Railtrack was severely criticised for both its performance in improving the railway infrastructure and for its safety record. Between its creation and late 1998, the company had a relatively calm relationship with its first economic regulator, John Swift QC, whose strategy was to encourage Railtrack to make commitments to improvement. But critics said that the regulator was not tough enough and that the company had, as a result, been able to abuse its monopoly position. In particular, its customers, the passenger and freight train operators, were desperate for regulatory action to force the company to improve its stewardship of the network and its performance. Swift had been appointed rail regulator in 1993 by the then Conservative transport secretary John MacGregor MP. When the Labour government took over after the general election in May 1997, the new transport secretary (and deputy prime minister) John Prescott took a much harder line. When Swift's five-year term of office expired on 30 November 1998, he was not reappointed. After an interim holding period, during which Chris Bolt, Swift's chief economic adviser and effective deputy, filled the regulator's position, in July 1999 a new rail regulator began a five-year term, and a new, much tougher regulatory era began.