Grayling still media’s transport fall guy of choice

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling continued to be personally blamed for many of the country’s transport ills in late May/early June. On 25 May, for example, The Yorkshire Post, which has long been one of Grayling’s most trenchant critics, editorialised that: “By attempting to blame for this week’s rail chaos on others [sic], Grayling could not have been more disingenuous. After suggestions the region’s ‘knackered old trains’ could be apportioned to British Rail, which was abolished in 1994, he now says Northern leaders are also culpable.

“The audacity,” the paper exclaimed. “The latest problems cannot be blamed on local leaders. It comes down to the DfT and subsidised operators like Northern Rail not foreseeing the possible pitfalls. For this Grayling – as transport secretary – must take full responsibility… This week’s misery for passengers [has] revealed, once again, the minister’s contempt for this region.”

At a national level, meanwhile, The Times has also been a longstanding critic of Grayling’s alleged failings. “Mr Grayling has the oratory of a rail replacement bus service,” Matt Chorley, editor of the paper’s ‘Red Box’ online political section, observed on 26 May. “Slow, pointless diversions that leave you wanting to kill yourself. He is the opposite of Midas. Everything he touches turns to a steaming, 24-carat disaster.”

On 5 June it was the turn of Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff to lampoon Grayling. “There are Whitehall mutterings that any minister following him into a department can expect to spend a fair while sorting out the mess,” Hinsliff said. “The Ministry of Justice is still grappling with the legacy of his three years there… Yet somehow Grayling lurches on.

“This [the Northern Rail ‘fiasco’] doesn’t, in theory, make a particularly strong case for re-nationalising the railways,” she conceded. “Network Rail is an arm’s length public sector body but it’s hardly emerged covered in glory.

“But in practice the chaos is absolutely feeding Labour’s argument that the railways should be under direct political control,” Hinsliff concluded. “As voters hear Grayling wailing that there isn’t really much he personally can do to sort this out, they naturally enough wonder what’s the point of him then.”

With Grayling having become very much a lightning rod for critics of the Government’s transport policies in the past few months, some of the media’s ire finally turned on Prime Minister Theresa May on 5 June when 25 regional newspapers across the north of England came together in what was described as an “unprecedented” coalition to call on May to “get a grip” on the problems besetting the northern rail network.

“Following a period of unprecedented misery and upset for thousands of people, caused by a broken railway, the regional press across the north of England is today making an historic united stand to demand: enough is enough,” an editorial published in all 25 regional papers began. “In a week where the transport secretary Chris Grayling blamed everyone bar himself for the chaos and confusion that has hit Northern Rail, we are joining forces with our regional peers to fight for the north. We and our colleagues, on behalf of the millions of people who are proud to call the north home, table a vote of no confidence in the transport secretary.

“Our unprecedented show of unity by newspaper titles is in direct response to the inequality of transport funding for the north and the government’s failure to understand the severity of the north’s plight from its London bubble,” the papers’ added. “We therefore say to Prime Minister Theresa May that if she does not intervene now, she serves a clear message that this Government does not truly serve the north.

“This now needs to be Mrs May’s number one transport policy,” they concluded. “She needs to take action now and show she is on the side of the tens of thousands who use the region’s railways every day… Over to you, Prime Minister.”