DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Rail chaos and a lousy bargain for taxpayers 

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Who were the Whitehall numbskulls who negotiated the franchise that will land taxpayers with a bill of more than £50million for the rail strike, while the train company involved stands to save money from the stoppages?

Under this asinine deal, the Government will pick up the tab for a £38million shortfall in fare revenue caused by the walk-outs, while shelling out up to £15million compensation to passengers.

Meanwhile, Southern Rail’s parent firm is saving an estimated £1.1million in pay for striking drivers and conductors, while still receiving an all-but guaranteed flat payment from taxpayers of £8.9billion over the seven years of its franchise.

Under this asinine deal, the Government will pick up the tab for a £38million shortfall in fare revenue caused by the walk-outs (commuters in Victoria station)

Southern Rail’s parent firm is saving an estimated £1.1million in pay for striking drivers and conductors (commuters pictured in East Croydon)

Isn’t this lousy bargain depressingly typical of the way sharp-minded businessmen run rings round the dull-witted guardians of the public purse?

With so little incentive to run a decent service, is it any wonder that even before the walk-outs, Southern had the worst punctuality record in the UK – or that its managers have let a pathetic dispute over who opens and shuts doors drag on for the best part of a year, inflicting untold suffering on 300,000 passengers daily?

It is no surprise either that the latest annual profits of Southern’s parent, the inappropriately named Go-Ahead Group, were a cool £99.8million, while its chief executive pocketed £2.2million last year.

True, nobody should forget that the worst villains of the strike are politically-motivated union barons, whose lies about safety concerns over driver-only trains this paper exposes today.

The sooner the law is changed to punish their blackmail, the sooner we can be saved from a repeat of the 1970s, when union wreckers brought us to our knees.

But is it too much to ask that the next time the Government sells a public asset to a private firm, it finds a civil servant with a business brain to negotiate on our behalf – if such a person exists?

In the Commons yesterday, Theresa May said Britain should be proud of spending £12billion a year on overseas aid. One question: why?

Great aid betrayal

On the day after MPs excoriated ministers for wasting £285.5million of aid on an unusable airport in St Helena, the Mail reveals that 45 per cent of town halls have stopped providing meals on wheels for Britain’s housebound elderly.

Since 2010, meanwhile, at least one council has doubled the charge for hot meals to £6, leaving many unable to afford them and so putting health at risk and piling pressure on the NHS.

Isn’t it pertinent to point out that, even at £10 each, the cost of an unusable airport in St Helena would buy 28.5million meals for Britain’s elderly and hungry?

In the Commons yesterday, Theresa May said Britain should be proud of spending £12billion a year on overseas aid. One question: why?

A life-saving victory

Britain's commercially viable Press is much maligned by the heavily subsidised liberal media. But the Mail is hugely proud of our role in prompting a Government drive to heighten awareness of the symptoms of sepsis, the ‘silent killer’ that claims 44,000 lives in Britain every year – more than breast, bowel and prostate cancer combined.

As we applaud our partners in the UK Sepsis Trust – and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, on his enthusiasm in taking up the cause – we can say one thing with certainty: children and adults who would otherwise have died will live because of our campaign.

■ Admitting he has not a scintilla of evidence, Labour’s Ben Bradshaw tells MPs it is ‘highly probable’ that Russian hackers swung the vote for Brexit. Thus, this arch-Bremoaner plumbs new depths for what passes as parliamentary debate. How DO such twits end up in politics?