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UK rail minister got engineer sacked for raising safety concerns

529 points by scrlk 2y ago

alexchamberlain 2y ago
As long as it's done in the right way, I think a supplier raising safety concerns should be a reason to do _more_ business with them, not less.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Sounds like it was done via the media, not the correct internal channels.
  - lawn 2y ago
    That's usually the only option when nobody listens.
  - dathinab 2y ago
    but do "correct internal channels" exist, are accessible by the people people in raising concerns (especially potentially anonymously) and are not ignored? because most times they aren't really usable if they even exist and raising concerns on such channels can often get you in as much trouble as doing so publicly -- but without you concerns being pretty much guaranteed ignored
  - Pingk 2y ago
    Maybe, but it was already public knowledge: > In September 2023 the government regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), had issued an improvement notice to Network Rail about overcrowding at the station, warning: “You have failed to implement, so far as reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station.” It's concerning to me that Hendy was the chair of Network Rail from 2015 before becoming Transport Minister, and here he is sacking someone after a comment about his former workplace. Should definitely be an investigation into his motives/incentives IMO
    - londons_explore 2y ago
      "public" via a set of documents hidden deep on an official webpage is very different to "public" as a news headline.
      - rcxdude 2y ago
        But it is presumably the "Correct internal channels"?
      - Doctor_Fegg 2y ago
        Here's the news headline from the time for you: https://news.sky.com/story/network-rail-failing-to-stop-unacceptable-overcrowding-at-euston-train-station-says-rail-regulator-12987047 https://news.sky.com/story/network-rail-failing-to-stop-unac...
      - prmoustache 2y ago
        Irrelevant.
    - pastage 2y ago
      I wonder if there are still overcrowding at that station, or if it really was fixed in 2023. A bit of a Streisand effect going on here.
      - luke-stanley 2y ago
        Well, when I was in Euston rail station a few weeks ago, it was very overcrowded. It seemed worse in the day than the night. Seems like the minister is missing the necessity of acting with integrity and transparency, a lesson they frequently need reminding of. Surely there must be better person the PM could find for the job, that don't feel a need write harassing letters, bullying train companies into firing staff?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- stbenjam 2y ago
  There’s rarely a “right” way to whistleblow. Most of the official channels in any bureaucracy exist to both sound nice and simultaneously sweep everything under the rug
  - acdha 2y ago
    Yes: it takes an extraordinary amount of cultural back-pressure to counter out the tendency to protect the organizational hierarchy. This can be slightly better in the public sector when laws require disclosure but it's usually still too easy to obscure matters or, especially, rely on complex organizational structures and outsourcing to diffuse responsibility to the point that it’s hard to hold any one person accountable.
- crimsoneer 2y ago
  It's notable here that he didn't engage as a representative of the company, but more as an "engineering writer", probably after the newspaper reached out for comment. But yes, not exactly a fan of people this senior sticking their nose in misconduct matters, but also, if you're employed by a company, you probably shouldn't badmouth their clients in the national papers and not be aware that's risky. It's not exactly whistleblowing.
  - etiennebausson 2y ago
    Raising safety issues is part of a senior engineer's duties (or any engineer, really). Since railways through Europe are a state monopoly, it's not like there are tons of people in the industry that do not work for said 'client'. Who is supposed to pull the alarm in this case? No One? That's how you end up with Boeing-adjacent engineering.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      > railways through Europe are a state monopoly The situation is much more stupid than that: there's a set of "private" companies, some of which are substantially owned by states and some are not, all of which are quasi-monopolies.
londons_explore 2y ago
This guy will get 1 years salary as compensation after winning an unfair dismissal case, and then he will never work in rail again. He'll have to pay much of those winnings back to his legal team. Over his life, he will almost certainly earn less. Shouldn't have spoken out. Had he kept quiet, a crush would have happened, a few people would have been pushed off a platform and died under a train, and it would be a "tragedy" - but he'd get to keep his livelihood.
- seanthemon 2y ago
  Ironically: The Trolly Problem [0] except the singular person is you. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  I bet even if your predictions are right, he'll still live a happier life knowing he has saved some lives.
- scrlk 2y ago
  See Roger Boisjoly, an engineer at Morton Thiokol who tried to blow the whistle on design flaws in the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters before the Challenger disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly > Boisjoly sent a memo describing the problem to his managers, but was apparently ignored.[8] Following several further memos, a task force was convened to investigate the matter, but after a month Boisjoly realized that the task force had no power, no resources, and no management support. In late 1985, Boisjoly advised his managers that if the problem was not fixed, there was a distinct chance that a shuttle mission would end in disaster. No action was taken. > After President Ronald Reagan ordered a presidential commission to review the disaster, Boisjoly was one of the witnesses called. He gave accounts of how and why he felt the O-rings had failed, and argued that the caucus called by Morton Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch, was an "unethical decision-making forum resulting from intense customer intimidation." > According to Boisjoly, Thiokol unassigned him from space work, and he was ostracized by his colleagues and managers.
- 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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stbenjam 2y ago
> In 2013, Peter Hendy, who was then the Commissioner of Transport for London, was accused of engaging in a nine-month extramarital affair with Rachael Grundy, a call girl who charged £140 per hour. Grundy alleged that Hendy provided her with several Oyster cards loaded with £10 as gifts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hendy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hendy
- janice1999 2y ago
  His brother's a Baron. Of course this class fails upwards. Only the poor plebs will pay the price while those in power award each other CBEs and ignore warnings from the working class about impending disaster. See also the post office injustice and the Grenfell Tower fire.
  - DoctorOetker 2y ago
    Check out "The Fool" (2014): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/
    - janice1999 2y ago
      Thanks, I'll check it out. One of my friends and his brothers all left Russia (before the recent war) because of the corruption. The most depressing part of his stories is how apathetic most people are and how there is so little hope for change there.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Lol, there's even more classy things about him on there: > During 2014, Hendy reportedly spent over £1,200 in taxpayer-provided money on lunches and dinners, including on one occasion more than £90 in alcohol. And that despite a 650k salary - as if he couldn't afford to get wasted on his own. What a disgrace.
