Choo-choo

I had to google Chris Grayling to figure out who he is. He's the Tory minister 'in charge' of transport in this brave new world of 2016. He was on the telly tonight looking shifty-eyed and clueless and, faced with a rail dispute that has festered for years now, the only solution he could come up with was to threaten railway workers with the loss of even more rights if they don't stop striking. I suppose it's easier to do that than to try to sort out the rail problem.

It's hard for me to be sympathetic with the passengers of Southern Rail (if that's what the company is called) because the people who are now complaining that they may have to give up their jobs because they can't get a train to take them to their workplace are probably the people who voted Tory in the general election last year, knowing that the privatisation of every little thing the UK still owns is high on the Tory agenda.

A long time ago - and here again I say: some of us are old enough to remember all this and still around to remind the rest of you - we told you it was madness to privatise the means of transport that so many people depend on to get to work and to make our cities run efficiently. Did anybody listen? Don't answer that. It's rhetorical. No other European country has gone down the road of privatising the trains and there's a good reason for that. Most countries have invested widely - and wisely - in their transport infrastructure. So if you go to places like Lille (France) and Brussels (Belgium), you'll find joined-up transport systems that include the TGV - high speed trains - driverless trams, city buses and a good train service and all offering so many discounts you start to wonder why their transport systems don't just pay the travellers to use them.

According to one news reporter, the problems on Southern Rail affect us all. I don't think so.

In Scotland, we have our own travel problems. Abellio has been handed a poisoned chalice. The company came in from the outside - actually from the Netherlands which still has a nationalised railway system - and it is now trying to juggle updating ancient trains and general under-investment in the system. Myself, I would suggest that Abellio get rid of their current spokesman and hire a Scot to explain what's going wrong because the man they have now just doesn't have the language skills required.

But this is all irrelevant. We know what needs to be done to sort out our trains. Not to mention getting bus services better planned and coordinated. And getting tram systems in Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow and Aberdeen. And expanding the subway in Glasgow. And building a rail link between Glasgow city centre and Glasgow's two airports. And making sure there are planes linking outlying communities not easily serviced by trains. And building more bridges (one across Loch Fyne would be ace) and better causeways between islands communities.

But it won't happen. The only agency interested in doing these things is the Scottish government in Holyrood. And it can't because it's starved of money and can't borrow. When it can manage to build - like the third Forth bridge - it does so efficiently.

But I gather we don't need to worry. We'll be benefitting from - and paying for - the extension of Heathrow and the HS2 rail link for many years to come. Doesn't that give you a warm glow?