Rail strike is poor timing for Labour

How many more years will it take trade union leaders to finally get it? As John Harris’s perceptive article shows, for most voters they are an irrelevance (The ‘red wall’ is looking shaky. But the rot set in decades ago, Journal, 2 December). For many others who still remember the bad old days before Thatcher, they remain a ball and chain round Labour’s neck.

Yet in the last few days before the most important general election in decades, the RMT has decided to press ahead with its own parochial strike (Rail users face months of chaos as South Western guards begin strike action, 2 December).

It beggars belief. How many votes and seats will this lose Labour, or does the RMT really believe their members and their families will be better off under a Boris Johnson government with a majority?
Jonathan Harris
Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire

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