  - morsch 2y ago
    Otoh regular public sector employees (from what I hear) don't even get free coffee at the office.
dobladov 2y ago
People whose job is managing and not understanding issues does not want to deal with issues, it’s in their interest to always give the impression of everything working smoothly, that's why engineering driven companies fail the moment that managerial people takes over.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Employees: - It's 3.6 Röntgen, but that's as high as the meter... Management: - 3.6 Röntgen, not great not terrible.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    Was that from HBO's Chernobyl?
    - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
      Yes.
  - gaius_baltar 2y ago
    A more fitting quote would be "They gave them the propaganda number".
- cedws 2y ago
  It’s a very HN thing to say, but god, the world would be so much better if we kicked these parasites out and engineers ran the show.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Good engineers don't have the neccesariy personality traits to climb over corpses of others to get into upper management. So those who end up in upper management are always the worst sociopaths who only know how to play the politics game as their main goal is just climbing the ladder, not developing good products/services. Exceptions do exist (Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, etc) but that's why they are the exceptions.
Kydlaw 2y ago
I personally find this information frightening... we are now in a world where management no longer even listens to its engineers or technical experts when they warn of serious dangers. Obviously everyone thinks of Boeing, and today it's “only” a train station, but imagine if the same culture developed in an industrial chemical plant or a nuclear power station? Where do you go? What do you do? Unless you have an Engineer Association or an Union to back you up, you are doomed to be crushed by your upper management and beyond...
jl6 2y ago
Out of interest, what would the right resolution have been to reduce the risk of a crush due to overcrowding? Close the station entrance when at capacity?
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Run more trains so the station never reaches capacity. Or expand the station.
  - HenryBemis 2y ago
    Both solutions would take months/years to implement. "More trains" mean they need to radically improve service/repairs and/or purchase of new trains. "Expand the station" would mean that they would have to shut down all-of or large-parts of it while works take place. I remember being impacted of the London Bridge train station de-spaghetti-fying the tracks. I moved out of the area I was living so eventually I was impacted for only 4-5 months. I will not touch the matter of costs.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      Nobody said all problems have cheap solutions.
    - stuaxo 2y ago
      London bridge tracks untangled is so much better for throughput - I remember so many long waits as a Brighton train blocked the whole station crossing the tracks. One surprising good thing the gov did at that time was insist on the rebuild of the station itself, it was particularly grim, and just a mess. I've lived nearby the whole time and the new station is a nice space, generally efficient with good throughput for the trains. I'm pessimistic, but really hoping they don't stick with plans to build a too small terminus in London for HS1, not too optimistic as we have Rachael Reeves as a continuity austerity Chancellor - lets see.
      - smcl 2y ago
percevalve 2y ago
Am I correct to say the sacked engineer has a regular show on Youtube ? https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDennisTV https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDennisTV
- smcl 2y ago
  You are correct, he's also been a guest on "Well There's Your Problem" (an engineering disasters podcast/channel) and TRASHFUTURE (UK tech/politics podcast) a few times.
stbenjam 2y ago
The engineer has a lengthy thread on Twitter https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829036280996315637 https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829036280996315637
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  And mastodon: https://mas.to/@GarethDennis/113043981557507889 https://mas.to/@GarethDennis/113043981557507889
stuaxo 2y ago
Starmers promise of very similar policies to the Tories, but operated more competently playing out. On the other hand he doesn't handle bad press well, let's see how this goes.
- smcl 2y ago
  This occurred before Labour took office - Hendy was the chair of Network Rail at the time. However as Starmer appointed him Transport Minister it'll be interesting to see what he does. I think it'll just be swept aside and ignored because they're too focussed on Austerity 2.0
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Honestly I’d expect they just fire Hendy; only in the job a month, so low cost of replacement, and it’s a bad look.
    - smcl 2y ago
      You'd hope so but Starmer's a bit weird - seems to want to look like he's in charge (suspending the seven who voted against the government on the 2 child cap) so it wouldn't surprise me if he tries to brush it off and do nothing. The papers are largely all still with him and I haven't seen this story getting picked up outside Politico so it's possible they'll just agree to spike it and move on :-/
      - keyshapegeo99 2y ago
        Guardian are reporting on it now, so it's slowly trickling out.
        smcl 2y ago
        Yeah I just saw now, that's good.
michaelt 2y ago
The article that got the guy fired is [1] apparently. If you search for "Gareth Dennis" - honestly his criticisms seem pretty mild. My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. I'm surprised this guy got fired - in the rail network I know, they'd have addressed his concerns by adding even more posters and announcements. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-station-delays-london-overcrowding-cancel-b2527730.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.indep...
- sealeck 2y ago
  I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and stumbling down the stairs this announcement might help them) rather than on average. That is: many safety features will produce limited tangible benefit to the average person most of the time, but they do reduce accidents which normally happen at the tail end of the distribution in more extreme circumstances.
  - newsclues 2y ago
    You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?
    - justinclift 2y ago
      Sometimes, probably yes? :)
      - newsclues 2y ago
gchadwick 2y ago
