Welcome to the leader page, especially readers joining us this morning from the London-to-Norwich line on services operated by the rail company peculiarly named “One”. To enhance your journey (and tacitly apologise for months of delays and inconvenience), Commuter Club members among you have been offered vouchers for bacon rolls and Danish pastries redeemable daily in the buffet car. In the same spirit, we at The Times would like to ease your digestion of same with some high-fibre analysis of what such largesse actually betokens.
A spectacularly unhealthy copout, that’s what. A rail company offering bacon rolls to exasperated commuters is like an orthopaedic surgeon offering skiing holiday discounts for replacing the wrong hip. Or a dry-cleaner offering chips to go with the tomato ketchup he has failed to remove from your skirt. It is a concise, economical way of saying: “We care so little about the true cause of your misery that we will blithely pretend to be able to transform it into happiness with a bribe. Oh, and you look incapable of making your own breakfast.”
Ungrateful? A better example of ungratefulness would be taking hard-earned, heavily-taxed ticket money from well-intentioned commuters trying to keep their cars off the road, and providing in return a consistently shoddy service either on clapped out old trains or unreliable new ones. Recently privatised businesses have a duty to anticipate and solve problems for their captive customers, not to make excuses and apologies which can only be passed on to vexed bosses, weary spouses and unimpressed job interviewers. So, how’s the roll?