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Feckless Avanti bosses can't run a train on time but are splashing cash on woke murals instead of improving service

Feckless Avanti bosses can't run a train on time but are splashing cash on woke murals instead of improving service

The Sun01-05-2025
LUCKY passengers using Avanti West Coast trains now have another great reason to splash out an extortionate sum on their tickets.
One of the trains has been covered from top to bottom in a mural of happy ethnic minority people.
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The whole train. 'Scenes of people, culture, colours and joy,' Avanti's website gushes. It looks like a dog's breakfast to me, but there you are.
The huge image is called 'Together We Roll'. Isn't that lovely? And how brave of Avanti to spend money on that. Rather than on improving their punctuality.
At the end of last year Avanti West Coast had the worst punctuality record of any of the main train companies. Just two out of five of its trains managed to arrive on time.
Even by our usual standards, that's a shockingly low percentage.
Avanti explained that the mural was all part of their equity, diversity and inclusion programme. Really? You still have one of those? I think it is high time you got rid.
But needless to say this extravagance with your money – you pay for the tickets as well as the subsidies, remember – is supported by our Labour government, whose spokesman thought it was a lovely design.
The Conservative's transport spokesman Gareth Bacon put his finger on the issue though: 'Avanti West Coast can't run a train on time, but they can find the time and money for virtue-signalling nonsense."
While passengers are stranded on platforms waiting for services that never show up, Avanti are busy patting themselves on the back for colourful train paint jobs.
Exactly. And we're all getting just a little bit sick of it. The right-on corporate virtue signalling from big firms.
Often at our expense. The showing off by police forces who paint their cars in rainbow colours to show solidarity with the gays and the trans lobby.
But won't lift a finger to help when you've been burgled, or had your phone nicked in the street. The NHS with its profusion of diversity officers on more than £50,000 per year.
While patients lie on gurneys in hospital corridors.
It's all showing off. It's all saying we're woker than you are.
And I think the British people, of whatever colour, have had enough of it.
Oh, by the way, if you see Avanti's mural train, have a look at it. See if you can find a white face anywhere. I couldn't.
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