Worth noting the story here has subtly that the headline cannot accurately capture. For one I wouldn't say this is about raising safety concerns or whistle-blowing, it's about how the employer views employees talking to the media. The engineer in question was sacked for stating 'You’re talking about thousands of people squished into that space. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.' in a media interview (see https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-station-delays-london-overcrowding-cancel-b2527730.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-stati... looks like the unsafe part of that quote made the headline). Here he was just amplifying already public information that the Office of Rail and Road had raised concerns and issued an improvement notice (which is reference in the article before he is quoted). I guess they hadn't actually declared it 'unsafe' though. I think it is reasonable for employers to require employees don't go making negative comments in the media, though that is tempered by the public interest in raising the profile of safety concerns. Perhaps here the engineer felt no-one was taking the improvement notice seriously and needed more incentive to do so? Could also be he felt he wasn't trying to cause any upset at all and was simply stating what was already public known. It does feel here that the minister that triggered the sacking was just being thin-skinned. He saw a newspaper headline that angered him and sought to take it out on someone. Perhaps some disciplinary action was warranted (maybe improvements were indeed underway and the engineer shouldn't go causing extra needless public alarm) but sacking him looks to be a big overreaction.
- smcl 2y ago
  In this case it's a little more than just an employer/employee relationship. It's the head of a non-departmental government body (at the time Hendy lead Network Rail, he's now Minister for Transport) threatening to not award contracts to a railway services provider unless they terminate an employee who voiced safety concerns publicly. Notably these concerns were shared by the Office of Rail and Road (i.e. ... the government).
  - XCabbage 2y ago
    A "non-departmental government body" - more usually known in the press as a "quango" or "quasi-autonomous non-government body", because we cannot make up our mind in the UK about what things are part of the "government" and which are not. :)
halicarnassus 2y ago
In the comments here I read a lot about if this is whistleblowing or not, or if disciplinary measures are warranted for an employee "badmouthing" an employer's client while not having an official mandate to speak in public, while mostly ignoring the threats made by a government official. This is exactly the problem why the world sucks so hard. The engineer, certainly knowledgeable in this field, made a measured public remark, which could have saved lives. He has done nothing wrong, because he didn't claim to speak on behalf of his employer, and has the right to speak his mind as a person. In public, and with a lot of reach. The government official, however, applied unconstitutional pressure to get the engineer fired and threatened his employer to lose business. Humanly very low and damaging to future public rail infrastructure, if a capable company is not allowed to provide services anymore and therefore most likely to increase prices through diminished competition. If anyone should lose their job over this matter, it clearly should be the UK rail minister.
- callamdelaney 2y ago
  There is no constitution here, your existence and rights as a British citizen is at the convenience of the state.
  - graemep 2y ago
    Its not that simple. There is a body of constitutional law. There is extensive law governing what powers ministers have - powers are granted to them by legislation. There are human rights granted by law and treaty. Everything from some clauses of the Magna Carta that are still in force https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/originsofparliament/birthofparliament/overview/magnacarta/magnacartaclauses/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofp... to the European Convention on Human Rights.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      And thanks to parliamentary supremacy any and all of those protections can be repealed by a simple majority of the House of Commons.
userixoi 2y ago
[flagged]
boomskats 2y ago
Would anyone care to speculate how something like this would potentially play out in another Western European country? If all the abuse of power and overstepping/targeting was unchallenged public knowledge, would there be more of a reaction?
arder 2y ago
This really sets the government up for failure. The next time there's a tragedy on our rail system the question I'm going to ask is "Would this have happened if the person in charge took safety concerns seriously". This just makes Hendy's position totally untenable.
Havoc 2y ago
Politics seems to attract the worst type of people
mjburgess 2y ago
One of the reasons I'm against nationalisation, is that when the government contracts out services to the private sector it hold them to a high standard -- and regulates in lots of saftey/etc. conditions. When the gov runs services there's a massive conflict of interest in regulating them properly: its embarrassing for the gov, there's no accountability for profitability/sustainable-use-of-resources/etc. So whilst centrist (and center-left on some matters), I'm largely in favour of a gov which runs via contracted services with significant regulation and oversight. Lots of cover-up stories have come out recently which show that political control over key services undermines their accountability, not improves it.
- h1fra 2y ago
  You are not from Britain (or Europe), no? Privatisation of the rail in UK is a nightmare, the government is not holding the private sector to a high standard at all. High profit and High standard are barely compatible, I'm not sure they are even good examples in the world.
  - mjburgess 2y ago
    Yes, I'm from the UK. 1. Compare and contrast the privately run phase of rail service with the public version before the early 90s. It was low-use by the public and in a decrepit state. 2. The form privatisation took in the UK kept the most expensive, old, difficult to maintain etc. parts of the rail networks under public control. You saw what happened (HS2) when that public control was actually used to improve the infrastructure. ... We'll have to see what happens when MPs are suddenly setting budgets for rail companies, and whether you think you'll get what you want. I doubt it.
    - smcl 2y ago
      With 1) you're comparing apples to oranges and you're still wrong. The turnaround in rail use in the UK began in the 1980s before the private train operating companies got involved. And if you're referring to the network itself being in "a decrepit state" before and now being improved to the point where it can sustain higher capacities ... well you can thank Network Rail for that (note: not a private company). The TOCs are headed for nationalisation anyway, leaving the ROSCOs as the big privatisation "success" (in that they've extracted enormous profits while not exactly contributing anything particularly novel). What we saw with HS2 is a large (and frankly completely necessary) engineering project getting fucked around with and repeatedly chopped down until it no longer satisfied its original plan (providing greater capacity for both local and national services by providing a new North-South line that happened to be "high-speed") and became exactly what those wielding the axe that killed it accused it of ("just a way for some to get to London slightly faster").
deleted 2y ago
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red_admiral 2y ago
This is what we got the last time safety culture in UK railways was in a serious mess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbroke_Grove_rail_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbroke_Grove_rail_crash Some in the industry think the next such accident isn't too far off. Stampedes at Euston are a manageable problem by comparison.
anentropic 2y ago
This Hendy guy sounds like a classic shit manager, only concerned with saving face
flanked-evergl 2y ago
UK seems like one of the absolute worst places in the world to live. Why are there not more people moving out of the UK? Do they still think it can get better?
- tim333 2y ago
