Train strike 2022: This is why the rail strikes are really happening

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Grant Shapps, the jaunty secretary of state for transport who treats politics as a branch of showbusiness, keeps telling Keir Starmer to condemn the rail strikes, as if the RMT, a union which has disaffiliated from Labour and hasn’t much time for the leader of the opposition, would meekly obey the order of a man they probably despise more than Shapps. The government is also becoming aggressive, proposing to legalise agency labour to make strikes ineffective – scab labour as it used to be known – except there’s a shortage of scabs. It will almost certainly make Britain an even more unequal society, because those at the top tend to be more immune from inflation, and a more divided one, constantly on the lookout for scapegoats for stagnant living standards and poor public services – the unions, migrants, people on social security. How many healthy private businesses would invest in Britain when there’s widespread talk about a trade war with the EU, still the closest and biggest market for exporters, and source of supply for industry?