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INDUSTRY
Lies on the line
Strikes over company
plans to get rid of
onboard conductors
have been taking place
for months on
Southern Railways in
south-east England.
Reporting of the
dispute has become
increasingly hostile.
KEITH RICHMOND of
the drivers’ union
ASLEF surveys the
coverage
THE STRIKE and overtime ban by
ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, on
Southern Railways in December
and January was an industrial, not
a political, dispute – whatever it
suited Transport Secretary Chris
Grayling and a clutch of under-
briefed backbench Conservative MPs
to claim.
It was unusual because it was
not a battle for more pay or fewer
hours, but a row about passenger
safety and the introduction
– without negotiation – of driver-
only operation.
Not that you would know this
from some of the lazy, dishonest –
and at times downright malicious
– coverage that the drivers have
had. The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily
Telegraph were, predictably, the
worst offenders.
Mario Ledwith in the Mail turned
an industrial dispute into an attack
on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and
ASLEF president Tosh McDonald
under the headline “Corbyn
Led Standing Ovation For Strike
Comrade” (January 2).
Lucy Osborne – who cheerfully
told me “the editor doesn’t like
strikes, strikers or trade unions”
– wrote:“ASLEF has banned its
members from doing overtime”
(January 5) even though I had
patiently explained to her that our
members had voted overwhelm-
ingly to ban it themselves.
Nor did she include the fact
that if the company employed the
number of drivers it had promised
in its franchise application, it would
not need to rely on our members
working overtime.
She also deliberately got
general secretary Mick Whelan’s
salary wrong (7 January) by
including employer pension and
national insurance contributions,
despite being provided with the
correct figure.
Patrick Foster, cheerfully
swallowing a wildly inaccurate
briefing by the Department for
Transport, went big on “Union
leader warns of 10 years of unrest”
in the Daily Telegraph (13 December)
and the next day offered “This is
war with Tories, unions declare”
without a single piece of evidence
to justify it.
Anyone with any knowledge of
the way what they used to call Fleet
Street works will know that the
pressure to provide a story to back
up a headline dreamed up in the
editor’s office, by the backbench, or
the news desk can be immense.
The Sun (22 December) tried
to make something of nothing
with “Unionists’ 2 days off rails”
(which was really “People have
a drink at Christmas!”) while the
Evening Standard splashed with
“Rail strike boss off to work by car”
(6 January) – a risible story which
prompted Mark Ellis of the Daily
Mirror to laugh: “Man has lift with
wife shock!”.
The cartoonists had a field
day, too, with Mac in the Mail
(15 December) and Adams in the
Telegraph (19 December) happily
imagining Jeremy, Tosh and Santa
at Christmas.
It wasn’t all bad. Conrad Landin
interviewed Graham Morris, ASLEF’s
organiser on Southern, for a piece
which appeared in the Morning
Star under the headline We are
determined to win – passenger
safety too important to risk, and
The News Line, the paper of the
Workers’ Revolutionary Party,
splashed on Southern are bullies!
(both on 11 January) after talking
to Graham on a picket line at
London Bridge.
Mick Whelan was interviewed by
Simon Hattenstone for a flattering
flagship profile in The Guardian (14 
January); Tosh McDonald talked to
Danny Scott for a fascinating Life
in the Day feature in the Sunday
Times Magazine (15 January); and
Gwyn Topham wrote a typically
thoughtful and well-informed,
analysis of the problems in the rail
industry – “Is Britain’s train system
getting worse?” – in The Guardian
(7 January).
We live in a free society, with a
free press, which has had, for 350
years, the right to be partial and the
right to be wrong. And journalism,
of course, like politics, is a rough
old trade.
So I won’t be disingenuous and
say I was surprised at some of the
coverage. Just disappointed at the
distortions and lies.
Spring 2017 Free Press 5