  It's a bit like that quote about democracy - it's the worst place apart from all the other ones. Not where really is perfect. The population keeps going up here with people immigrating for what it's worth although we've had quite a lot of millionaires leaving and African asylum seekers arriving on dinghies which is perhaps not ideal.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    > It's a bit like that quote about democracy - it's the worst place apart from all the other ones. No, it's way worse than most of the others. Anywhere in the Anglosphere or other parts of Europe is better. Most of Asia is better. Most of South America is better. Even some African countries are probably better. I would definitely move to Uganda, Botswana or South Africa before I ever set foot in the UK. > The population keeps going up here If you promise anyone who arrives at your shore free healthcare, accommodation, food and some spending money, then of course your population will go up. Not sure how that makes anything better.
    - tim333 2y ago
      I guess worse is in the eye of the beholder but on the "List of countries by Human Development Index" we're #15, ahead of the US (#20). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... Dunno. Are you a Brit? Think of moving anywhere?
- badpun 2y ago
  I’d say uk is probably in top10-top20 places in the world to live.
deleted 2y ago
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XCabbage 2y ago
Obviously, the retaliation is bad. Should disqualify Lord Hendy from his role. But I would also like to make sense of what the actual risk alleged to exist in Euston is, and how Gareth Dennis or the ORR inspector thinks it should be mitigated. And I cannot figure it out, at all. In Dennis's comments quoted in The Independent, for which he was fired, he attributes the risks at the station to the increased number of trains coming in and out of the station. That seems to imply that the crush or trample risk he perceives to exist is in the main lobby area of the station, not on the platforms or the ramps leading down to the platform gates, since if it were the latter then the risk would exist regardless of the number of trains coming in and out of the station. This seemed surprising/implausible to me because all the dense crowds I've ever seen (and felt concerned about) in Euston have been on the ramps or the platforms, NOT in the lobby area which is massive. I struggle to imagine how a crush or stampede could ever happen anywhere besides the ramps and platforms. So I dug a bit further. The press release associated with the improvement notice (https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/rail-regulator-requires-crowd-management-improvements-euston-station https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/rail-regulator-requires-c...), on the other hand, says that over summer 2023, there were three instances of "crowding reaching unacceptable levels and a lack of crowd control in place" resulting in "minor injuries" with potential for worse. They also complain of a lack of risk assessments for two unspecified "pinch points" in the station "where crowding is most concentrated", inadequate "control measures", and unacceptably poor "layout" and "signage" to help with flow control. The actual improvement notice, meanwhile, contains essentially no detail (https://orrprdpubreg1.blob.core.windows.net/docs/I-NWM-20230926-03-Network-Rail-improvement-notice.pdf https://orrprdpubreg1.blob.core.windows.net/docs/I-NWM-20230...), just some fairly meaningless boilerplate. The entire explanation of the problem is "You have failed to implement, so far as is reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station" and the remedy demanded is that the station needs to do a risk assessment and then implement whatever measures they come up with in the risk assessment. My best guess at what this is all about, possibly completely wrong, is as follows: * the two "pinch points" are two of the ramps, probably the one leading down to platforms 8/9/10/11 and the one leading down to platforms 12/13/14/15, which in my personal experience of the station are where most of the big surges happen * the injuries happened due to crowds running down the ramps to the platforms once the platform number for their train got announced, either to beat other passengers to the seats or out of fear that they would not get on a late-arriving train before it departed at all * the risk assessment concluded that the station should put up signs telling people not to run, and then they did that (I can't find any reporting about it, but if my memory serves me right, then those signs on the ramps at Euston appeared late last year which fits with the timeline) So, IF I'm guessing correctly, there's probably a real stampede risk, with minor examples having already played out, but it's totally unrelated to the number of trains or the crowding in the lobby, the fired "whistleblower" is basically full of shit for suggesting a problem stemming from a larger number of trains, and the supposed "fix" is also meaningless compliance bullshit that will have no effect. Of course, again, I could be guessing totally wrong; there isn't enough detail in the public documents or reporting for us to tell. So I publicly asked Gareth, the guy who got fired, to explain his concerns in more detail or point me to somewhere with detail. He... responded with indignation and contempt, pointed me to the Improvement Notice for one reason (the document with no detail about the problems, just a one sentence description that is probably copied and pasted boilerplate and makes no reference to any of the specific circumstances at Euston), then suggested I was mentally unwell in some way and blocked me. What a dickhead. Here's the end of the thread; I'd be grateful if someone not blocked by Gareth would stick it into Threadreader and post a link here so people not on X can read it: https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829179489043226778 https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829179489043226778 I find it hard to fathom why someone sincerely concerned with safety would behave in this way - making unactionably vague complaints that a station is unsafe, then refusing to elaborate and lashing out at anyone interested in the detail for daring to question him. After the displeasure of interacting with the guy, it seems to me that this story has no heroes. But still, no matter how much of a dick he is or how useless his criticism was, it doesn't justify the firing. If you want a culture in which people feel safe speaking up about concerns, you have to indulge even stupid and incoherent concerns made by dicks; if you don't, everybody with something substantive to say will quite reasonably fear they will be viewed and treated in the same way you treated the dick.
penguin_booze 2y ago
I'm surprised (or should I?) that this wasn't picked up by the BBC - at least didn't show up on my feeds.
- penguin_booze 2y ago
  Oh well, here it is: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy76j4nyxlko https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy76j4nyxlko.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
As a general rule, don't talk to the media -- there's little upside and a lot of potential downside.
stainablesteel 2y ago
the UK is being ran with the same level of incompetence as Boeing
B2k2233 2y ago
[flagged]
silexia 2y ago
This is very common in organizations where decision makers do not have proper incentives like in a free market. More government = less accountability.
mvandermeulen 2y ago
Basically this happened in NSW Australia too. For anyone interested, it was Rod Staples who was fired and you can easily get a sense for the kind of guy he is in the documentary series “Sydney’s Super Tunnel”.

