“WHAT a way to run a railroad” — making a mad mess of what should by nature be an orderly system has been a metaphor for screwing stuff up since at least the 1930s. The phrase probably began with an advertisement for Admiral Cigarettes, which used the slogan while showing a signalman in his cabin so contented with his smoking that he ignored two trains running towards each other on a single track below. But what we are doing with the railways now isn’t a metaphor for idiot contentment. It is idiocy. Let’s start with some symptoms. Damian Green is Tory MP for Ashford and was Theresa May’s “First Secretary of State” — effectively deputy prime minister — in 2017. He had to give up his ministerial role after a journalist accused him of sexual harassment. The alleged misbehaviour was arguably less shocking than many Commons cases.