4 2GM Wednesday May 25 2022 | the times
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Rodent to success Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt’s Rewilding Britain Landscape, featuring a pool dammed by beavers, has won the top prize at Chelsea Flower Show
Monkeypox cases rise
Fourteen new cases of
monkeypox have been identified
in England. The total for the UK
is 71 and many patients are men
who have had sex with men.
Despite this, scientists do not
believe it is sexually transmitted
but rather through close contact.
Most cases are mild and the risk
to the population at large is
considered to be low.Book they couldn’t burn
Margaret Atwood has attempted
to burn a fireproof copy of her
novel The Handmaid’s Tale with a
flamethrower. It has “white heat
shield foil pages, a phenolic hard
cover, stainless steel head and tail
bands”, is sewn with nickel wire,
and was created as a symbol of
the fight against censorship. It is
being auctioned in aid of PEN
America, the free-speech charity.Drug dealer killed boy
A drug dealer who beat his
partner’s young son to death has
been jailed for life, to serve at
least 24 years. Nathaniel Pope, 32,
of Wolverhampton, was found
guilty at Birmingham crown
court of the murder of Kermarni
Watson Darby, three, in West
Bromwich in 2018. Alicia Watson,
31, Kermarni’s mother, was jailed
for 11 years for allowing his death.Couzens flashing case
Wayne Couzens, the former
police officer convicted of killing
Sarah Everard, has pleaded not
guilty to four flashing offences.
Couzens, 49, is serving a whole-
life sentence for the kidnap, rape
and murder of Everard, 33. He is
accused of exposing himself four
times last year in Swanley, Kent.
He appeared before Judge Mark
Lucraft QC at the Old Bailey by
video link from Frankland prison
in Durham. A timetable for the
case was set with further hearings
at the Old Bailey.AABBCE E E
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Wagatha ChristieRailway workers have voted over-
whelmingly to walk out over jobs, pay
and conditions, it was announced last
night, in what their union is claiming
could be the largest strike in rail history.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and
Transport Workers union backed
industrial action at Network Rail, the
state-owned body that manages rail
infrastructure, and 13 train operators.
The union’s leaders will now decide
when to call strikes, which will bring
huge parts of the network to a standstill.
The RMT said it was the biggest
endorsement of industrial action by
railway workers since privatisation.
Seventy-one per cent of those ballot-
ed took part in the vote, with 89 per cent
in favour of strike action and 11 per cent
against.
Mick Lynch, the RMT’s general
RMT ballot almost unanimous:
strikes will bring railways to a halt
secretary, said: “Today’s overwhelming
endorsement by railway workers is a
vindication of the union’s approach and
sends a clear message that members
want a decent pay rise, job security and
no compulsory redundancies.”
It has emerged that rail union bosses
took home nearly £500,000 in pay and
perks between them during the first
year of the pandemic — including more
than £4,000 in car benefits.
Annual returns submitted to the gov-
ernment show that in 2020 Mick Cash,
the RMT’s former general secretary,
earned £163,468, including £1,432 in car
benefits. His salary, excluding pension,
was £109,542 — more than three times
that of the most experienced train con-
ductors, according to the National
Careers Service.
Steve Hedley, formerly the RMT’s
senior assistant general secretary, had a
total remuneration package of £94,016,including £2,945 in car benefits in 2020.
Lynch, formerly the union’s assistant
general secretary and now general
secretary, received £118,450. Manuel
Cortes, general secretary of the Trans-
port Salaried Staffs’ Association, re-
ceived total remuneration of £121,773,
including £18,151 in pension contribu-
tions. Pay for many rail staff has been
frozen since 2020, and Network Rail
has been told to cut costs by 10 per cent.
A walkout by Network Rail signallers
will have a significant effect on services.
It is possible that trains will run for only
part of the day, such as from 7am to
7pm, and only on main lines.
Services could be reduced to about a
fifth of the normal weekday timetable.
If strikes go ahead, they would cost
the rail industry about £30 million each
day, according to sources.
The union says that Network Rail
intends to cut at least 2,500 mainte-nance jobs as part of a £2 billion reduc-
tion in spending on the network, while
staff at train companies have been sub-
ject to pay freezes, threats to jobs and
attacks on their terms and conditions.
Andrew Haines, Network Rail’s chief
executive, said: “The RMT has jumped
the gun here as everyone loses if there’s
a strike. We know our people are con-
cerned about job security and pay.
“We have been working on offering a
pay increase that taxpayers can afford,
and we continue to discuss this with our
trade unions. We urge the RMT to sit
down with us and continue to talk.”
A Department for Transport spokes-
man said: “Strikes should always be the
last resort, not the first, so it is hugely
disappointing and premature that the
RMT is calling for industrial action
before even entering discussions.”
The RMT’s hold on transport links
should end, leading article, page 31Emma Yeomans
Civil servants have voted to back
national strike action that would hit air-
ports, ports, courts and other key
infrastructure.
The largest civil service union yester-
day voted in favour of national strike
action after taking issue with a 2 per
cent pay offer from the government
and plans to cut 91,000 jobs.
Union chiefs said members were re-
lying on food banks and universal
credit. Ministers said they had to bal-
ance the risk of triggering higher infla-
tion if pay rises were too generous.
The PCS union, which represents
Civil servants threaten walkout over job cuts and pay
more than 182,000 public sector work-
ers, voted at its national conference to
ballot members over a strike across the
whole civil service later this year.
Mark Serwotka, the union’s general
secretary, said civil servants had “kept
the country running” through the pan-
demic and, “unlike the prime minister,
we weren’t being distracted by cheese”.
He said: “They didn’t listen to us
when we carried on working, so maybe
now it’s time for us to stop working.”
The union would “tell the govern-
ment we will not sit down while you use
us as political pawns”.
A strike would cause disruption at
airports, further throwing holidays intojeopardy as passport processing delays
also threaten to scupper plans. Hun-
dreds of GMB and Unite members
working for British Airways at Heath-
row have voted to strike.
Walkouts could affect backlogged
courts, the processing of benefits and
pensions, tax collection and immigra-
tion enforcement. This is on top of the
40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime
and Transport union who have voted to
strike over the summer, in a result an-
nounced last night.
Another union, the Transport Sala-
ried Staffs’ Association, has warned of a
“summer of discontent” with similar
action unless pay disputes are resolved.The government is awaiting the deci-
sions of public sector pay review bodies
on how much salaries should increase
but initial proposals have been put for-
ward to increase pay by 2 per cent.
The prime minister’s official spokes-
man did not rule out going against
recommendations if above-inflation
pay rises were recommended.
A government representative said:
“We are incredibly grateful to the civil
service for the outstanding job they do.
We are continuing to engage with the
unions and any speculation on where
reductions will be made is premature.”
To beat inflation stand firm,
Daniel Finkelstein, page 27Geraldine Scott Political Reporter