529 points by scrlk 2y ago

As long as it's done in the right way, I think a supplier raising safety concerns should be a reason to do _more_ business with them, not less.

londons_explore 2y ago
Sounds like it was done via the media, not the correct internal channels.
- lawn 2y ago
  That's usually the only option when nobody listens.
- dathinab 2y ago
  but do "correct internal channels" exist, are accessible by the people people in raising concerns (especially potentially anonymously) and are not ignored? because most times they aren't really usable if they even exist and raising concerns on such channels can often get you in as much trouble as doing so publicly -- but without you concerns being pretty much guaranteed ignored
- Pingk 2y ago
  Maybe, but it was already public knowledge: > In September 2023 the government regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), had issued an improvement notice to Network Rail about overcrowding at the station, warning: “You have failed to implement, so far as reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station.” It's concerning to me that Hendy was the chair of Network Rail from 2015 before becoming Transport Minister, and here he is sacking someone after a comment about his former workplace. Should definitely be an investigation into his motives/incentives IMO
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    "public" via a set of documents hidden deep on an official webpage is very different to "public" as a news headline.
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      But it is presumably the "Correct internal channels"?
    - Doctor_Fegg 2y ago
      Here's the news headline from the time for you: https://news.sky.com/story/network-rail-failing-to-stop-unacceptable-overcrowding-at-euston-train-station-says-rail-regulator-12987047 https://news.sky.com/story/network-rail-failing-to-stop-unac...
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      Irrelevant.
  - pastage 2y ago
    I wonder if there are still overcrowding at that station, or if it really was fixed in 2023. A bit of a Streisand effect going on here.
    - luke-stanley 2y ago
      Well, when I was in Euston rail station a few weeks ago, it was very overcrowded. It seemed worse in the day than the night. Seems like the minister is missing the necessity of acting with integrity and transparency, a lesson they frequently need reminding of. Surely there must be better person the PM could find for the job, that don't feel a need write harassing letters, bullying train companies into firing staff?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
stbenjam 2y ago
There’s rarely a “right” way to whistleblow. Most of the official channels in any bureaucracy exist to both sound nice and simultaneously sweep everything under the rug
- acdha 2y ago
  Yes: it takes an extraordinary amount of cultural back-pressure to counter out the tendency to protect the organizational hierarchy. This can be slightly better in the public sector when laws require disclosure but it's usually still too easy to obscure matters or, especially, rely on complex organizational structures and outsourcing to diffuse responsibility to the point that it’s hard to hold any one person accountable.
crimsoneer 2y ago
It's notable here that he didn't engage as a representative of the company, but more as an "engineering writer", probably after the newspaper reached out for comment. But yes, not exactly a fan of people this senior sticking their nose in misconduct matters, but also, if you're employed by a company, you probably shouldn't badmouth their clients in the national papers and not be aware that's risky. It's not exactly whistleblowing.
- etiennebausson 2y ago
  Raising safety issues is part of a senior engineer's duties (or any engineer, really). Since railways through Europe are a state monopoly, it's not like there are tons of people in the industry that do not work for said 'client'. Who is supposed to pull the alarm in this case? No One? That's how you end up with Boeing-adjacent engineering.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > railways through Europe are a state monopoly The situation is much more stupid than that: there's a set of "private" companies, some of which are substantially owned by states and some are not, all of which are quasi-monopolies.

londons_explore 2y ago

This guy will get 1 years salary as compensation after winning an unfair dismissal case, and then he will never work in rail again. He'll have to pay much of those winnings back to his legal team. Over his life, he will almost certainly earn less. Shouldn't have spoken out. Had he kept quiet, a crush would have happened, a few people would have been pushed off a platform and died under a train, and it would be a "tragedy" - but he'd get to keep his livelihood.

seanthemon 2y ago
Ironically: The Trolly Problem [0] except the singular person is you. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
tsimionescu 2y ago
I bet even if your predictions are right, he'll still live a happier life knowing he has saved some lives.
scrlk 2y ago
See Roger Boisjoly, an engineer at Morton Thiokol who tried to blow the whistle on design flaws in the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters before the Challenger disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly > Boisjoly sent a memo describing the problem to his managers, but was apparently ignored.[8] Following several further memos, a task force was convened to investigate the matter, but after a month Boisjoly realized that the task force had no power, no resources, and no management support. In late 1985, Boisjoly advised his managers that if the problem was not fixed, there was a distinct chance that a shuttle mission would end in disaster. No action was taken. > After President Ronald Reagan ordered a presidential commission to review the disaster, Boisjoly was one of the witnesses called. He gave accounts of how and why he felt the O-rings had failed, and argued that the caucus called by Morton Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch, was an "unethical decision-making forum resulting from intense customer intimidation." > According to Boisjoly, Thiokol unassigned him from space work, and he was ostracized by his colleagues and managers.
2y ago

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stbenjam 2y ago

> In 2013, Peter Hendy, who was then the Commissioner of Transport for London, was accused of engaging in a nine-month extramarital affair with Rachael Grundy, a call girl who charged £140 per hour. Grundy alleged that Hendy provided her with several Oyster cards loaded with £10 as gifts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hendy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hendy

janice1999 2y ago
His brother's a Baron. Of course this class fails upwards. Only the poor plebs will pay the price while those in power award each other CBEs and ignore warnings from the working class about impending disaster. See also the post office injustice and the Grenfell Tower fire.
- DoctorOetker 2y ago
  Check out "The Fool" (2014): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560686/
  - janice1999 2y ago
    Thanks, I'll check it out. One of my friends and his brothers all left Russia (before the recent war) because of the corruption. The most depressing part of his stories is how apathetic most people are and how there is so little hope for change there.
mschuster91 2y ago
Lol, there's even more classy things about him on there: > During 2014, Hendy reportedly spent over £1,200 in taxpayer-provided money on lunches and dinners, including on one occasion more than £90 in alcohol. And that despite a 650k salary - as if he couldn't afford to get wasted on his own. What a disgrace.
- morsch 2y ago
  Otoh regular public sector employees (from what I hear) don't even get free coffee at the office.

dobladov 2y ago

People whose job is managing and not understanding issues does not want to deal with issues, it’s in their interest to always give the impression of everything working smoothly, that's why engineering driven companies fail the moment that managerial people takes over.

