The railway is largely nationalised. The four train companies already run by the state run like the others over fully nationalised track, signals and stations to government controlled timetables. Three of the fully nationalised ones have very poor records for cancellations and delays.
As we go into 2025 we learn there will be more inflation busting fare rises next year with other train companies to be transferred to state control.Far from the end of the need for profits to bring fares down, the arrival of bigger losses and the limits on subsidies will drive prices up more.
British Rail was in continuous decline as a nationalised industry. It was a big loss maker.It kept getting rid of staff. It lost passenger numbers regularly. It did not adjust to changing patterns of travel. It lost much of its freight business by being too inflexible over waggon loads and failing to put branch lines and sidings into new industrial parks in the way it had before WW2.
Nationalisation of the railways will bring higher fares, no improvements in service quality and insufficient innovation to reflect changing travel and demand patterns.
There is talk of renationalising the steel industry. Why pay to take over an industry which dear energy ,high taxes and other problems have just led into closure. Why buy a steel works with blast furnaces that are shutting? The government is wrong about losing basic steel making. If all it wants is some steel recycling plants there are cheaper ways of getting the private investment they need than nationalising what they partly replace.The government could hold a competition to see who would build and run recycling plants and to see how much subsidy and other support they would want.
December 5, 2024
Good morning.
Ideology. We have people who believe that the State can do better. People who have never run a business themselves but, are sponsored by unions, many of which, will benefit from those people who are now in control.
I found this line interesting.
WW2 has much to answer for, espeically when it comes to the railways. The country was under a war footing and the railways were run into the ground. There was little money to reinvest and rebuild and, with a Labour government promising a much better future under Nationalisation, we were about to embark on an unknown experiment. Much was said about the benefits of Nationalisation, later years were to prove many of them to be false.
When one looks at the history of transport in this country, one realises that much of it was created by private enterprise. Only when the State took over the running and maintaining did things start to go wrong.
Today we hear from the PM that the nation is to embark on another ‘Great Experiment’ – my words not his. I wonder how long before we have to wait before this latest train wreck to bare fruit ?
December 5, 2024
It may not make sense to the average voters John but it is exactly what the commies in government long for.
We’re going back to the 70s when pretty much all heavy industries wete in government control.
Thames water will be next.
You have to realise the unions are running the country again, striking and walkouts will become the norm
Scunthorpe will be nationalised and ultimately shutdown in the March to net zero
No new base load power stations will be built and Hinkley Point will fail as this type of reactor has done in China, Finland and France
We are in for a very dark and dismal future.
December 5, 2024
Yes, that does seem to be the direction of travel, and you can see their argument; the Tories gave national, (natural) monopolies to their mates who ran them into the ground through greed and incompetence. Clearly the cash drain of paying dividends to shareholders is unaffordable. So what’s the solution, is there a third way?
First, with railways, ask the question, what is the demand for its services, are those being focused on and correctly addressed? Is there too much infrastructure? Where there is insufficient demand to pay for the capital cost and running cost of a service, then can that demand be serviced in another way?
France knows how to run railways, but at what cost? Cheap electricity is an essential part I’d guess.
December 5, 2024
The third way – mutualisation.
The utilities are owned by their customers, only this time round the shares can’t be sold to external investors. They are gifted when someone becomes a customer, and returned when they cease to be a customer.
December 5, 2024
Do you have a link for that please?
December 5, 2024
IW & MW :
There have certainly been terrible deays and problems with the EDF EPR technology in Finland, China, France and the UK. However, the one in Finland after 13 years delay is providing reliable electricity at £53/MWhr. This is to be compared with unreliable, chaotically intermittent fixed offhore wind which is now £82/MWhr at 2024 prices.
December 5, 2024
The government are useless at running things Transport for London, the BoE, the NHS…, useless at buying things hospitals, HS2, aircraft carriers, duff net harm Covid Vaccines, PPE… useless at regulating things water companies, the dire FCA & we have a useless justice system Lucy Letby and enquiry system The sick joke Covid Inquiry,
Alister Heath good today.
“His (Starmer’s) relaunch this week will merely prove that he has no ideas other than to serve as the Blob’s emissary. There is no hope of a comeback, no chance of a meaningful change of direction or sudden outbreak of inspiration. He has hired the most insidery of Whitehall insiders to be his new Civil Service chief. He has surrounded himself with human rights lawyers who believe that handing over the Chagos Islands and the Elgin Marbles, freeing criminals, pushing up the price of energy and motoring in the name of net zero, restricting the advertising of porridge, and persecuting Israel amounts to a coherent, attractive policy agenda for Middle Britain.
