good afternoon. the transport secretary says it s not for the government to intervene to try to prevent three days of strikes on the railways this week. grant shapps dismissed calls from the rmt union to get involved in the dispute as a stunt saying it s for the employers and unions to reach an agreement. mr shapps says the strikes would be an act of self harm. the labour leader, sir keir starmer, says the government wants the strikes to go ahead to sow division in society. here s our political correspondent, damian grammaticas. set to bring the rail network to a grinding halt from tuesday, they are the biggest strikes in decades. instead of 20,000 trains on a normal day, just one in five services may run. awful for people if they need to get to jobs and to work and to places. like, i ve come to visit my son here and if i needed to come back again then, no trains we re just going to have to put everything behind. i m going to test cricket next week and to my grandpa
these passengers in wrexham shared their thoughts on the strikes it is a pain, to be honest. nothing, really. i can say, yeah, ifeel sorry for them, they want a pay rise, just like the rest of us, but what can you do? we were going to go and visit grace s family. yeah, so we have had to kind of cancel that one! because we can t get down. i get the bus to work i every day to the courts. it goes under the tunnel. i guessed it would be - packed with everyone off the trains and on the buses, but you ve just got - to muck on, haven t you? joining me now is steve montgomery, chair of industry body the rail delivery group which is made up of train operating companies, the rail supply group and infrastructure owners network rail. he s also managing director of first rail. it isa it is a failure of both sides, isn t it, unions and management? we can