Rinzler89 2y ago
Employees: - It's 3.6 Röntgen, but that's as high as the meter... Management: - 3.6 Röntgen, not great not terrible.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  Was that from HBO's Chernobyl?
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    Yes.
- gaius_baltar 2y ago
  A more fitting quote would be "They gave them the propaganda number".
cedws 2y ago
It’s a very HN thing to say, but god, the world would be so much better if we kicked these parasites out and engineers ran the show.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Good engineers don't have the neccesariy personality traits to climb over corpses of others to get into upper management. So those who end up in upper management are always the worst sociopaths who only know how to play the politics game as their main goal is just climbing the ladder, not developing good products/services. Exceptions do exist (Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, etc) but that's why they are the exceptions.

Kydlaw 2y ago

I personally find this information frightening... we are now in a world where management no longer even listens to its engineers or technical experts when they warn of serious dangers. Obviously everyone thinks of Boeing, and today it's “only” a train station, but imagine if the same culture developed in an industrial chemical plant or a nuclear power station? Where do you go? What do you do? Unless you have an Engineer Association or an Union to back you up, you are doomed to be crushed by your upper management and beyond...

jl6 2y ago

Out of interest, what would the right resolution have been to reduce the risk of a crush due to overcrowding? Close the station entrance when at capacity?

lupusreal 2y ago
Run more trains so the station never reaches capacity. Or expand the station.
- HenryBemis 2y ago
  Both solutions would take months/years to implement. "More trains" mean they need to radically improve service/repairs and/or purchase of new trains. "Expand the station" would mean that they would have to shut down all-of or large-parts of it while works take place. I remember being impacted of the London Bridge train station de-spaghetti-fying the tracks. I moved out of the area I was living so eventually I was impacted for only 4-5 months. I will not touch the matter of costs.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Nobody said all problems have cheap solutions.
  - stuaxo 2y ago
    London bridge tracks untangled is so much better for throughput - I remember so many long waits as a Brighton train blocked the whole station crossing the tracks. One surprising good thing the gov did at that time was insist on the rebuild of the station itself, it was particularly grim, and just a mess. I've lived nearby the whole time and the new station is a nice space, generally efficient with good throughput for the trains. I'm pessimistic, but really hoping they don't stick with plans to build a too small terminus in London for HS1, not too optimistic as we have Rachael Reeves as a continuity austerity Chancellor - lets see.
    - smcl 2y ago

percevalve 2y ago

Am I correct to say the sacked engineer has a regular show on Youtube ? https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDennisTV https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDennisTV

smcl 2y ago
You are correct, he's also been a guest on "Well There's Your Problem" (an engineering disasters podcast/channel) and TRASHFUTURE (UK tech/politics podcast) a few times.

stbenjam 2y ago

The engineer has a lengthy thread on Twitter https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829036280996315637 https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829036280996315637

ZeroGravitas 2y ago
And mastodon: https://mas.to/@GarethDennis/113043981557507889 https://mas.to/@GarethDennis/113043981557507889

stuaxo 2y ago

Starmers promise of very similar policies to the Tories, but operated more competently playing out. On the other hand he doesn't handle bad press well, let's see how this goes.

smcl 2y ago
This occurred before Labour took office - Hendy was the chair of Network Rail at the time. However as Starmer appointed him Transport Minister it'll be interesting to see what he does. I think it'll just be swept aside and ignored because they're too focussed on Austerity 2.0
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Honestly I’d expect they just fire Hendy; only in the job a month, so low cost of replacement, and it’s a bad look.
  - smcl 2y ago
    You'd hope so but Starmer's a bit weird - seems to want to look like he's in charge (suspending the seven who voted against the government on the 2 child cap) so it wouldn't surprise me if he tries to brush it off and do nothing. The papers are largely all still with him and I haven't seen this story getting picked up outside Politico so it's possible they'll just agree to spike it and move on :-/
    - keyshapegeo99 2y ago
      Guardian are reporting on it now, so it's slowly trickling out.
      - smcl 2y ago
        Yeah I just saw now, that's good.

michaelt 2y ago

The article that got the guy fired is [1] apparently. If you search for "Gareth Dennis" - honestly his criticisms seem pretty mild. My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. I'm surprised this guy got fired - in the rail network I know, they'd have addressed his concerns by adding even more posters and announcements. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-station-delays-london-overcrowding-cancel-b2527730.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.indep...

sealeck 2y ago
I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and stumbling down the stairs this announcement might help them) rather than on average. That is: many safety features will produce limited tangible benefit to the average person most of the time, but they do reduce accidents which normally happen at the tail end of the distribution in more extreme circumstances.
- newsclues 2y ago
  You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?
  - justinclift 2y ago
    Sometimes, probably yes? :)
    - newsclues 2y ago

gchadwick 2y ago

Worth noting the story here has subtly that the headline cannot accurately capture. For one I wouldn't say this is about raising safety concerns or whistle-blowing, it's about how the employer views employees talking to the media. The engineer in question was sacked for stating 'You’re talking about thousands of people squished into that space. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.' in a media interview (see https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-station-delays-london-overcrowding-cancel-b2527730.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-stati... looks like the unsafe part of that quote made the headline). Here he was just amplifying already public information that the Office of Rail and Road had raised concerns and issued an improvement notice (which is reference in the article before he is quoted). I guess they hadn't actually declared it 'unsafe' though. I think it is reasonable for employers to require employees don't go making negative comments in the media, though that is tempered by the public interest in raising the profile of safety concerns. Perhaps here the engineer felt no-one was taking the improvement notice seriously and needed more incentive to do so? Could also be he felt he wasn't trying to cause any upset at all and was simply stating what was already public known. It does feel here that the minister that triggered the sacking was just being thin-skinned. He saw a newspaper headline that angered him and sought to take it out on someone. Perhaps some disciplinary action was warranted (maybe improvements were indeed underway and the engineer shouldn't go causing extra needless public alarm) but sacking him looks to be a big overreaction.