December 5, 2024
You have just outlined Starmer’s precise demonstration/characteristics, he is an imbecile. Only someone that has served in socialist government at the highest level, could imagine overseeing those policies are sane.
December 5, 2024
TfL hire workers to open doors that can open automatically, you can always tell when a driver is driving the DLR it is much smoother when mechanical. The tube stations are in appalling states of disrepair which is surprising as there are advertising boards every few inches, which must contribute to station upkeep.
December 5, 2024
Perhaps we will return to the days of British Road Service with nationalised Road transport. We could also resuscitate BOAC and BEA. for Air travel.
December 5, 2024
At least BOAC ran a slick outfit unlike BA today.
December 5, 2024
You certainly wouldn’t have the high success rates of next-day delivery, and two-day delivery would turn into three to four days. People take road transport for granted now; when was the last time anyone got disrupted by a strike?
December 5, 2024
It was not just the railways that were run into the ground in WW2. All industrial activity was. It was not renewed post war because the mantra was “export or die”. That worn out state of so much production equipment persisted for many years without the reinvestment and renewal needed. Of course ultra high tax rates (they peaked at 98%) discouraged reinvestment. Labour has learned nothing about business since 1945 except how to destroy it.
December 5, 2024
@Mark B +1
Another voice in the wilderness to be ignored. Surely the silent majority will soon have had enough?
December 5, 2024
Nobody in government has run anything beyond a committee in the public sector so have no expectations.
Has anyone ask the question, do we need a railway. Would the tracks be better converted to freight only motorways. Would we be better off expanding airports for an airborne hop on bus service. I doubt anyone in government has indulged this sort of thinking for the last 25 years. There is nobody from the IK Brunel gene pool these days, and were he to exist he would be choked to death with red tape. Get used to failure, just like the last lot, but on a bigger scale. Labour are the death of enterprise, as was the USSR.
December 5, 2024
In a small country (and post the invention of cars) not many railway lines make sense as they do not go door to door. The fact that they can cost 2-20 times as much as taking a car rather indicates this.
Once we get driverless cars and driverless taxis they will be even less competitive. For distances below about 100 miles a door to door car or truck will nearly always be cheaper, more efficient, more flexible, can carry more luggage – better even for CO2 often (if that quite wrongly bothers you) certainly a full car is far better.
December 5, 2024
Also if you go by train you end up carrying all your luggage all day or days. Hard to change itinerary or stop on route. Plus you need far more ticket and timetable planning before you set off.
December 5, 2024
@LL; Yes, but then that was the 1994 privatization for you!
For the entire history of BR, *and before the 1948 nationalization* a passenger could break their journey, take any ‘reasonable’ route, not just the prescribed (direct) route as now, all on one trough ticket. We could even send our bulky luggage in advance, to be collected at the Left Luggage Office upon our arrival, or at least stow it away under the care of the train guard in his ‘van’, who would also look after less able travelers, at least on gangway connected trains – oh and far more trains had either a Buffet or full Restaurant service, sometimes both, not dangerous airline style carts with a limited and over priced choice.
December 5, 2024
And a bill of £36 for weekend parking at the station because there is no connecting public transport.
December 5, 2024
@Lifelogic, – all driverless cars, as with a plain vanilla BEV and up are controlled from the outside(the driver is a passenger), the authorises? Think the ‘Smart Meter’ in the form adopted it has nothing to do with saving energy, everything to do with rationing energy.
December 5, 2024
It’s NOT a small country. It’s 3/4 of the landmass of South Africa.
December 5, 2024
that’s logical, but too much for the far left party understand
December 6, 2024
Average train journey in the UK is just 21 miles! Plus the UK is an island – trains not so clever on water.
December 6, 2024
@LL; Average end-to-end commuter travel is much longer, morning and evening, and the average number of passengers carried is very high, so unless you are proposing sharing your driverless car journey with strangers [1], on average *each* commuter train axed would likely see an extra car on the roads for every passenger it would have otherwise carried [2]. Do you have any idea how many individual passengers travel into and then out of London each weekday?!
