A UNION boss called questions from Sky TV’s Kay Burley “verging on nonsense” during an interview with the veteran presenter which has drawn praise from viewers.
Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) leader Mick Lynch kept his cool during questioning from Ms Burley over what would happen on rail strike picket lines when they were approached by agency workers.
In the clip, which has been shared widely online, an increasingly flustered Kay Burley harks back to the violent miners’ strike of the 1980s to draw parallels with RMT workers picketing outside stations on Tuesday.
But Mr Lynch appeared nonplussed by the comparison, and gestured to the peaceful scenes behind him.
Much of Britain had no passenger trains for the entire day, including most of Scotland and Wales and parts of England including the whole of Cornwall and Dorset.
Just a fifth of trains across the UK ran on the first strike day, and half of all lines were closed, with more cancellations and delays expected to continue this week.
While discussing the strikes with Sky News, RMT boss Lynch spoke with Sky News' Kay Burley.
Kay Burley made herself look quite unhinged by the end of this line of questioning. Mick Lynch didn’t budge from being polite. pic.twitter.com/YQHMprJwfo
— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) June 21, 2022
"The government is saying that they are going to bring in agency workers; my question to you is, I'm guessing that some of your member's will stay on the picket lines?" Burley questioned. "What will they do if those agency workers try to cross the picket lines?"
"Well we will picket them, what do you think we'll do?" Lynch responded. "Do you not know how a picket line works?"
Burley continued: "I very much know how a picket line works, I'm much older than I look.
"What will picketing involve?"
A rather confused Lynch turned to look at picketers behind him before turning back to the camera to question: "You can see what picketing involves."
"I can't believe this line of questioning," he adds before providing a rather standard definition of picketing.
Things get considerably more tense as Burley and Lynch continue in circles, with the Sky News presenter evoking the 1980s miner strikes.
"I'm sorry you feel the need to ridicule me," Burley snapped back after Lynch suggested she was 'surreal’.
"Your questions are verging into the nonsense," he replied.
Burley maintained that she was simply asking questions for the "benefit of the British public".
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