smcl 2y ago
In this case it's a little more than just an employer/employee relationship. It's the head of a non-departmental government body (at the time Hendy lead Network Rail, he's now Minister for Transport) threatening to not award contracts to a railway services provider unless they terminate an employee who voiced safety concerns publicly. Notably these concerns were shared by the Office of Rail and Road (i.e. ... the government).
- XCabbage 2y ago
  A "non-departmental government body" - more usually known in the press as a "quango" or "quasi-autonomous non-government body", because we cannot make up our mind in the UK about what things are part of the "government" and which are not. :)

halicarnassus 2y ago

In the comments here I read a lot about if this is whistleblowing or not, or if disciplinary measures are warranted for an employee "badmouthing" an employer's client while not having an official mandate to speak in public, while mostly ignoring the threats made by a government official. This is exactly the problem why the world sucks so hard. The engineer, certainly knowledgeable in this field, made a measured public remark, which could have saved lives. He has done nothing wrong, because he didn't claim to speak on behalf of his employer, and has the right to speak his mind as a person. In public, and with a lot of reach. The government official, however, applied unconstitutional pressure to get the engineer fired and threatened his employer to lose business. Humanly very low and damaging to future public rail infrastructure, if a capable company is not allowed to provide services anymore and therefore most likely to increase prices through diminished competition. If anyone should lose their job over this matter, it clearly should be the UK rail minister.

callamdelaney 2y ago
There is no constitution here, your existence and rights as a British citizen is at the convenience of the state.
- graemep 2y ago
  Its not that simple. There is a body of constitutional law. There is extensive law governing what powers ministers have - powers are granted to them by legislation. There are human rights granted by law and treaty. Everything from some clauses of the Magna Carta that are still in force https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/originsofparliament/birthofparliament/overview/magnacarta/magnacartaclauses/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofp... to the European Convention on Human Rights.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    And thanks to parliamentary supremacy any and all of those protections can be repealed by a simple majority of the House of Commons.

userixoi 2y ago

[flagged]

boomskats 2y ago

Would anyone care to speculate how something like this would potentially play out in another Western European country? If all the abuse of power and overstepping/targeting was unchallenged public knowledge, would there be more of a reaction?

arder 2y ago

This really sets the government up for failure. The next time there's a tragedy on our rail system the question I'm going to ask is "Would this have happened if the person in charge took safety concerns seriously". This just makes Hendy's position totally untenable.

Havoc 2y ago

Politics seems to attract the worst type of people

mjburgess 2y ago

One of the reasons I'm against nationalisation, is that when the government contracts out services to the private sector it hold them to a high standard -- and regulates in lots of saftey/etc. conditions. When the gov runs services there's a massive conflict of interest in regulating them properly: its embarrassing for the gov, there's no accountability for profitability/sustainable-use-of-resources/etc. So whilst centrist (and center-left on some matters), I'm largely in favour of a gov which runs via contracted services with significant regulation and oversight. Lots of cover-up stories have come out recently which show that political control over key services undermines their accountability, not improves it.

h1fra 2y ago
You are not from Britain (or Europe), no? Privatisation of the rail in UK is a nightmare, the government is not holding the private sector to a high standard at all. High profit and High standard are barely compatible, I'm not sure they are even good examples in the world.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Yes, I'm from the UK. 1. Compare and contrast the privately run phase of rail service with the public version before the early 90s. It was low-use by the public and in a decrepit state. 2. The form privatisation took in the UK kept the most expensive, old, difficult to maintain etc. parts of the rail networks under public control. You saw what happened (HS2) when that public control was actually used to improve the infrastructure. ... We'll have to see what happens when MPs are suddenly setting budgets for rail companies, and whether you think you'll get what you want. I doubt it.
  - smcl 2y ago
    With 1) you're comparing apples to oranges and you're still wrong. The turnaround in rail use in the UK began in the 1980s before the private train operating companies got involved. And if you're referring to the network itself being in "a decrepit state" before and now being improved to the point where it can sustain higher capacities ... well you can thank Network Rail for that (note: not a private company). The TOCs are headed for nationalisation anyway, leaving the ROSCOs as the big privatisation "success" (in that they've extracted enormous profits while not exactly contributing anything particularly novel). What we saw with HS2 is a large (and frankly completely necessary) engineering project getting fucked around with and repeatedly chopped down until it no longer satisfied its original plan (providing greater capacity for both local and national services by providing a new North-South line that happened to be "high-speed") and became exactly what those wielding the axe that killed it accused it of ("just a way for some to get to London slightly faster").

