Get ready to ride on Gordon Bennett Railways!

Dear happy commuters and supersaver ticket holders,

We in the Labour government are thrilled to unveil the exciting new name for Britain's renationalised train company. We'll be calling it Gordon Bennett Railways, because this mild expletive is what you're most likely to be muttering while on board, as in:

'Gordon Bennett, this train's fuller than a can of sardines.'

'Gordon Bennett, we've been waiting in this cutting outside Crewe for a sodding age.'

And: 'Gordon Bennett, the points have failed at Clapham Junction, and I'm going to be 20 minutes late for work again.'

We could have spent some taxpayers' money sorting out the problems at Crewe and Clapham Junction, but we blew it all on hiring an overpriced branding agency to come up with a new livery design for the locomotives.

They'll now be a lurid mess of red, white, blue and hi-viz yellow - flecked with dead leaves, graffiti and rust - which will have you exclaiming on the platform: 'Gordon Bennett, what a sodding eyesore.'

All aboard! Or, all a-bored! Which you will be, after waiting three hours for a train at Carlisle.

Image credit: stablediffusion.com