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If Theresa May had any power, Chris Grayling would have been fired by now

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Friday 04 January 2019 17:53 GMT
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Chris Grayling defends awarding contract for running ferries in a no deal Brexit to Seaborne Freight, despite it never running a ferry service before

There is a saying that people are promoted to their own level of incompetence. This maxim is especially applicable to Chris Grayling. Last year, he presided over chaos over the rail timetable changes and the worst record in train delays and cancellations for well over a decade. This week we discover that his department has awarded a £13m contract to a company that has never run a ferry to run a ferry service in the event of a no-deal Brexit. 

In any other walk of business he would have been dismissed but his loyalty to Theresa May and the fact that he ran her leadership campaign are the reasons why he is still in post. What a pitiful state of affairs.

Chris Key
Address supplied

May I speak plainly and say what I think is obvious. Chris Grayling is incompetent and an embarrassment to the nation he is supposed to serve. For every job he has held he has left a legacy of poor decisions and inattention to his jobs. If Theresa May was anything like a decent manager she’d have fired him long ago. But the fact that she hasn’t shows her own desperation.

Steve Mumby
Bournemouth

Rail privatisation is a disaster

Our public services – electric, gas, water, NHS, trains – ought to be delivered at cost and developed for the users/consumers and not as a huge profit making activity.

The railway service has been badly run for decades, under funded and managed by nincompoops. It has been, and still is, too fragmented an organisation to be easily managed. It is a law unto itself given there is no competition between services. Occasionally the government watch-cat steps in and sweetly asks if it can help but does nothing to remedy major problems in the organisation.

Chris Grayling has proved himself to be no better than any of his predecessors and it appears to me that the train operators simply ride roughshod over him. The current dispute regarding manning levels has been festering for years and is still cruelly causing tremendous disruption to travellers trying get to work on time. There are many who have no alternative way of getting to their destination except the railway.

To enable a friend of mine to use the railway to travel between Basingstoke and Waterloo she has had to sell her car, to afford the increases in fares, now relying on her husband to take her to and from the station. She is economically trapped using the railway.

The trains do not run to schedule, are dangerously over crowded, vastly over-priced, squalid and the people who run them don’t care. It’s the bottom line that counts. Words and phrases like pride, job well done, customer satisfaction, run to time, clean and tidy rolling stock, safe journey, economical fares, etc just don’t exist in their vocabulary. If they did they probably would be sacked.

The fascination for HS2, which will cost billions of pounds, will have no effect on people trying to get to work in London from Brighton, Hatfield or Swindon. People who use stations on the margins of viable lines may now be in jeopardy of losing more services. The rolling stock will still be substandard and soon, if management has its way, there will be less safety while travelling.

If a survey was conducted now of the future needs of rail travellers it would not be for faster trains between London and the north but for punctuality, more capacity and seats, cleaner/safer rolling stock, stations that cater for modern travellers’ needs and above all value for money.

There is no competition for customers so each of the rail companies have a captured market that they have financially abused especially since being sold off to any buyer. What benefits has privatisation brought to the British public? None. And we are still subsidising the franchisees to run totally inadequate rail services. Madness!

Keith Poole
Basingstoke

Stop chasing away our neighbours

For EU citizens and their families living in the UK to have to pay £65 to secure the rights they already have to stay here beggars belief.

Putting aside the fact that there are not currently 235,000 EU citizens in Scotland, but in fact 5.4 million EU citizens, it is clearly deeply insulting to ask those who make such a major contribution to our economy and society to pay £65 for the apparent ongoing privilege.

Adding insult to injury, it should be remembered that this is also a group of individuals who were not even given the opportunity to vote in the EU referendum and decide the future of the country in which they live.

What we continue to forget is the value of EU citizens to the UK economy. Those from the EU living in the UK contribute substantially more than they cost, adding to exchequer coffers and easing the tax burden on other taxpayers. Those from the EU contribute £2,300 more each per year in net terms than the average UK adult to the exchequer. Over their lifetime they pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits, while the UK citizen’s net average contribution is zero.

This is because most of those from the EU arrive fully educated, and many leave before the costs of retirement start to weigh on the public finances. Taxes will therefore inevitably have to rise if we bring in curbs on those from the EU.

If we want to insult and chase away those who are not only our relatives, friends and colleagues, but who make such a major economic contribution, the UK government is going exactly the right way about it.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

Hard border, soft border... it won’t end well

Having read an old article of yours I have found myself questioning whether there is a potential border that can be mutually beneficial for both the UK and the EU.

A hard border seems to be the most negative situation as it will be highly expensive to maintain and will drastically reduce the productivity of businesses that regularly trade across the border. The huge effects it will have on the estimated 23,000-30,000 commuters who cross the border every day as part of their normal working lives must be considered. And that’s not to mention the very real possibility of it reigniting the tensions between nationalists and unionists on either side of the border, therefore negating the positive effects that the Good Friday Agreement ever had, which would obviously be, much like the rest of the Brexit negotiations, a complete disaster.

However, there is obviously a need for some form of border as it is likely that some UK businesses may move away from the EU regulatory standards if they are given the chance, meaning that customs checks will need to be in operation in some form. There will also need to be a restriction on free movement of people as allowing free movement into Northern Ireland provides a “back door” into the UK for migrants. The location of the border checks also risks alienating Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK if the restrictions on the free movement of goods and people are put in the Irish sea instead of along the Irish border.

When it comes to the issue of the Irish border, I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with Simon Coveney, the Irish deputy prime minister, when he said: “There is no such thing as a contingency plan that will maintain the status quo … this is a damage limitation exercise.”

Michael Marsh
Newcastle

Veganism isn’t a religion

The question asked in the headline of your recent article (“Is Veganism a religion? An employment tribunal is having to decide”) suggests there’s a possibility for veganism to be considered a religion. In reality there is none; veganism is based on facts, while religion is based on unproven information.

Veganism is a protected belief, not a religion, under the Equality Act 2010. The Act contains nine categories of protected characteristics, such as age and race. “Religion and belief” is another category and one veganism falls under. Veganism is a protected belief, akin to religion, but not the same as religion. It’s simply in the same category and the law treats religions and beliefs equally.

So the tribunal will actually determine whether veganism is a protected belief, not whether it’s a religion. No one has actually claimed that it is a religion (and it cannot be, by definition).

Dominika Piasecka 
The Vegan Society

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