Lifelogic, you use the same warped logic as Dr Beeching did, doing so by only acknowledging the facts that suit your preferred goals…
[1] if door-to-door, would you really want total strangers knowing your exact address
{2] as is seen whenever there are strikes on the railways
December 5, 2024
The prospects for those trying to turn the UK into a new USSR are more remote than the original USSR. We still have fair elections and with our colossal interest on National Debt, they can’t close us off from the rest of the world.
December 5, 2024
@agricola; In other words, let’s dust off the recently rediscovered 1983 Serpell Committee Report, previously last seen being pushed down the back of a filing cabinet in Whitehall by someone from the Tory Party (clue, it made Dr Beeching’s second report look conceivable)!
Yours, and Serpell’s report, are the typical nonsense from those who do not have a first clue about such things as loading gauges, or permissible weights and length. Tell me what bus can carry 500 to 1000 passengers, unlike a single commuter train does, a common occurrence each weekday in peak periods; tell me which Australian style single “Road Train” can shift a 3000 tone load, even if the two such “Road Trains” can pass though an old UK railway tunnel in the opposite directions simultaneously.
If you meant converte (some) of our railway network to primarily freight only, as has in effect been done in the USA, yes, and that would have been better use of the HS2 route (perhaps even HS1), and it would have cost far less, and could have reused Beeching era abandoned routes.
You know the real problem faced by the railway industry since 1947; people who know nothing about the industry beyond the very basics, telling those who do (management and trade unions) how they should run the industry, nor did such behavior stop in the 1994, if anything it got worse.
December 5, 2024
The ongoing closure of private enterprise is part of the socialist playbook, part of taking control.
Nationalisation is a step along the way.
Nationalisation of transport ensures the state controls movement of people. The road system is nationalised, the consequence of that is ever greater controls on how people are allowed to travel. The end result is lower and lower speed limits with ever more deterioration of the road surfaces. Less and less maintenance is carried out, as the money allocated gets consumed by the bureaucracy controlling the roads.
For example, the socialists mind set has been operating in Wales longer than in most parts of the UK. There, the roads are generally well maintained but absolutely inadequate for safe travel. Chicanes and narrow tight bends are maintained rather than eliminated. The speed limits are at the point of being ignored as they have become dangerously slow, with buses unable to maintain timetables. Permanent temporary traffic lights on main routes have become commonplace. The first minister gleefully announced just before he retired, there will be no more road building or road improvement in Wales.
If you have ever tried travelling anywhere other than a core commuter train on the railways in Wales make sure you take a picnic and a sleeping bag, because you will need them.
Socialists love to control things, which translates into, close things down.
The next target the socialists have for control of everything is farming. The industry is already beholden to government for annual grant support to survive. Education is under state control and now private education is being targeted via tax burdens it never had to pay before.
These are troubling times.
December 5, 2024
@Rod Evans – it was always at the root of the ideology around IHT – to Nationalise Farming. The actual money IHT earns for the exchequer is lost in its administration.
We have had more than 25years of UK Government fighting the people just so those in Parliament can preen personal self esteem while protecting themselves from the harm they do the Country
December 5, 2024
The large tax increases from Reeves on School Fees, NI, Farming, Non Doms, council tax, rates… will, on balance, raise a net negative sum and slowly kill the tax base. As businesses will employ fewer people, shift kids to state schools, work less hard, invest less, leave the country, go black market… It is very hard to raise more in tax than they are already doing you might in one year but people then rapidly adjust. Over all on taxes we are already above the Laffer point. Especially as we have the “back door taxes” from market rigging in energy, motorist muggings, rigged car markets, net zero lunacy, over complex taxation and over regulation of everything… these on top of the basic taxes.
December 5, 2024
Oh dear. It’s as if the people we voted into power a few months ago were actually socialists and communists, but somehow failed to get that across in their pre-election campaign.
Never mind. With such a huge majority, 4 years, and British taxpayers to provide money (if only bond buyers could be forced to buy gilts!) they can organise the UK better than it was even in the halcyon days of socialism. Forget the early 1970s, this will be even better, with new laws swiftly made and quick, harsh repression of dissent…
After the ’70s we got a Mrs T to sort things out somewhat. We will need someone conservative, tough, bright and radical because the rot will be very deep indeed. Who?
December 5, 2024
We, as a country, have dug ourselves into a hole, allowing these bozos into power, with no means of voting them out until the four years are up – assuming they don’t extend the length of parliament….
