Grant Shapps displays terminal delusion with rail strike enthusiasm

theguardian.com:

Anyone could have been forgiven for thinking that Grant Shapps was rather pleased the railway strikes were going ahead. Certainly it’s a long time since the transport secretary was so animated. Probably the last time he was this chipper was as his alter ego, Michael Green, with the get-rich-quick scheme he promoted. Which never made anyone any money. Imagine. You’d have more luck with a Ponzi scheme.

This was Shapps at his most glib. The overexcitement oozed out of every pore. Somewhere in his head he’s made the calculation that the strikes are good for the government. That what the public really wants is another wedge issue that divides the nation. A fight with the unions.

Somehow he’s convinced himself that after three days of disruption, people are going to say: “You know what? The strikes are nothing to do with the Tories. After all, they’ve only been in government for 12 years. I tell you who I blame. I blame the opposition.”

It’s delusional stuff. There again, he’s always been a fantasist. Hard to believe that someone with his checkered career record could make it into the cabinet. But Boris Johnson likes to appoint people in his own image. Ministers with his own disregard for the truth.

Shapps was rushing on his run right from the start of his Commons statement. He felt just like Jesus’s son. Pumped. Ready to pick a fight with any member of the Labour party. Stoked to throw some red meat to the few Tory backbenchers who had made it to the chamber. Presumably the others have decided to work from home. There again, so few of them regularly turn up anyway, it will be a normal working week for them.

First Shapps tore into the unions. “Union barons,” he smirked, as if he was shouting out the name of a panto villain. We