Nigel Farage is currently the only senior politician who is seen to be actually speaking for Britain - and doing so in a voice voters recognise: DAN HODGES
'Nigel recognises we're not in a position to run the country yet', one told me recently.
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
Getting railways on track is some task
That's the trains for you. Have a squint at the government publicity for its new transport quango and there's some Union Jack-flagged graphic, saying: 'Great British Railways — coming soon'. Only soon? What's the problem this time? Signal failure? Leaves on the line? The wrong kind of snow? None of them, apparently. Just the time it takes to pass into law the Railways Bill. It will, the government says, create a 'single 'directing mind' bringing track and train together', with GBR running a largely state-owned passenger railway, even if the rolling stock and freight companies will stay private. Already ministers are taking back control of what once were 14 private passenger franchises, most recently South Western and C2C, when their contracts expire. Listen to Heidi Alexander's transport department and GBR will end 'decades of fragmentation and private profiteering'. Yet, you shouldn't really need a new report from Tony Lodge at the Centre for Policy Studies to spot that GBR — a product of Labour's state-knows-best mentality — risks 'morphing into the ghost of British Rail'. Or that it seems a 'solution looking for a problem': one prioritising rail nationalisation above 'efficient operation'. Ministers' antipathy to private 'open access' operators, running without government contracts or subsidy — Hull Trains, Lumo and Grand Central, say, on the east coast line — tells you that. • Virgin Trains' attempt to get back on to the railways blocked Sure, privatisation had its faults, the most glaring the separation of train and track. And some of the passenger growth would have happened anyway. Yet, as Lodge points out, in the two decades up to the pandemic, passenger journeys rose by 107 per cent, services were up by 32 per cent and the private sector invested £14 billion in new trains. Of course, some private outfits failed. A former Labour government shunted Railtrack into the buffers, aghast at its £7 billion of debts, even if its state-owned successor, Network Rail, now has a net £61 billion. Then, there was a trio of financial derailments on the East Coast line: GNER, National Express and Virgin Trains. Yet, franchising largely worked until ministers started to micro-manage it, while also requiring train operators bidding for contracts to forecast the economy 15 years out: a feat patently beyond the Treasury, the Bank of England or the Office for Budget Responsibility. Whether in public or private hands, three problems stand out: the railways need too much subsidy, given they account for just 2 per cent of passenger journeys; capacity is not being used efficiently enough; and ticketing is a mess, with many fares too pricey. All are interrelated. But there's nothing yet from Alexander or GBR to address them. The operational railway needed £12.5 billion of taxpayer subsidy in the year to March 2024 (the latest figures): up by £4.6 billion versus the year to March 2020. A key reason? That even if passenger numbers are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, working from home has killed season ticket sales — 13 per cent of journeys in the year to March 2025 versus 34 per cent pre-Covid. As Lodge points out, that puts the emphasis on three things: new income streams, such as exploiting rail's 52,000-hectare estate to use unused land for everything from solar power to property schemes; shifting capacity from commuters to leisure travellers; and a simplified ticketing app that includes such innovations as a loyalty scheme. He says 'one of GBR's first tasks should be to carry out a full train utilisation study' to match capacity to 'in-demand' services. And he's right that, here, the government is showing 'misguided hostility' to open-access operators. Private companies are far more likely than civil servants to spot a gap in the market for a new service. And the latest annual figures from the state-backed LNER suggest that, rather than eat into its sales, competition on the east coast is driving them up — from £867 million to top £1 billion. Notably, while Britain clamps down on open access, Europe is going in the opposite direction, with France, Spain and Italy finding it cuts fares and lifts service frequency. What, too, of the political risk with GBR? As Lodge notes: 'Creating GBR gives ministers both complete responsibility for the railway and all of the blame' — not least if the unions bring the network to a halt. Alexander is far from proving that her new quango is the best route to getting the railways back on track. Luckily, Rachel Reeves's budget was ingeniously designed to have no impact on 'working people'. So, she won't have to worry about the latest 'Red Flag Alert' report from Begbies Traynor, the business rescue and recovery outfit. It's found that nearly 50,000 UK companies are on the brink of keeling over — up 21.4 per cent on 2024's second quarter. True, as the Begbies boss, Ric Traynor, notes, 'tariffs' and 'geopolitical uncertainty' haven't helped. But 'businesses across the UK are being put under immense strain by the increases to employers' NI' and 'the national minimum wage', with consumer sectors such as bars and restaurants, tourism and retailers particularly hard hit. Still, what a relief for Reeves that working people don't do those sorts of jobs. One day is a bit quick to judge what the EC's Ursula von der Leyen hailed as 'the biggest trade deal ever'. But, having locked in 15 per cent tariffs on most US imports from the EU, the euro fell by 1 per cent-plus against the dollar, Germany's Dax dropped by a similar amount, with France's Cac also down, while the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, spoke of the 'considerable damage' to come. As for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, they touched intra-day highs. An inescapable day one verdict: Von der Leyen's been trumped.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Stephen Lawrence's dad ‘very frustrated' after public parole hearing for killer David Norris is delayed
