Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport, today unveiled the government’s bold new plan to encourage nervous commuters back on to the trains.
“People are quite understandably very worried about travelling in crowded carriages,” he told us, “so that is why I have urgently ramped up a world-beating strategy that is certain to give everyone the confidence to get back to work and save our economy.”
Under the new scheme, all commuters will be encouraged to start their journeys only between the hours of 11.00 and 12.00.
“Everyone hates rush hours, don’t they?” he explained. “But from next Monday nobody in this country will need to suffer the health risks and extreme discomfort of travelling in to their office at those traditionally very busy times.”
We asked Mr Shapps if he wasn’t simply shifting the rush hour to 11am but unfortunately his phone must have cut out.