I can’t believe, as a former Conservative member, they let us down so badly, that people felt the need to vote for anything but, the Conservatives. I blame them in part for the mess we’re in…. an unable to get out of mess!
December 5, 2024
It is not a case of ‘as if’, Starmer’s Gang are Trots (Starmer), communists (Reeves) and assorted socialists.
December 5, 2024
@Wanderer – just ‘a’ Conservative would be good. The Uniparty, the section that failed for 14 years chose continuity above direction – then again because of the recruitment doctrine employed they only had Liberal Democrats to choose from. Real Conservatives left in their droves or were driven out.
Those that suggest that those left should do a deal with ‘Reform’ don’t ‘get it’ they will feel more at home with Ed Davy
December 5, 2024
Pensions funds, financial businesses and insurance companies are often indirectly forced to buy government guilts through regulations.
December 5, 2024
Another back door tax in effect.
December 5, 2024
All the possibles in the generations after the Boomers have all emigrated.
December 5, 2024
‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man. ‘ :
There is only one man in British politics who can sort this out.
Nigel Farage with his able sidekick, Richard Tice.
Sadly, the Conservatives have not realised this yet, Even excellent right-of-centre Members like Esther McVey (The Daily Politics, Wednesday), are still clinging on to the belief that the Conservative Party will be trusted again by the electorate.
4.1 million voted for Reform in July, and at least a million of two more loyal Conservatives, including me, have looked at the make-up of the current Parliamentary Party and voted with their feet. After the last fourteen years, we simply do not trust the Conservative Party to run a proper Centre-Right Government.
Kimi will be in the cabinet, but to have any backbone, and be trusted, the coalition needs to be led by Nigel and Richard.
The Conservative Party is going to get a huge shock in the local elections in May.
I hope they take note, but unfortunately, I doubt it. The only way we are going to get rid of this appalling government is a right-of-centre coalition led by Nigel Farage.
December 5, 2024
At the heart of your question is power. We have the means, but an heretical religion, and incompetent public decision making has denied that power. Who would invest anything in a country that can only offer its users the most expensive power in the World. Until these flat earthers are denied a voice the only way is down. Adapt to it.
December 5, 2024
@agricola +1
I cant let the faux Conservatives of the hook, they defined and gave us this Socialism, they refused to turn back the Blair Brown years. They invented the Dictatorship with their invented unwarranted NetZero Laws and showed this revised version of the Uniparty that is was control and enslavement that should be front and centre. Parliament must fight the people at all costs.
December 5, 2024
They are about to learn what real powerlessness is like.
December 5, 2024
Earlier this year, my daughter visited from Australia. She took a train twice, once going north into London, once going south into Woking. Both journeys were a disaster. She ended phoning a cab from our local station, to get to Woking. The hourly train she was aiming for was cancelled!
December 5, 2024
I have emigrated to Australia. It doesn’t have an extensive train network but at least what it has works. On visits to UK I am always horrified by the filthy conditions, disruptions and bad service on the railways – and in many other services, too. But the worst encounters are those with the NHS, truly the most awful experience one can have in the UK.
December 5, 2024
@Sharon; That’s the 1994 privatization style of attitude in operation, and probably why SWT is going to be the first TOC to be let go when their franchise ends in May 2025. In BR days either a replacement spare train would have been found, another train would have made additional stops, or failing those alternate transport would have been arranged (charged to BR). I suspect much the same would have occurred before 1947 too.
December 5, 2024
Keir-Ching! and his Student Union Marxists appear to want a re-run of the 1970s.
Why would that be?
I think they’re deliberately bankrupting the country so that we will be forced to apply to the IMF for a bailout. The bailout will come with strings attached: rejoin the EU and adopt the Euro.
Keir-Ching! will claim that he didn’t intend to rejoin, but a Big Boy made him do it.
December 5, 2024
I live in rural Dorset. On the rare occasions I now travel to London a return ticket on SW trains costs about £60. I have to get to and from the station … no buses, of course although if you’re lucky a taxi will be available. A car can be parked for an additional £5.
Alternatively I drive my car to a local town (free parking) and catch a super-fast coach service from the west country to Hammersmith Bus Station. The return ticket costs about £25. It’s a no brainer.
Re-nationalising SW trains will do nothing to improve the railway in the SW. Duelling the stretches of single track between Salisbury and Exeter might since it would improve journey times, but it was far more important to built an HS2 White Elephant between London and Birmingham than upgrade the line to Exeter (and no doubt many similar lines) to “the provinces.”
