Author Archives: Prem Raghvani

It’s Sunday, 4 July 2027, three years since Labour’s historic landslide victory.

Want to check how many seats they won before half the backbench got booted for defending something dangerous like, I don’t know, free school meals? Let’s pull up the Wikipedia article.

Oh, hang on… we’ll need to verify our ID first.

Can’t have children accidentally learning about something subversive like austerity. Not after Wikipedia was designated a “Category 1” site under the Online Safety Act.

They fought it, of course – took the government to court back in 2025. But after a year of legal ping-pong and mounting fees, they gave in.

Now you just need a passport, facial scan, your National Insurance number, and town of birth to access an article about the 2024 General Election. All in the name of protecting the children.

Anyway, silly me, I just remembered it’s Sunday. Time to visit my parents, as I do every week.

I figured I’d take the newly renationalised railway. It’s more environmentally friendly, and the pride of the country. Trains were invented here, after all. Thank you, George Stephenson. Silly me.

Oh wait. Half of Northern’s timetable has been scrapped again today for “essential maintenance”, including the train I had a ticket for.

The one that did show up just sort of gave up outside Rochdale. You can’t really blame it, it’s over 30 years old. No apology, just a poor railway worker left to deal with the backlash, quietly pointing us to the Delay Repay website.

Which I tried to use. After all, I paid £275 for my super-duper-extra-amazing off-peak train ticket that got me… precisely nowhere.

But naturally, the Delay Repay, and the complaints form is now behind an age verification wall too.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Denis Loretto
    At our Autumn conference once again a series of highly detailed policies covering pages of agenda will be earnestly debated and (mainly) passed. They will then ...
  • theakes
    My post sort of started this flurry of "change the leader" postings. So here goes again just a personal view but Daisy Cooper fits the bill as much as any one,...
  • Anthony Acton
    In 2024 when most voters would rather have voted for anyone but the disgraced and discredited Tories, Ed went down well. Two years on, a lot more is needed than...
  • Neil Sandison
    Stephen Yolland and Carl Pierce are right if our largest numbers of MPs and Councillors are not getting our message across then is is about leadership and if t...
  • Carl Pierce
    Sadly the party is terrified of the zionist lobby yet another issue where we hesitate to do the right thing. A wonderful councillor (who writes here regularly) ...