High speed express to extinction

IT’S ultimately passengers who will have to finance the £100 million bill in increased fares so that the salary of train drivers can go up from £60,000 to £70,000.

The maths is probably not so simple, but the money saved by making millions of pensioners shiver over Christmas by stopping winter fuel payments is being given to the unions, notably representing train drivers.

Even Labour party supporters think this is shameful, but none of this was spelt out in the election promises made by Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, now the prime minister and the chancellor, respectively.

With 404 seats in the Commons, they can do pretty much as they please, with no obligation to keep promises made before the election.

The point about train drivers is they are driving themselves to extinction. They ought to remember what happened to print workers in the bad old days of Fleet Street. They would threaten to pull the plug on publication at around 9pm, just before newspapers were due to be printed. Rather than lose all the advertising revenue in the papers, managements invariably caved in. Wages were given to print workers with fake names such as “Mickey Mouse”. The money was then distributed among existing print workers.

I remember an occasion when I filed from Italy and was told the story was going to be the page one splash in the Daily Telegraph. Then the night editor came and said: “Sorry, old boy, the printers have just pulled the plug – there won’t be a paper.”

The Daily Telegraph had bought computers for printing, but the unions would not allow them to be used.

The newspaper industry was rescued by Rupert Murdoch, who secretly moved computerised printing to Wapping. There were nightly demonstrations by the print unions outside the Wapping plant as the lorries rolled out with the papers. But, very quickly, the print unions were consigned to history.

Train drivers have been a valuable part of society, along with guards and other railways staff. But the greed of drivers on £100k, with overtime pay, will ensure AI will also consign them to history. As it is, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in London has operated driverless trains since 1987. That is the future.

Faraging for money

There is always hope for a politician when he (or she) spends most of his time trying to make money.

“Nigel Farage has become the highest-paid MP, earning more than £1 million for work he does outside of Parliament,” according to a report in the Telegraph.

It adds that Farage is paid “£4,000 for writing articles in the Telegraph”.

There is a breakdown of Farage’s earnings: “The Reform UK leader was paid £97,928.40 each month for presenting his GB News programme, which aired four nights a week prior to the election. In total, he receives almost £1.2 million a year from the broadcaster.

“Mr Farage, 60, now presents his own panel programme on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays in addition to his duties as an MP. In addition to his GB News show, Mr Farage received £16,500 from recording personalised videos on the app Cameo, as well as £4,000 for writing articles for the Telegraph. He also declared flights and accommodation for him and a staffer worth almost £33,000 for a recent trip to the United States directly after the state opening of Parliament.”

The good folk of Clacton will be delighted their MP, who managed to get into parliament at the last general election after seven previous failed attempts, is doing so well financially. Given his busy diary, they would be filled with joy and gratitude if he is able to occasionally visit Clacton. It will be quite a surprise if he is bothered to stand again.

Now that Farage is making more money than his parliamentary colleagues, will the former Tory MP Nadine Dorries accuse him of being out of touch with ordinary voters? She is the one who became obsessed with Rishi Sunak’s £5,000 bespoke suit and £450 Prada loafers.

It’s unlikely.

One thing Farage has grasped is that there is more money to be made by being a far-right commentator.

A legend in Locarno

Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan has just been honoured at the 77th Locarno Film Festival with the Pardo Alla Carriera, a sort of lifetime achievement award.

Previous winners of the Pardo alla Carriera have included Francesco Rosi, Claude Goretta, Bruno Ganz, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Peter-Christian Fueter, Sergio Castellitto, Víctor Erice, Marlen Khutsiev, Bulle Ogier, Mario Adorf, Jane Birkin, Fredi M Murer, Dante Spinotti, Costa-Gavras, and, in 2023, Tsai Ming-liang.

Shah Rukh is, to my mind, a great credit to India and to Bollywood. I have seen him get many an accolade – for example, he received an honorary degree from Edinburgh University in 2015. I was there when he came to Paris for the unveiling of his waxwork at the Musee Grevin in 2008. And how can I forget the Cannes Film Festival of 2002 when he and Aishwarya Rai attended the memorable premiere of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas?

The great thing about Shah Rukh is that whenever he receives an honour – he has probably lost count of how many he has had over the past 30 years – he makes it seem this was his first and hence precious to him. It is a charming quality and shows what a consummate actor he is. His humour is also self-deprecating, rare among Indian celebrities.

I have mentioned Devdas because it was screened at Locarno, where he was also interviewed on stage by the festival’s director, Giona A Nazzaro, who said: “To welcome a living legend like Shah Rukh Khan in Locarno is a dream come true. A true ‘people’s hero’, sophisticated and down to earth, Shah Rukh Khan is a legend of our times.”

Shah Rukh also gave an interview to the Guardian’s chief film critic, Peter Bradshaw, who asked if the actor, a “complicated and charming man”, enjoyed award ceremonies.

“Yes,” Shah Rukh replied, beaming. “I enjoy it. I am very shameless about this! I love getting awards. I love the ceremony. I get a little nervous if I have to give speeches. Especially with international awards, because then I need to make sure Indian cinema is presented well. I have to be on my best behaviour. I have to control my sense of humour. Because cinema for India is such an important thing.”

Asked whether the musical, apparently abandoned by Hollywood, was key to the future of Bollywood, Shah Rukh answered: “Indian cinema is like a cabaret: music, comedy, drama, a mishmash, it might be dancing, people falling down. I do believe it’s a more difficult art form. It doesn’t isolate film into comedy, romance, horror, musicals. It tells the whole story.”

Bradshaw was impressed with a key insight: “Emotions are the darkness that surround you in the theatre.”

Child casualties

Hardly a day passes when children are not killed in Gaza by the Israeli armed forces, apparently because Hamas fighters are hiding in schools.

But the world does not see it that way. It looks as though women and children are being targeted deliberately in the hope that they will put pressure on Hamas to agree to a ceasefire on Israeli terms. But if that was going to happen, it would have happened by now.

Sooner or later, there will be another attack on Israel, similar to the one on October 7, with a fresh cycle of action and reaction. And we have already seen how the politics of the Middle East has aggravated communal tensions in Britain.