Starmer’s Labour under fire over MASSIVE public safety scandal!

Right, so cracking down on whistleblowing it seems will get you hired, when really it should ensure you’re actually fired under the new regime of Keir Starmer. Forget those safety concerns you have, don’t bother me with your foibles about people potentially getting hurt, anyone who raises a warning about someone’s conduct, or a safety issue it seems ends up with a P45 at the end of the day, this isn’t a regime that likes to be advised, this is a regime that already likes to think it knows best it seems.
When it comes to public safety though, any attempt to dismiss or bury significant issues without investigation or proper checks being done should be met with severest repercussions, especially where there is risk of severe injury or worse, but in the world of Keir Starmer, well, that may not meet with repercussions at all, it might even help you get a cushy government job instead! This is exactly what has happened to one whistleblower, the person who saw them sacked now a rail minister in Starmer’s government and they aren’t the first to raise the alarm on an issue and get summarily ignored and dismissed for doing so either.
Right, so when it comes to safety in public services, too often it has taken a whistleblower to expose wrongdoing and for heads to roll and too often it has been the case that when they have been ignored, disaster has followed. Take Grenfell Tower for example. Whistleblowers were warning of the cladding and the risks associated with its flammability before the fire and were ignored, now we’ve seen a similar story in Dagenham, still under investigation right now, though again, non compliant cladding as the BBC put it covered the building.
Whistleblowers do the general public an enormous service, they expose wrongdoing by individuals or organisations that do not listen to concerns, do not act upon issues raised, do not care functionally, at the end of the day, if harm comes to someone or not, but this latest whistleblowing story is one of the nastiest examples I’ve yet come across, not just because of the level of determination to not act upon warnings, but the lengths those responsible were prepared to go to not rectify the problem, but to go after the person blowing the whistle instead.
We’ve seen enough rail disasters over the years to know the dangers of ignoring safety concerns, yet here we are, Starmer’s Labour seemingly rewarding that kind of conduct through the appointment of the unelected Labour peer Lord Peter Hendy of Richmond Hill of Imber in the County of Wiltshire, there’s a title for you! And it’s not as if this guy can plead ignorance over railways either, given he was the former chair of Network Rail, only stepping down from the role upon being appointed a minister by Keir Starmer last month. But what he did during his time in that role, only a couple months before accepting the role Starmer offered him is so petulant it beggars belief Starmer has recruited him and it’s actually not even the only nasty thing this guy has done in relation to rail.
This story has come out via a Freedom of Information request in relation to what one Independent journalist, Katie Rosseinsky, described as ‘hell on Earth’, speaking as she was about Euston Station, a quick excerpt of her piece reading:
‘If hell exists, then surely it resembles the concourse at Euston station. You stand, neck craned towards the departures board, squinting under artificial lights that seem perfectly calibrated to induce migraines. You dodge passengers who stampede like wildebeests towards platforms announced moments before trains are due to leave. Venture outside for air, and it’s grey as far as the eye can see: the concrete rectangle of the station, the equally drab units housing Pret and Nando’s on the forecourt, the faces of the people freshly traumatised by their Euston experience. It is an ugly, smelly, joy-sapping experience. “Absolute chaos – never again,” one recent Tripadvisor review sighs. “Depressing and disgusting,” another snappily sums it up.’
It's not good then by the sounds of it and it was very much that crowded atmosphere that was the cause of the whistle to be blown and it was this same Independent piece dating back to only April of this year, that triggered this appalling story, because it was here that the whistleblower, an award winning railway engineer, Gareth Dennis, he won the 2024 Young Rail Professional Distinguished Service Award no less, stepped in with his own concerns, blew his whistle so to speak relating to Euston Station, getting Hendy’s back up as he did so. Here’s the relevant passage:
‘One of the biggest issues, Dennis suggests, is that the volume of trains going in and out of Euston has vastly increased since then, but the station itself hasn’t grown in tandem. “The station is still the same size station that carried six times fewer trains a day,” he says. “[It] needs to be literally double the size it is to deal with the number of passengers.” HS2 and even Crossrail 2, he argues, might have taken some of that pressure off. Plus, shops and cafes have encroached on the floor space (the new-ish mezzanine level, where you can pick up a Leon wrap while surveying the frazzled passengers below, only enhances the sense of claustrophobia). “All of a sudden, that station that once felt large and airy feels like a small shed,” Dennis adds. And when multiple trains are delayed or cancelled, “you’re talking about thousands of people squished into that space. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.”’
