Christian Wolmar

After this week’s dreadful events at Heathrow, British Airways risks the same fate Marks & Spencers and losing its reputation as one of the great brands of British business. The beleaguered airline has made a catastrophic mistake at its peak time of the year by not ensuring it had enough staff to carry out the basic task of making sure its planes can fly. In getting the basics of its ...

In his annual report on the performance of pupils in the railway school, headmaster CHRISTIAN WOLMAR reflects on a year in which Network Rail class has been the teacher’s pet while SRA and HSE classes are to be summarily expelled. With summer in full swing, and rails set to buckle under the heat or weight of holidaymakers on packed trains, it’s report time on performance of the railway school. And as ...

So what was it all about? Tom Winsor didn’t want it, Richard Bowker has been bumped off by it and the government seems pretty lukewarm about it. The rail review is far from being the longterm solution to the structure of the railways promised at the outset. Instead, it seems like work in progress, a few thoughts on how to make things vaguely better but with a total absence of strategy ...

Another set of elections, another dismal turn-out, despite the new fangled ideas such as postal voting and other experiments. And the fact that the local elections coincided with the European ballot as well as, in London, the important mayoral contest. But in truth, those who stayed away are behaving perfectly rationally. They have sensed that their vote does not matter much and that, on the key issue of money, councils are ...