RMT strike must be broken

12 April 2012
Evening Standard editorial comment

Mr Tony Blair has often asserted that large-scale industrial unrest in Britain has become unthinkable, in the age of the global economy. Today, however, hundreds of thousands of travellers find their lives disrupted by a shameful, cynical, wholly selfish strike by members of the RMT union.

The leaders of the RMT are men of a kind of whom we have seen little in Britain since the 1970s. They profess left-wing principles, but interpret these as a licence for smash-and-grab. They perceive the chief purpose of the rail system as being to serve their members, not the public. The management of the SWT train company is making plans to thwart future industrial action. It deserves every support.

Only when financial hardship or sacking is forced upon RMT members as the price of their behaviour will they come to their senses. These strikes must be broken. The RMT's leaders should be exposed to the disgrace they deserve. The Government, with its lamentable record on transport issues, has a chance to redeem itself by giving the employers the support they deserve. If Mr Stephen Byers cowers in his bunker through this dispute, then the public will know what to make of him.

Euan Blair's privacy

The Press Complaints Commission has censured the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail - our sister title - for invading the privacy of the Prime Minister's son. The two newspapers reported that he had been interviewed for a place at Trinity College, Oxford. The Blairs' commitment to ensuring that their children live relatively normal lives deserves respect, even admiration. However, as the PCC has also observed in its judgement, if the Blairs' privacy is to be maintained, they themselves will have to take care not to breach it selectively.

The Prime Minister sent a Christmas card this year, depicting himself and his family outside the door of 10 Downing Street. This is an obvious, if harmless example of exploiting family values for marginal image advantage. Euan Blair looked thrilled, as well he might, to be photographed with Kate Winslet at a film premiere. But teenagers don't get to go to film premieres, nor to hobnob with stars, unless they are somebody important's children.

Good luck to Euan Blair, being able to gain a few perks from his father's position, and fulfil any adolescent's fantasy. But then, don't let the parents get too heavy with the press if the spotlight falls on you at a less convenient moment. The families of stars - who include prime ministers - can opt for a life of privacy or one of celebrity, but it seldom works to mix-'n-match.

Heartbreak hotel

Last year the strong pound, the foot-and-mouth epidemic and 11 September were all, successively, blamed for the troubles facing the British tourism industry - particularly the disturbing downturn in visitor numbers to London. No doubt they all contributed in some way. Now, however, comes another explanation which has rather more of a ring of plausibility.

According to the latest edition of the highly respected Good Hotel Guide, the ruinously high cost of decent hotels in London is the main factor that that dissuades foreign tourists from visiting the capital. There is a dearth of good hotel accommodation at reasonable prices - below about £150 a night for a double room, according to the authors of The Guide - in central London. Unlike almost every major city on the Continent there is a choice of very little between the top end of excellent deluxe establishments, which compare with any in the world, and identikit chain hotels that are as soulless as they are overpriced.

Almost entirely missing are the kind of small, family-run places offering cheap but comfortable accommodation of which there are so many in Paris and Rome. Hoteliers say London's prices are dictated by the high cost of property in the metropolis and the steep council taxes. They have a case - up to a point. But there is an element of special pleading in what they say, reminiscent of the limp excuses for dunning the public offered by so many other industries. There is no good reason why so many goods and services here are so much more expensive than elsewhere in Europe.

The hotel trade must be careful; practices they got away with in the boom years may not acceptable in a downturn. If "rip-off Britain" becomes a byword for rampant greed, many foreign visitors will think long and hard before coming back.

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