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

red_admiral 2y ago

This is what we got the last time safety culture in UK railways was in a serious mess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbroke_Grove_rail_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbroke_Grove_rail_crash Some in the industry think the next such accident isn't too far off. Stampedes at Euston are a manageable problem by comparison.

anentropic 2y ago

This Hendy guy sounds like a classic shit manager, only concerned with saving face

flanked-evergl 2y ago

UK seems like one of the absolute worst places in the world to live. Why are there not more people moving out of the UK? Do they still think it can get better?

tim333 2y ago
It's a bit like that quote about democracy - it's the worst place apart from all the other ones. Not where really is perfect. The population keeps going up here with people immigrating for what it's worth although we've had quite a lot of millionaires leaving and African asylum seekers arriving on dinghies which is perhaps not ideal.
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  > It's a bit like that quote about democracy - it's the worst place apart from all the other ones. No, it's way worse than most of the others. Anywhere in the Anglosphere or other parts of Europe is better. Most of Asia is better. Most of South America is better. Even some African countries are probably better. I would definitely move to Uganda, Botswana or South Africa before I ever set foot in the UK. > The population keeps going up here If you promise anyone who arrives at your shore free healthcare, accommodation, food and some spending money, then of course your population will go up. Not sure how that makes anything better.
  - tim333 2y ago
    I guess worse is in the eye of the beholder but on the "List of countries by Human Development Index" we're #15, ahead of the US (#20). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... Dunno. Are you a Brit? Think of moving anywhere?
badpun 2y ago
I’d say uk is probably in top10-top20 places in the world to live.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

XCabbage 2y ago

Obviously, the retaliation is bad. Should disqualify Lord Hendy from his role. But I would also like to make sense of what the actual risk alleged to exist in Euston is, and how Gareth Dennis or the ORR inspector thinks it should be mitigated. And I cannot figure it out, at all. In Dennis's comments quoted in The Independent, for which he was fired, he attributes the risks at the station to the increased number of trains coming in and out of the station. That seems to imply that the crush or trample risk he perceives to exist is in the main lobby area of the station, not on the platforms or the ramps leading down to the platform gates, since if it were the latter then the risk would exist regardless of the number of trains coming in and out of the station. This seemed surprising/implausible to me because all the dense crowds I've ever seen (and felt concerned about) in Euston have been on the ramps or the platforms, NOT in the lobby area which is massive. I struggle to imagine how a crush or stampede could ever happen anywhere besides the ramps and platforms. So I dug a bit further. The press release associated with the improvement notice (https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/rail-regulator-requires-crowd-management-improvements-euston-station https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/rail-regulator-requires-c...), on the other hand, says that over summer 2023, there were three instances of "crowding reaching unacceptable levels and a lack of crowd control in place" resulting in "minor injuries" with potential for worse. They also complain of a lack of risk assessments for two unspecified "pinch points" in the station "where crowding is most concentrated", inadequate "control measures", and unacceptably poor "layout" and "signage" to help with flow control. The actual improvement notice, meanwhile, contains essentially no detail (https://orrprdpubreg1.blob.core.windows.net/docs/I-NWM-20230926-03-Network-Rail-improvement-notice.pdf https://orrprdpubreg1.blob.core.windows.net/docs/I-NWM-20230...), just some fairly meaningless boilerplate. The entire explanation of the problem is "You have failed to implement, so far as is reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station" and the remedy demanded is that the station needs to do a risk assessment and then implement whatever measures they come up with in the risk assessment. My best guess at what this is all about, possibly completely wrong, is as follows: * the two "pinch points" are two of the ramps, probably the one leading down to platforms 8/9/10/11 and the one leading down to platforms 12/13/14/15, which in my personal experience of the station are where most of the big surges happen * the injuries happened due to crowds running down the ramps to the platforms once the platform number for their train got announced, either to beat other passengers to the seats or out of fear that they would not get on a late-arriving train before it departed at all * the risk assessment concluded that the station should put up signs telling people not to run, and then they did that (I can't find any reporting about it, but if my memory serves me right, then those signs on the ramps at Euston appeared late last year which fits with the timeline) So, IF I'm guessing correctly, there's probably a real stampede risk, with minor examples having already played out, but it's totally unrelated to the number of trains or the crowding in the lobby, the fired "whistleblower" is basically full of shit for suggesting a problem stemming from a larger number of trains, and the supposed "fix" is also meaningless compliance bullshit that will have no effect. Of course, again, I could be guessing totally wrong; there isn't enough detail in the public documents or reporting for us to tell. So I publicly asked Gareth, the guy who got fired, to explain his concerns in more detail or point me to somewhere with detail. He... responded with indignation and contempt, pointed me to the Improvement Notice for one reason (the document with no detail about the problems, just a one sentence description that is probably copied and pasted boilerplate and makes no reference to any of the specific circumstances at Euston), then suggested I was mentally unwell in some way and blocked me. What a dickhead. Here's the end of the thread; I'd be grateful if someone not blocked by Gareth would stick it into Threadreader and post a link here so people not on X can read it: https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829179489043226778 https://x.com/GarethDennis/status/1829179489043226778 I find it hard to fathom why someone sincerely concerned with safety would behave in this way - making unactionably vague complaints that a station is unsafe, then refusing to elaborate and lashing out at anyone interested in the detail for daring to question him. After the displeasure of interacting with the guy, it seems to me that this story has no heroes. But still, no matter how much of a dick he is or how useless his criticism was, it doesn't justify the firing. If you want a culture in which people feel safe speaking up about concerns, you have to indulge even stupid and incoherent concerns made by dicks; if you don't, everybody with something substantive to say will quite reasonably fear they will be viewed and treated in the same way you treated the dick.

penguin_booze 2y ago

I'm surprised (or should I?) that this wasn't picked up by the BBC - at least didn't show up on my feeds.

penguin_booze 2y ago
Oh well, here it is: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy76j4nyxlko https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy76j4nyxlko.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

As a general rule, don't talk to the media -- there's little upside and a lot of potential downside.

stainablesteel 2y ago

the UK is being ran with the same level of incompetence as Boeing

B2k2233 2y ago

[flagged]

silexia 2y ago

This is very common in organizations where decision makers do not have proper incentives like in a free market. More government = less accountability.

mvandermeulen 2y ago

Basically this happened in NSW Australia too. For anyone interested, it was Rod Staples who was fired and you can easily get a sense for the kind of guy he is in the documentary series “Sydney’s Super Tunnel”.