Serco CEO’s lockdown breaking family trip

Some unwelcome publicity this week for Rupert Soames, Churchill’s grandson and brother of the former Conservative MP Nicholas – once known as ‘Fatty’ – Soames. Rupert posted a curious tweet on Tuesday extolling the virtues of the Caledonian Sleeper train, run by the company he heads, Serco. The sleeper service from London to Scotland has had what Soames himself admits is a ‘blizzard of bad publicity’ over delays, faults and dirty cabins recently. But this particular tweet was because Soames was about to be outed for breaking the coronavirus lockdown, travelling from London to Inverness on the sleeper.

His staff are members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), which has long borne a grudge against the Soames family. Nicholas Soames used to wittily heckle Labour’s deputy leader at the time, John Prescott – a union member since his days as a steward and waiter for Cunard – with cries of: ‘Mine’s a gin and tonic, Giovanni.’