December 5, 2024
Ah yes – re-nationalise the railways again, because capitalism is bad and makes profits, according to the ASLEF boss.
Well, I think it’s a question of culture, not least work & business culture. Here in the UK we have, ahem, [bad word deleted] trade unions who don’t give a toss about the rest of the country as long as they get their pound of flesh. So it’ll be back to the past with more strikes and ever fewer trains while we need to pay more and more.
We all know about the inevitable Swiss Railways which are nationalised, the UK railways were never even close.
But look at a private-owned railway network: the japanese one. Not only does it work, they have the most modern trains which are punctual, and the whole system, from stations to trains, is so clean you could eat from the floor.
It’s a question of culture, not just of private v national – and our work culture and work ethic is sadly sorely lacking. Thus, it doesn’t matter if the railways are nationalised again or not: they’ll still be the same disaster, no matter what.
December 5, 2024
Why do it? Simple. The new brand of socialists in Starmers gang are fuelled by hate; hatred of private capital, hatred of profit making, hatred of private ownership, hatred of individual enterprise, hatred of the Judeo-Christian heritage of Britain; hatred of accountability, hatred of the sovereign nation state. Once you attribute their motivation to hatred, their actions make perfect, logical sense. The old brand of Socialists like Peter Shore, Barbara Castle and Tony Benn were at least still trying to win the argument and to respect democratic debate – they opposed EU membership because the EU was (and today is even more) anti-democratic. Now that we all know socialism failed everywhere it was tried, adherents of it in its various forms, resort to suppressing freedom of speech, lying to voters and destructive attacks on the things they hate. They have nothing to offer as an alternative so they can only destroy things.
December 5, 2024
Why do I have a feeling of deja vous?
I wonder if Starmer will stop at the railways. What will be next,. Water? Car making? Buses? Airlines? Royal Mail? Farming? We are living in dark times.
December 5, 2024
The theorists and talkers are in control.
The strivers, and workers are being frustrated and ignored.
Result, expensive chaos and frustration.
December 5, 2024
Socialists seem to believe all ownership is theft, then as a contradiction their Politburo is the only ownership that should be permitted as the State is the producer to be trusted. The producer that does things to suit the rulers first, keep the rulers feeling good about themselves.
Government is not there to serve the Country or its People, it is not there to provide or work with, it is there to dictate and control. To return the masses to the enslavement they deserve.
December 5, 2024
Interesting read personally for me its too expensive . I visit realatives in Yorkshire its a lot cheaper to drive. HS2 complete waste of money will not be used by this part of country.
December 5, 2024
Nationalisation defines the socialist state. Nothing works properly, workers do just what they have to with no interest in making things better.
Starmer, it seems intends complete railway nationalisation by the side door – not big bang, but that is his approach to getting us back under EU control as well – a little bit at a time, so we don’t really notice what is going on until we are utterly in their grip.
It suits the labour government to have everything under their control, like the railways, and so much more, even though they are the worst possible managers – this is what big government is all about, being able to control every aspect of life. It is a vile system, because it squeezes out any humanity from us and induces apathy.
When you have little say in how you live and what you do you become more like an automaton, going through the motions without joy or hope.
The Starmer government is itself destined to ever more extreme socialism, without any hope for a better future or freedom to change it – we can see what is coming and we despise HMG for their treachery!
December 5, 2024
They have to nationalise the steel industry if they want to retain such capacity in this country. Their deliberately high energy costs make it unviable for the private sector.
December 5, 2024
Sir JR, you could hardly claim rail privatisation has been a resounding success…………
Reply We have a largely nationalised railway which is letting us down badly
December 6, 2024
Not true. We have private rail companies running on a nationalised rail network. And it’s hopeless.
December 5, 2024
Nationalisation will be good for the rail employees. That’s all. Even so I would expect the strikes to continue. However, fun fact for Remainers who never know what’s happening in the EU, the German train service is now even worse than ours !
December 5, 2024
The French Government falls! – the direct result of dictators refusing to listen and work with the people? Ideology above common sense
December 6, 2024
Starmer must look on with concern at the EU stalwarts Germany and France both in disarray.
As should all ‘remainers’ telling us we would be left in a siding while EU would race ahead.
