be that he could be worried and humiliated - which surely indicates just how shallow notions of accountability and political responsibility have become.
| The calls for Byers to cut his holiday short seem halfway reasonable when compared to the subsequent clamour for Tony Blair to stop messing about abroad and deal with the 'real' issues at home - that is, the railways. 'Congratulations on your statesmanlike tour of Egypt, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh,' begins Tony Travers' 'open letter' to the PM. 'Now is it too much to ask that you give five minutes' attention to the desperate plight of millions of your own people?'
| There are plenty of reasons to be critical of Blair's recent globe-trotting - not least, what he is doing to the rest of the world. It is also true that the government's foreign adventures provide a convenient distraction from its domestic problems. But as with Byers, what did anybody want Blair actually to do once he got home? The notion that international relations - even in a time of war - are less important than being publicly pilloried by angry commuters shows politics reduced to its most banal. The fact that Travers is not alone in articulating this point of view is more depressing still.
| Amid all this bickering and hyperbole, we could easily forget that this latest instalment of the Great Rail Debate was sparked by the rail union strikes at the beginning of the new year. Although let's face it, the strikes are hardly memorable. What were they about - safety, pay, an incident of disciplinary action? It has never been particularly clear. Most noticeably, the strikers gained negligible support and caused major public irritation, but this became quickly absorbed into the general disgruntlement with the state of the railways. Strikes, accidents, weather, power failures - does it really matter why the trains aren't running? All we know is that, much of the time, we expect to remain stationary.
| And that's really the outcome of this whole sorry story. The Great Rail Debate, devoid of vision or solutions, has become little more than a metaphor for Why Britain Is Crap. We're fed up with the trains, we're fed up with politics, we're fed up with work and we don't like the weather. Taking it all out on the railways gives the impression of a real debate about a real issue, when really it is an opportunity for a generalised moan. We might as well cheer up - after all, whatever happens with the railways, they are not on the brink of a speedy recovery.
Read on:
Facts about the tracks, by Austin Williams
When strikes were strikes, by Dave Hallsworth
Off the rails, by Austin Williams
spiked-proposals: Transport
(1) Extra £4.5bn for rail - but still more may be needed, Guardian, 15 January 2002
(2) Financial Times, 25 January 2002
(3) Passengers are urged to join one-day national rail boycott, Daily Telegraph, 8 January 2002
(4) Tony, could you spare a minute?, London Evening Standard, 7 January 2002
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