For Khan, it raises the spectre of a lengthy negotiations with unions who could use the safety fears of their workers to demand a raft of concessions including better pay and hours.

Absolute bastards eh?

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline the unions had Sadiq Khan 'over a barrel': 'As always with Labour politicians, Sadiq Khan is completely in hock to his Union paymasters.

How does that work? Over a barrel whilst also being beholden to them as paymasters?

'If rail and other services can be taken over wholesale by the state to protect them during a crisis then they can be taken over on a permanent basis when that crisis subsides as a public service free from the grip of private speculation.

'There must also be no more talk of austerity and our colleagues in health and social care should get the pay and the resources they have proven so publicly that they deserve. Their fight will be our fight.

The cheek of them.

'Clapping our essential workers on a Thursday evening is fine and shows exactly where the public stand. But that support has to be transformed into a new deal for the whole country and the services and the staff that we value so dearly when this emergency eases.'

Clapping should be fine right?

Anyway, that whole article is a mess of competing points, quotes and perspectives, whoever wrote it needs to edit it ... IMO it's conflating several stories and makes for weird reading.