“What about the days when we’re not on strike, when it’s absolutely useless as well?”.

The General Secretary of the RMT, Mick Lynch, made a Tory MP look utterly clueless today, as he took questions from the Transport Committee in Parliament.

Lynch was joined by Aslef boss Mick Whelan and acting TSSA boss Frank Ward at the committee, where they took questions from MPs on topics such as the rail strikes as well as the government’s recent anti-strike bill.

Among those asking questions was Tory MP Greg Smith, who told Lynch that he had to accept that strike action was causing the public to turn away from the railway.

Smith began by asking if Lynch accepted that the strikes had made the railway ‘uncertain’ from the eyes of the consumer.

The straight-talking union leader once more despatched yet another ill-prepared Tory, replying: “Are you talking about when we’re on strike or when we’re not on strike?”, to which the Tory MP replied: “When you’re on strike”.

Lynch answered: “What about the days when we’re not on strike, when it’s absolutely useless as well?”.

Smith tried to claim that that was a question for a whole other evidence session, before asking if Lynch accepted that his strikes were causing people to turn away from the railway, to which the union leader replied: “No they’re not, your government is.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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