Train of Thought

The politicians who are allowed to be taken seriously hate trains. They view them in the same way as the view buses, "Anyone on a bus after the age of 30 has been a failure in life." Except that they set the age a lot lower than 30. If anything, they regard trains as even worse.

So they were never going to allow the public transport classes to gawp at the late Queen's coffin, much as she herself might have preferred it. But unlike her, have you ever seen any of them drive themselves? Indeed, that they flew the coffin from Edinburgh to London is because they would regard that as the usual, or even the only, way to make the journey. Not at their own expense, of course.

They have also been scared by the breadth and depth of sympathy for the strikes, which have had the rail workers in their vanguard. The progress of the Royal Train would have been a good look for those workers. Instead, then, the job of transporting the deceased back to London has been safely given to people who cannot strike. But that necessary restriction on them, even though they are no more immune than the rest of us to the cost of living crisis, is a very important reason to support the action of those who were able to take it.