Rail and Tube strikes will be going ahead next week after talks to resolve rows over pay and conditions with union leaders failed.

The rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) have stated that discussions with Network Rail, train operators and the London Underground have failed.Approximately 40,000 RMT members will be striking across next week in dispute over their pay and working conditions. Many of those in Britain will have to go without the rail services on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Mick Lynch, the RMT's general secretary, has commented that the latest offer from Network Rail was for a 2% pay increase, with an additional 1% if certain "productivity' conditions were met.To this Mr Lynch stated: "We won't be bought off on that principle. We cannot have our members' lives disrupted in the way they are proposing,"Working people in this country are fed up with low pay and precarious work as well as having decent conditions under threat."

The RMT have made it clear that they want to receive pay for their workers that is above Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation.The current RPI (a measurement used to calculate the cost of living), is at 11.1%. This has risen from 2.9% last year.While the union has recently secured an 8.4% pay rise for workers on the London Underground, it appears that more negotiations will be needed to satisfy their current requests.

The disruption to rail services will mean that it will be much harder for members of the public to travel to their destinations of choice. Only 20% of current services will be running throughout the majority of next week.

London's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has accused the government of 'inciting' the tube strike, commenting that: "At the core of this is the government... orchestrating and engineering and inciting a strike in London by attaching these conditions to the funding deal, which has got the trade unions really concerned."

The Tories are in government and this is classic deflecting from Shapps and Johnson who are responsible for this divisive politics, for whipping up them versus us, communities versus workers."and now they've got the audacity to blame Her Majesty's Official Opposition for these strikes when it's the government that's in the cockpit."It's punishing the wrong people - it's the government who are attaching these strings, not Londoners, not our businesses, not our key workers."