Do you remember British rail... or British fail as it was often called?
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Do you remember British rail... or British fail as it was often called?
It's the corbynista echo chamber
the vast majority of people who vote won't even know the bulk of the policies let alone attend political events and his approval ratings outside his core vote are terrible (worse than Paul nuttall last poll I saw).
So yeah forget the crowds it's going to be terrible for labour
Are you old enough to remember British Rail? There was certainly no investment in that for years before privatisation. It was embarrassingly bad. Nationalised railways are almost always money sinks.
The problem with rail privatisation was that it was never really privatisation. It was just giving government granted monopolies on each line. If there had been genuine competition it would be a different story entirely. Italy is the best example. Their level of service has gone through the roof with the open access to the high speed network.
So not only is Tim Farron against gay sex he's also against abortion. Well done on choosing that one Lib Dems.
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So you can see the folly of a rival party selecting an unelectable leader but not the folly of your own party doing the same. We see what we want to see I guess.
Electability isn't my issue here.
I see the folly of any modern political party appointing someone against gay sex and abortion.
I don't see the folly of appointing someone who is against nuking everyone.
Nationalizing companies is not a panacea for bad services (price + quality).
In the end it boils down to a structural problems that anyone should acknowledge: The quality of a national railway system depends on demand. The countries that have a great railway system usually have high utilization/demand for it (high Revenue Passenger Kilometers). The best two examples for this are Japan (private) and Swiss (mostly public ownership, but competition, because different federal bodies own different companies). Both have quite different models, but it works, because RPM/RPK is high. Creating some form of competition is also desirable, but difficult when demand isn’t high (competition can work both with public or private ownership).
The UK is in that regard (demand/efficiency) behind France or Germany. Consequently you shouldn’t expect a fantastic railway system. There is no magic bullet to solve this problem regardless of who owns and runs the damn thing. If you still want to have comfortable train connections into the smallest corners of the country you’d need to dump massive amounts of tax payer money into it.
The whole discussion about nationalization/privatization strikes me a bit of a straw man in this regard, because it is missing the point. If a party argues for massive changes in this area, they should explain how this is actually going to improve the situation. “Greedy companies are taking all the profits” is not a serious argument.
In the end it boils down to a structural problems that anyone should acknowledge: The quality of a national railway system depends on demand. The countries that have a great railway system usually have high utilization/demand for it (high Revenue Passenger Kilometers). The best two examples for this are Japan (private) and Swiss (mostly public ownership, but competition, because different federal bodies own different companies). Both have quite different models, but it works, because RPM/RPK is high. Creating some form of competition is also desirable, but difficult when demand isn’t high (competition can work both with public or private ownership).
The UK is in that regard (demand/efficiency) behind France or Germany. Consequently you shouldn’t expect a fantastic railway system. There is no magic bullet to solve this problem regardless of who owns and runs the damn thing. If you still want to have comfortable train connections into the smallest corners of the country you’d need to dump massive amounts of tax payer money into it.
The whole discussion about nationalization/privatization strikes me a bit of a straw man in this regard, because it is missing the point. If a party argues for massive changes in this area, they should explain how this is actually going to improve the situation. “Greedy companies are taking all the profits” is not a serious argument.
Fraser Nelson: "Corbyn is just a red Tory!"
Alright, he didn't quite say that
, but these graphs may surprise a few people. Which is closer to the point he's making.
Alright, he didn't quite say that
, but these graphs may surprise a few people. Which is closer to the point he's making. Fraser Nelson: "Corbyn is just a red Tory!"
Alright, he didn't quite say that
Interesting stuff.
Would like to see that first graph going back a lot further and overlaid with PMs to show a longer term view and how true the whole 'Labour overspends, Tories manage more sensibly' shtick is, as it is still so influential.
There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned from privatisation however you can't compare Rail now with British Rail which was run by the state during difficult times where there was recession, high unemployment, and the cost of manufacturing was far higher. Technological advances and booming economy have allowed for some investment and modernisation into rail not privatisation. Clearly it's not enough because it's all profit driven and people feel ripped off so the only way to ensure service improvement is renationalisation which will change the focus from profit.
You will find it hard to find regular or even irregular rail users who don't complain about the state it is now.
That is the level of competence that has secured him sun_tzu's vote!
Its all about the policies.........right...right?
Fraser Nelson: "Corbyn is just a red Tory!"
Alright, he didn't quite say that
It would be more interesting if the tax take vs spending was adjusted for inflation.
Likewise, for the number of higher rate taxpayers, would be more informative if it was as a %age of the working population, rather than just raw numbers.
So the Lib Dems have promised another EU referendum in their manifesto. Given how massively anti-Brexit this forum is I'm curious as to whether they will gain more support in the poll. 15.3% atm.
I don't think their word is trustworthy, frankly.
I'm sure they'll do that right after getting rid of tuition fees.
I think that was baked in already.
Already looking forward to Hammond's fumbling around for a HS2 figure being replayed all week and taking up two rounds on HIGNFY.
You can say that about any railway network, current or past. Even Germany and France, two of the world's best, are falling to bits if you ask the locals. Nationalised railways cost a fortune if you want them to be anything like half decent. Like most of Labour's current ideas they seem to think they can just create the money out of thin air.
I'm a Lib Dem supporter. I'm an EU supporter. And let me say, their referendum idea just doesn't make sense.
Unless their idea has changed, they want to negotiate Brexit terms, and then have a 2nd referendum on membership, with the choices being Out (under those terms) or In.
Because that's not going to lead to the EU giving us the worst deal imaginable.. so that we have no choice but to stay in?!