December 5, 2024
Indeed re-nationalization of the railways is no cure to the problems faced by the fare paying public, or companies who wish to use the railways to move their products, but then nor was the Thatcher/Major era ‘Sectorization’ and then full fragmentation of the railways in the 1990s, TOC era passenger foot-fall and freight tonnage figures do not tell the full story.
The real answer is to (re-)group all operations into larger geographical areas, in a similar way as the grouping 100 or so years ago, each company being responsible for their own infrastructure, timetables, passenger and freight operations, using common standards and ticketing that allow interoperability and/or end-to-end operations.
December 5, 2024
With regards to steel production, if the private sector can not make a commercial case for the industry here in the UK we have a serious problem, perhaps at the national security level; our hosts suggested solution is not a sustainable solution, given less than 50% of all steel production comes from recycled steel. (Re-)nationalization is not ideal but may well become the last and only option left, assuming the UK wishes to remain a forward looking, independent, industrial nation.
Also, being able to control the production process of alloy steels, of perhaps a (new) unique composition, using iron ore (or the known quality of any recycled iron/steel introduced into the smelt), along with the known quality of coke and other elements such as nickel or chromium etc. can only be fully assured and certified if production is here in the UK.
December 6, 2024
Certification, traceability and full assurance is available from European metal producers and USA metal producers.
December 6, 2024
@MiB; Actually certification by UK standards officials might not be possible in another country, and anyway, why not just by from, China, even cheaper…
What do you fail to understand about the UK being a secure, INDEPENDENT, nation, what do you not understand about the risks of giving competitor nations access to UK owned Intellectual property rights Martin?
December 6, 2024
Wrong again Jerry
It is the metal producers who provide the documentation to the purchasers Jerry.
What I said was correct.
And based on decades of Industry knowledge.
PS
This has nothing to do with intellectual property rights
December 6, 2024
@MiB; Very wrong again, Martin…
Standards have to be certified, any fraudster can print off a CONvincing document of full compliance, ask those companies who discovered they had bought substandard Chinese made steel a few years ago, only discovered once proper QC was carried out here in the UK.
DESIGN, and that includes R&D, has everything to do with IP, if a UK company invents a new steel alloy then that UK company hold the IP (patent), once you share your IP a rouge supplier can infringe those production rights. That might be vital information, such as in the case of the defense industry. A friend today might be our enemy tomorrow…
December 6, 2024
Nonsense Jerry.
And lots of off topic waffle.
ISO standards are international.
If you create fraudulent documents it is a criminal offence.
I have a strong feeling you haven’t a clue what you ate talking about.
December 6, 2024
@MiB; “If you create fraudulent documents it is a criminal offence.”
Caveat emptor, and good luck!
Try reading the comment you replied to again, properly this time…
December 7, 2024
Keep digging Jerry.
December 5, 2024
Rail is expensive because it is 19th century engineering – steel wheels on a steel track laid on a stone or gravel bed. It is also extremely inflexible and cannot provide the door-to-door service needed. Rail is as out-of-date today as were canals when the railway arrived. Most of the rail network, except possibly for busy commuter routes into and between major cities, needs to be replaced by a tarmac road along which only licenced private vehicles can operate. These vehicles could be trucks or passenger carrying coaches or even both and they can be safely controlled for lane and distance discipline with computer control. Added flexibility arises not simply because of the smaller vehicle sizes but because they can operate as “normal” vehicles when back on the “normal” roads for load/passenger pickup and deposit at final destination. This will provide bulk and passenger transport which is not only far cheaper than rail but far more flexible and reliable. It also provides the competition necessary to keep prices low and prevents the traveling public from being held to ransom from strikes.
December 5, 2024
PS :
The installation of modern trams is just insanity. If electrification is required then trolley buses will do the job and without the expense of digging up the roads to lay an inflexible steel track. Quieter, too, and will go round any temporary obstacles.
December 5, 2024
Looking at the subject of Nationalization, NetZero, the Criminal Invasion of our shores, it shows the Political Class and the Blob are lost. First and foremost, in the minds of our MP’s is the next election, therefore they electioneering, placed before their job the one they have been empowered and paid to do. They place all their attention on their well-paid focus groups, who come up with the spin the ‘sound-bite’ such as the glib – the UK needs better services, to take care of the Environment and cheap labour.
