Bob Crow reacting to deregulation proposals proposed by Gordon Brown in today's Financial Times (page 19) said today:

"Gordon Brown is wrong in his neo-conservative belief that unregulated business will act responsibly and that reputation with customers and investors is more important to behaviour that regulation.

"Inquiries after all the recent major railway accidents have shown that the companies did act irresponsibly leaving many people dead. Railways are high risk and will only be safe if the risks controlled and tightly regulated.

"When dealing with the management caste who are not to be trusted citizens want all the remedies and safeguards we have secured to have the force of law.

"While Brown wants to remove regulations for business he wants to maintain restrictive laws on trade unions, preventing them from taking legitimate action."