The much-beleaguered Transport Secretary has been ridiculed for failing to arrive for his own conference speech on time.
Chris Grayling, who previously refused to take responsibility for severe summer rail delays caused by timetable chaos, was seven minutes late for his speech in Birmingham on Monday at the Conservative Party Conference, which had been due to start at 10.54am.
The delay sparked disbelief among waiting journalists, as well as Labour MPs.
“If calamity Chris Grayling can’t deliver himself to the conference stage on time, what hope is there for the rest of the transport system?”, the shadow Transport Secretary, Andy McDonald, told HuffPost UK.
The blunder comes after Britain failed rail chaos over the summer, with a damning report finding that “nobody took charge” of changes to rail timetables that sparked mass delays and cancellations.