What they don’t ask, what was the real questions on people’s minds? Or how do our structures and systems work to allow a Country of Individuals reach their full potential? Ideology, sound-bites, parroted phrases given to you by high paid sociopaths (the correct word) believing you need to look good on foreign stages as your election campaign and electioneering 4 years in advance. All this does is nothing other than fight the very people that at some time in history you told you would serve. As most salesmen know ‘Telling is not Selling’ – you first need to hear the question and in today’s world that means the ‘real question’
We need to be represented by ‘humans’ not focus groups. We need a gang of people that know how to just ‘manage’ how to get the best from people not by dictation but working with. Whatever plan the always electioneering Politician has – it fails, it fails because for the most part it tries to hard to force an ideology on a whole people based on the situation in one small inner circle.
People will trend in a direction, when it makes sense, improves their lot, but never by coercion.
December 5, 2024
So what is Nationalization all about then other than ideology, its not about managing a service for better outcomes for customers. That would have easily be solved, if it is considered there was a failure in management, you just remove the management. So huff and puff invented on ‘ego’ and self-esteem and ideology but no further movement on customer service.
In the UK the beacon left from Nationalization is the NHS, that has really worked out well. Fantastic ‘Clinicians’ screwed by shabby Management and Political interference – all that was needed was a compulsory National Insurance handled outside of political interference.
Nationalization works well, UK Motor Industry a World leader destroyed, UK Steel Industry a World leader destroyed. We are supposed to learn from history not keep repeating it.
Electioneering and Ideology in our Political Class is the biggest hindrance to moving forward the People of the UK have had to face since the War.
December 5, 2024
UK growth has stalled under Labour, UK % GDP growth, Q3 2024 0.1%. The US 0.7%, a 700% difference. Same World same Global conditions.
Its not a reset required, it is listening hearing and working with the whole(that means every individual) of the UK, not working to ego and ideology. With only 20% of electoral support (1 in 5 able to vote), personal self-esteem should be shelved. Release the People and the Country will thrive
December 5, 2024
Converting a public monopoly into a private monopoly – as was done by the Conservatives – only benefited the directors of the new companies with their salaries and bonuses. However most of the pre-second-world-war railway system was already a private monopoly which was loosing business to car/lorry travel. Having been run down during the second world war due to defence priorities it was not in a good state when it was nationalised in the 1940s. So what to do with it?
Serving the present commuter belt is one thing – but in the rest of the country trains rarely go from where you are to where you want. And with the ticket prices you ask yourself why not use a car if you have one.
I don’t see an obvious answer to the financing and existence of the railway system as it is.
December 5, 2024
To see what government control does, look at the Army, Navy and Air Force. The first duty of government is to protect its people from both external and internal threats. The Conservative Governments of the last 14 years kept reducing defence spending in real terms.
Had Labour come to power with fixing this as a first priority, they would have a real stick with which to beat the Conservatives. But they have no intention of prioritising defence spending despite the current wars around the world. Labour majors in the minors!
So if they can’t do that properly, what chance they can run a railway!!!
Equally, they allow and support two-tier policing, so they also fail in that area. What a shambles now and for the next four years!
December 5, 2024
I had three friends over from Germany two or three weeks ago, flying into Manchester Airport. On their way back, although they planned to use an Uber from York to Manchester Airport, I checked as a back up the rail fare from York using Trans Pennine Express. It was over £90 EACH on their hourly service. And Trans Penine Express are unreliable and under resourced! Their “Uber” cost them £120 for 3 .
I wuld guess your reliable natonalised ex franchisee would be LNER, which on the whole is well run and reliable , .(although they are experimenting with higher fares north of York, alleging they are simplifying the fare structure (which is badly needed , but not at considerable cost increase)
Incidentally, towards the end British Rail did have some success with Sectorisation – BR INTER CITY sector was said to be the only profitable long dstance railway in Europe, and Chris Green’s NETWORK SOUTHEAST, following his SCOTRAIL, did show what a dedicated railwayman could do if given his head and allowed to manage properly. If only Privatisation had picked up the best of this, instead of being a disconnected mess…..
December 5, 2024
Helping to foster growth in the economy is not difficult. Our socialist government simply needs to do the exact opposite of what they have been doing.
December 5, 2024
I’d like to see every political party publish their criteria on which they’d nationalise a private company
December 6, 2024
….the quest to make everybody State employees.