Wiki suggests the German rail subsidy is €17bn (as of 2014), the French €13.2bn (2013), and the UK €4bn. So yeah, does suggest that the "it costs nothing, just let the franchises expire" may not really be the whole story, if we're aiming at that level of service anyway.
Indeed. I was thinking he was almost certainly doomed but something like this could change it.
You do well to leave the house round here without seeing the front page of The Argus.
Also, the manifesto including plans for a second line from Brighton to London doesn't hurt.
Ugh, that apostrophe in my post
YouGov have done some regional analysis and Labour's vote seems to be holding up okay in the south, and without much UKIP vote there to cannibalise it's possible he could hang on. Greens are a big question mark, I've no doubt Lucas will win in Pavilion but a lot of the younger voters that backed them in 2015 seem to have gone to Labour generally. Never know, could also win Kemptown.
True... but to reach a much better level of service would cost the Government a lot more whether train operators are under public ownership or not. It'll almost certainly cost them less under public ownership though than it currently would.
The reason we generally vote labour down here is because we get neglected most of the time.Ugh, that apostrophe in my post
YouGov have done some regional analysis and Labour's vote seems to be holding up okay in the south, and without much UKIP vote there to cannibalise it's possible he could hang on. Greens are a big question mark, I've no doubt Lucas will win in Pavilion but a lot of the younger voters that backed them in 2015 seem to have gone to Labour generally. Never know, could also win Kemptown.
The Tories think that £7.50 is a national livig wage where i am from. You actually can't rent a one bedroom flat for under £525 a month, council tax is £85 a month for a single occupant and water, gas and electric is around £160 a month if you are being mindful of use. But you can live on £7.50 an hour (on a zero hour contract which thankfully i am not on)
I'm probably voting Lib Dem but I agree, complete nonsense.
By the same token, Labour have a ruled out leaving without a deal which makes our negotiating position completely redundant. The EU has license to complete shaft us any which way they want.
Why is that? I am not saying that this is impossible, but you have to point at concrete issues to make a valid argument. Maybe the contracts with the operators are really bad or the operators itself running a bad operation. If that is the case, these inefficiencies need to be fixed and public ownership might be one step in this process. We can see in Switzerland that public ownership of railway companies can work; yet in Switzerland these companies act de-facto almost like private ones and have to face competition.
That’s really the underlying issue. It is not so much about public/private ownership itself, but about the structure of the railway market. The government might want to offer transportation that the private market wouldn’t. It is fair to have this discussion, but you need to be honest about the costs of it.
Course not, everyone will vote tory despite hating brexit, may, Johnson, policies.
feck knows why
I really do wonder sometimes if the general public just wants to be on the winning side.
Fear of change
"I hate this job but if I get a new one it might be worse"
I'm the opposite
But you've already said that in your opinion, "greedy companies are taking all the profits is not a serious argument" for taking train operations into public ownership? Which in itself is very odd since it is one of the main arguments for it... possibly the biggest.
From my point of view... to maintain the existing service would cost less under public ownership than the current system. For the exact reason you are keen to ignore... we pay billions in subsidies with a significant portion going towards dividends for shareholders. Now, if we want to really improve the current operations and service... we'd still have to put the sums of money in because under the current system, private operators won't invest without demanding reimbursement through subsidies. So do we pay even more in subsidies to fund it? Public sector borrowing is also less expensive than private...
You know how the Tories are all about the Theresa May - practically no one else allowed to speak out much on the National stage. Especially your Johnsons & that Johnson bloke who can't normally keep his trap shut. And other idiots & twats like Gove & Duncan-Smith & McVey are uncharacteristically quiet.
Do you think they said to her, have it now - everything packed into the month of May is subliminally great for us campaign wise - constant reinforcement. May, may, may... all about the month innit. We're all being brainwashed,.
Flat Earth thread over here ----->.
Do you think they said to her, have it now - everything packed into the month of May is subliminally great for us campaign wise - constant reinforcement. May, may, may... all about the month innit. We're all being brainwashed,
.Flat Earth thread over here ----->
.BBC: Plenty of stuff on Diane Abbott getting her numbers wrong but no headlines on Philip Hammond fecking up the numbers for the cost of HS2.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08q313b
2:10:05 is where the interview starts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08q313b
2:10:05 is where the interview starts.
Nick Robinson would be on the case but there wasn't a noise during the interview that he can turn into Hammond being passed a piece of paper to help answer a question.
Not really. In long-distance travel the public company SBB has a monopoly. The other companies almost exclusively work in near-distance travel. It's not only a monopoly on rail either, it's a monopoly on long-distance travel per se. There is no competition from the bus. The idea behind the monopoly is that the govt. thinks train is better than bus altogether (various reasons) and it a.) drives up numbers (which is important as you have stated in your previous post) and b.) allows them to subsidize the weaker regions with the stronger ones internally (something that is regulated in their concession). The govt. is thinking about maybe giving one or two of these main routes to a competitor to fire up their asses but nothing decided yet.
What you touch on the last paragraph though is imo the gist of all three of the public services mail/energy/transportation.
There is another debate to be had about the infrastructure in energy (who is going to pay for nuclear waste 10 years down the line?) and rail (too expensive service if infrastructure costs are included in tickets.
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I read an article on it a couple of years ago and whilst 3% sounds minimal... what are we looking at in terms of spending? The article I read suggested that approximately £1b of the £4b we are spending in subsidies would be saved under public ownership. £1b is a reasonable amount of money that could be put towards funding public services.