MURDERED Stephen Lawrence's father was 'very frustrated' yesterday after a public parole hearing for one of his son's killers was delayed. David Norris was due to begin a two-day bid for freedom tomorrow but it was adjourned after unspecified information was not made available to the panel. 3 3 A lawyer for Neville Lawrence said the Government had failed to provide the details. A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: "The hearing has had to be adjourned due to information directed by the panel not being made available for the case. "Without all proper information, the panel cannot consider a parole review. "The panel's priority must be to ensure the relevant information is available, so that they can thoroughly review the potential risks and ensure public protection." Guy Mitchell said: ' Dr Lawrence is understandably very frustrated by this last-minute delay. "We understand this is due to the Government failing to provide certain information to the Parole Board in time. "Dr Lawrence is seeking a full explanation as to the reason for this failing." Dr Lawrence has previously said he is not satisfied with Norris getting parole, but will accept it if he can show remorse. Norris got life with a minimum 14 years after he and Gary Dobson were convicted of murder in 2011, some 18 years after the racist killing of Stephen, 18, in Eltham, South East London. My son Stephen Lawrence's killer is living in luxury in jail and taking selfies - he's living a better life than me 3
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Edinburgh University accused of bias against ‘non-black' students
Edinburgh University has been accused of discriminating against 'non-black students' by whistleblowers, after a race report recommended more scholarships for ethnic minority groups. The group, identifying as academics from the institution, said evidence showed that white working-class boys were least likely to enjoy higher education as they hit back at a race review commissioned by university management. Sir Tom Devine, an historian and emeritus Edinburgh University professor, also said the findings of the review were not 'intellectually credible' and described the university principal's deep apology for the institution's links to slavery and colonialism as 'a rush to judgment'. 'This report has the very real potential to damage the university's historic reputation when it is already experiencing criticisms over its financial management,' he said. 'Therefore, crucially, careful consideration of the review's controversial content should first have been considered by acknowledged representatives of the university community and not confined only to the principal and his coterie before any major public statements were made.' The Race Review was ordered in 2021 by university leaders after the Black Lives Matter movement emerged. • Its findings, made public this week, include 47 recommendations such as renaming buildings and the creation of scholarship programmes to support students from underrepresented ethnic groups at undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral level. In response, the university has promised to take a series of actions including boosting scholarship opportunities. A statement, issued by a group calling itself Edinburgh Academics 4 Free Speech, and which is said to represent 130 staff, said: 'The University already discriminates against non-black students by allowing race-based scholarships.' They cited the Andrea Levy Scholarship, in memory of the novelist, which is directed at those with a black African or Caribbean background. The statement continued: 'The university, in today's response, appears to be committed to increasing the level of scholarships which are based purely on skin colour. 'Many colleagues have raised concerns directly with [university principal] Professor Mathieson, arguing that as an evidence-based organisation which should use empirical data to inform its policies, the university should be funding those students which research shows are most excluded from higher education. 'Countless studies have shown that white working-class boys remain the most academically disadvantaged group in the UK.' The group highlighted UK education department statistics showing university participation grew 21 per cent faster for Asian students and 17 per cent faster for black students compared with white students, adding: 'In choosing to ignore this overwhelming evidence, the University of Edinburgh is going against the very basis of academic rigour: evidence-based decisions.' Mathieson described the publication of the review as a 'landmark moment'. It found that one of Edinburgh's celebrated moral philosophers and mathematicians, Dugald Stewart, taught thousands of students that white Europeans were racially superior. The university's role as the seat of Scottish enlightenment is also reconsidered. It says: 'The University of Edinburgh was a haven for professors and alumni who developed theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism, such as the idea that Africans were inferior to whites and that non-white peoples could be colonised for the profit of European nations.' Devine, who edited a book detailing Scottish connections to the slave trade and the wealth it generated, warned the review 'crudely imposes early 21st-century values on the pre-1900 past'. 'The report gives the impression that Edinburgh was the centre for racist thought,' he added. 'Yet such views were commonplace not only among university thinkers and informed members of the public in the 19th century throughout Europe and North America. 'Only by situating Edinburgh in an international academic comparative context of analysis could rigorous conclusions be drawn. This was not done or even hinted at.' The report describes the university as 'a haven for professors and alumni who developed theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism' ALAMY In taking forward recommendations, including the renaming of buildings, he called for the university senate and court to be fully informed and the wider views of the university community to be considered. The Academics 4 Free Speech statement said its members needed to remain anonymous. It flagged the case of Neil Thin, a senior tutor who was falsely accused of being racist after opposing the renaming of the David Hume Tower owing to slavery connections. Fiona McClement, the university's equality, diversity and inclusion lead and co-leader of the Race Review Response Group, said: 'We want to ensure that are a welcoming and nurturing environment in which all members of our community feel a sense of belonging, and can flourish and succeed without facing unjust racialised barriers.'