It was that last line that did it for Hendy it seems. How dare this railway engineer determine the station is unsafe? Well he is an engineer, frankly I trust him more than I trust you Lord Hendy, but Hendy was having none of it, he fired off a letter to Dennis’ boss, the CEO Nick Salt at Systra UK Ltd, a rail and transport infrastructure firm that enjoys getting lovely Network Rail contracts and this was sent back in May, the month after the Indy article came out, which read:
‘Dear Mr Salt,
I am writing to you about a serious allegation that one of your employees has made about Network Rail in the media.
In this piece about Euston Station in the Independent, railway engineer Gareth Dennis tells the journalist that “it’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.’
Euston Station is by no means perfect, but the allegation that Network Rail is running an unsafe operation is a serious one for a safety critical business, as I’m sure you appreciate.
Gareth Dennis is a Systra employee, so he must write with your authority. Please let me know what evidence you have to substantiate his allegation, or alternatively, what action you are taking if what he alleges is not your company’s view. Employees here know what they say in the media reflects on their employment and I should like confirmation that your employees understand that too.
And of course, finding a potential supplier criticising a possible client reflects adversely on your likelihood of doing business with us or our supply chain.
I look forward to hearing from you
Peter, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill’
So in other words Network Rail employees are not apparently permitted to have opinions of their own, it’ll be tied to their employment if they choose to make such opinions public at any rate. Hendy also expects that of other transport companies and suppliers of goods or services to have that same view as he evidently has, demands evidence of that from Systra, and effectively threatens the chances of Systra getting any further Network Rail contracts if he doesn’t like what he hears. That’s how I’m reading that, am I wrong?
Quite the piece of work Lord Hendy! But then this is the guy who, as chair of Network Rail, recommended to the Tories in 2016 in their at that point review of their planned Access for All scheme, to make railways more accessible, that the £50m allocated for that scheme should be delayed by a further 3 years, incensing disability campaigners at the time.
In fact last September, the Office of Rail and Road, the ORR, sent Network Rail an improvement notice about overcrowding at Euston Station and demanded risks there and take steps to mitigate them. Now, as rail minister, Hendy is in charge of the ORR, and kicking off at a young engineer, who pointed out the same issues, though Network Rail claim they’ve been addressed. The quote, published in Skwawkbox relating to this story reading:
‘You have failed to implement, so far as reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station.’
As for whether Network Rail did make good on these issues? The Department for Transport refused to comment.
Nick Salt, Systra UK’s CEO originally apologised to Hendy for the comments, but Hendy was not having it, and told Systra that if the matter was not dealt with satisfactorily, he would be taking it up with their head office and shareholders. Gareth Dennis was suspended and subsequently sacked on 4 weeks’ notice, after refusing to sign a secrecy agreement in exchange for a bigger payoff.
This story stinks to high heaven. A guy who put rail users safety first by highlighting concerns gets sacked and the guy who kicked off about these comments rather than taking them on board, after they’d already been raised by the ORR, is now in charge of the ORR and demanding people get sacked for blowing the whistle and is prepared to threaten their employers over access to government contracts over such issues. It's all there in black and white, so the big question right now is for Keir Starmer and whether or not he thinks this is acceptable behaviour. But then, we can hazard a guess at that. A whistleblower over the exploitation of Muslim domestic violence victims through a charity she ran being committed by a Labour Party staffer went ignored, ended up sacked, ended up successfully taking her then employer in the Party at that time, the now thankfully former Labour MP Khalid Mahmood to tribunal for unfair dismissal and won.
When one of his own Muslim MPs was a victim of domestic violence herself, she was left with no support from her party either.
Legal advice pertaining to the alleged indecent misconduct of a right Labour Council leader was ignored so they could reinstate him to be able to stand for parliament and he is now not only the MP for Ilford South but also now parliament’s biggest landlord.
Whistleblowing is clearly frowned upon in Starmer’s Labour, I suppose Peter Hendy in which case is safe. Your safety on the railways though? Seems that might well be quite another matter.
This is just one more example in a whole litany of examples adding to Keir Starmer’s scandalised, dishonest government, contributing to their polling going into absolute freefall and it seems like every day a new scandal emerges. What will it be tomorrow? Well you’ll no doubt get the details of it here on this channel, get the details of those polling woes in this video recommendation here for your next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.