John McDonnell’s Question Time excuse falls short

On Thurday’s Question Time, there was one politician notably absent from the panel. For a second time, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, had to cancel his appearance — this time putting it down to train delays. And whose fault is this? Well, the Conservatives obviously — as if Labour were in power the trains would be nationalised:

4 hour delay on train & flights full, so sorry to miss @bbcquestiontime. Jinxed! Won't have this problem when we renationalise the railways.

— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) March 9, 2017

However, there’s a problem. First, those flights sold out after Mr McDonnell had been booked on a flight – but he arrived at the airport too late and the gate was closed. So you can’t really blame privately-owned railways for that.

More importantly the delays in question were caused by a train caught up in overhead lines, and being left there for far too long. The track and those wires are managed by Network Rail, which is already nationalised.