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Straight-talking as ever, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has ripped into the government for failing to address one of the most serious issues in the country. The Labour politician took to the airwaves on Sunday, bemoaning the ‘collapse’ of domestic rail services.
Appearing on Sky News, Burnham accused the Tories of being more bothered about their own ‘Westminster drama’, rather than confronting the problems that are seriously inhibiting the UK and its citizens.
In the past week alone, stories concerning senior Conservative Party officials have dominated the headlines. Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, and Nadhim Zahawi have all been caught-up in a cycle of negative press. But Mr. Burnham believes this is a major distraction.
The former front-bencher says that bigger issues are now ‘going unreported’. On Saturday, Andy Burnham was left seething after Avanti West Coast cancelled a number of services, many of which were running to and from London.
“We repeatedly get ourselves into these Westminster dramas. It’s 2023 and the UK is unable to run train services between its main cities. They simply can’t be allowed to keep on ruining people’s weekends like this.” | Andy Burnham
The whole ordeal has baffled Manchester’s Mayor, who went on to reinforce his point this morning. According to him, nobody is speaking up for the people who are routinely having their weekends ruined.
“There are many bigger issues than this going unreported. People can’t get trains to London on a weekend. These are strange times, there’s such a disconnect between Westminster and the public. How much time have Downing Street wasted on the Nadhim Zahawi situation?”
“It takes oxygen away from things that matter. This is what frustrates people about Westminster. They ignore things like the timetable for our main railway services collapsing yesterday. Thousands of people had their weekends ruined. Who is speaking up for that?” | Andy Burnham