December 5, 2024
Remember that nationalisation will make the implementation of net-zero policies ….easier
December 5, 2024
We have government of idiots who have a black hole for a brain. `They need to find people with intelligence in each subject from power and grid to Farming, its too complicated for Minibrain and the bank teller chancellor . Building, they have not a clue of what’s involved, they need to be ,employing an intelligent builder
Being rich cannot buy brains and bullying gets one nowhere , I would have thought Starmer would have realised that by now!
December 5, 2024
Why did the last government take the rail contract away from Virgin and give it to Avanti. Everything was much better with Virgin, from the lounges (which are now locked shut after 5 pm) to the ticket prices, to fast refunds if trains ran late, to better service on the train you could at least get a hot drink, the last train journey I took the lounge was shut, then no hot drinks or food on a first-class ticket. I booked first class off peak 6:15pm because the last train I had on return from London second class the train was cancelled; we were put on a later train so no seat reservation, stood up in the exit door area for 2 hours, told there were seats over the tanoy, walked back in to check was told the passengers had gone to get drinks, another empty seat had gone to the toilet so just gave it up.
For years I used Virgin West Coast line without problems, low cost tickets, low cost upgrades off peak, great staff, good food with a regularly changing menu.
December 5, 2024
If we are to be the new shareholders of the railway, what is our return? What do we get out of it if our local train services are poor, just one train per hour, no public transport to the railway station? Why should people with low or no services pay for accessibility of the South East? If we do, what profit share do we get?
December 5, 2024
Nationalization looks to have the purpose of allowing this rotten government to be seen to do somethinig whilst remaining as clueless as it is inept.
December 5, 2024
The politicians run the Government with the same competence as they will run everything else.
Even Starmer says the NHS is a shambles.
Have they no humility?
December 6, 2024
Did you see the Telegraph article today about the money the Tories wasted since 2010 for trainee teachers (ITT Initial Teacher Training) who aren’t under contract to teach after getting their degree (or they have to repay at an agreed rate), no obligation whatsoever, no checks by the lenders, they take their £31,000 with taxpayers footing their bills and flee, not just the profession but often the Country, so was this just another way of funding EU students for free in England. £196m cost to the taxpayer, unchecked for 14 years!!!
December 5, 2024
Words fail me to wonder how many nincompoops today can talk down to us, above their little or zero real life experience and Mickey mouse paper qualifications wielding asymmetric power totally out of kilter with their unproven thinking experimental plans.
It would be ridiculous and incredulous to re-nationalise previously nationalised anything from the Private Sector especially by the Public Sector.
The latter are driven by static top down bureaucracy, lots of talk in meetings.
The former driven by Customer service demand where failure is not rewarded.
December 5, 2024
Nationalisation, Wokeness & Net-Zero has destroyed our manufacturing industries
‘’ Chinese automaker BYD has officially overtaken Ford in global sales, grabbing the 6th spot for the first time!’’
Communism coming to your door sooner than you thing
December 5, 2024
Sir John, could you give your view on the OECD forecast for the UK economy to grow next year?
From my perspective, the activities of the Labour government in raising employment tax, plus their assault on employers with more legislation will only serve to suppress business activity.
December 5, 2024
Off topic.Do all MPs receive £7,500clothing allowance? If so, there’s a few million we could save.Most dress as though they haven’t bought anything new in years.We could buy food and clothes and perhaps tents for the homeless.
This is pure greed.I am fairly well known for dressing smartly and my clothing bill is less than £500 per annum.
Reply NO MP gets a clothing allowance from taxpayer funds. The Labour ones were a private donor
December 5, 2024
off topic. from Wokingham Borough Council.
The Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) performance networks has announced Wokingham Borough Council as a finalist in their best performer categories for the 2024 awards.
The Highways & Transport team has been shortlisted for the best performer in the Roads, Highways and Winter Maintenance category together with six other local authorities.
This is a result of our continuous improvement programme which, together with our alliance partners VolkerHighways and WSP, helps us to provide an improved and efficient service to our residents whilst maintaining safety which remains our number one priority.
APSE is a not for profit local government body working with over 300 councils throughout the UK. Promoting excellence in public services, APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority front line services.
The prestigious Performance Networks awards takes place on Thursday 5 December. (received TODAY).
We are speechless. Worth keeping though for an entry on 1st April?
December 5, 2024
Andrew Neil has eviscerated Starmer’s showcase speech today at the home of James Bond Pinewood studios, ridiculing his attempt to reset his precarious position and shaky future illusion of Britain.