Angry Salmond: After independence, our rail service will be best bar none

As you’ve suggested, Bob, the train service currently on offer in our homeland leaves much to be desired. Delays, cancellations and poor customer service are part and parcel of the ScotRail service. And it’s not just the commuters who are suffering. ScotRail’s current operators, Abellio, have in recent times proposed that certain routes should be driver-only, meaning that all operations and safety procedures would be performed by one person – the driver.

Understandably, this led to a series of strikes throughout the month of July, and I for one certainly didn’t blame ScotRail staff for taking such action. Undoubtedly, what we’re seeing here are the ugly effects of cost-cutting. Unfortunately, such measures are the consequence of a company ceasing to focus on what it promises to deliver and instead turning its attention to the pursuit of financial gain.

How ScotRail feels it can justify a £40 charge for an open return journey between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh is beyond my ken – especially when this outlay doesn’t even guarantee you a seat. By contrast, you can travel from Amsterdam to Eindhoven and back for under €20 – a journey that’s twice the distance of Glasgow to Edinburgh.

Now, some might suggest that we wouldn’t really be Scottish if we didn’t moan about public transport, but this needn’t be the case forever. In an independent Scotland, I can see a real chance to make trains fun again. Remember your first train journey? Why can’t they all be as magical as that? I mean, is there any reason why The Flying Scotsman shouldn’t actually fly? Frankly, airborne locomotives moving between High Street and Easterhouse would be a small accomplishment compared to the gigantic task of improving staff morale, basic timekeeping and the quality of carriages.

For one thing, I believe that if you see a sign that says “free wi-fi”, it will actually mean free wi-fi! But why stop there? If a train is late, should you have to pay for it? I don’t think so. In such an event, the only thing our cash should be going towards is drinks in the fully-stocked bars I would have installed on every coach!

There is also the inexplicable working practice of trains becoming even more irregular and useless on the seventh day of the week. God might rest on a Sunday, but Scots have important things to do like getting the messages from Farmfoods or gambling. These are not habits that should be disrupted due to a meddling deity or a poor public transportation network. My hope is that, in an independent Scotland, the Sunday train service will be replaced by the Super Sunday train service, with trains running faster than Road Runner with road rage!

Simply put, I’d like to see a train service that puts people first – from the workers to the passengers. The current system is evidently a profit-over-people venture which favours savings over service. Rather than treating us like mere integers, the train companies should be treating us like valued customers. This isn’t revolutionary thinking, but rather a response to a company that seems to have forgotten that its very purpose is to serve the people, not insult them.

Angry, I have been following the escalating war between Larry the No 10 cat and his feline Foreign Office rival Palmerston. What do you make of this furry situation?
Audrey, Glasgow

Well, Audrey, with Theresa May as Prime Minister, Larry should thank his lucky stripes that cat fights are his only worry! It’s a miracle that he hasn’t been turned into a pair of shoes or an extravagant hat.

Nonetheless, the scratching and clawing between Larry and Palmerston seems to be getting worse by the day. Indeed, their furry fights have become an interesting metaphor for Tory civil war; with Palmerston representing Brexit Boris’s Foreign Office and Larry trapped in the camp of Remain’s Theresa May.

Hired merely as mouse catchers, it hasn’t taken long for the acrimony of Westminster politics to corrupt these moggies into macho-minded war machines. Their mentality has become one of scratch first, rub scent later. This is something that is considered deeply concerning to the Scottish Government. It is well documented that Nicola Sturgeon adores cats, and it is only a matter of time before she intervenes in this situation. Certainly, there is nobody more qualified in politics to get two felines around the negotiating table in an effort to talk out their differences. Once a constructive dialogue is opened between Larry and Palmerston, the sky is truly the limit on what they can achieve together. Indeed, rather than aimlessly fighting between themselves, they might turn their attention towards things that really matter in life – like eating tuna and winning Scottish independence.

Personally, I think we should consider hiring Larry and Palmerston as covert intelligence sources. What better contact could the SNP possibly have than two cats with seemingly unrestricted access to the Foreign Office and Number 10? A hidden microphone in the collar could reveal all sorts of beneficial state secrets. Some might say this would be rather underhanded of us, but I think it’s simply a fair trade for Theresa May invading our privacy under the Draft Communications Data Bill. Larry and Palmerston are rat catchers by trade – is there any reason why that should be restricted to just the four-legged kind?