Nationalisation of a monopoly is a bad idea. Nationalised rail cancelled lots of trains, delayed others, pushed up train fares a lot. Nationalised water imposed hose pipe bans and tipped raw sewage into rivers and the sea. Both industries cost taxpayers a lot. Neither got enough investment money as they had to bid for it against the NHS and other spending priorities.
What we need in both rail and water is competition. That brings costs down and puts service standards up.
June 4, 2025
Putin’s deranged lackey Medvedev claimed yesterday in posts on his Russian and English-language Telegram channels, that Russia needs the negotiations in Istanbul to result in Russia’s “swift victory in Ukraine” and the “complete destruction” of the Ukrainian government and not a “compromised peace on someone else’s delusional terms.”
Medvedev stated that Russia’s June 2 Istanbul memorandum was in line with these goals and threatened that Russia will “explode” everything and “disappear” anyone who opposes Russia in response to the 1 June long-range Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia nuclear capable TU-bombers, dozens of which have been destroyed
So Kremlin officials are now publicly acknowledging that Russia seeks the “complete destruction” of Ukraine, indicating Moscow’s disinterest in good faith peace negotiations and a near-term resolution to the war
Trump’s response to the war criminal Putin playing him along is to bravely threaten to “walk away” from trying to broker the 30 day peace deal. Trump has placed no pressure on Putin whatsoever and has now completely stopped all American military equipment support. Things are looking very bad for Ukraine indeed.
June 4, 2025
Russia has won. The victor specified the terms of capitulation. This is Ukrain/NATO’s last chance. Ukraine is deminished and acknowledges it’s defeat, but it continues to exist, probably under a new government as elections are one of the requirements of the Russian agenda. If they don’t accept these terms they will be publicly and comprehensively defeated and Ukraine will no longer exist.
Trump knows this. He is very quiet. He need to pullout of Ukraine asap.
The international community should demand that every Head of State is drug tested and found to be undamaged by drugs.
June 4, 2025
From the Kremlin website: Putin busting a gut to give Trump a chance to extricate the USA.
Vladimir Putin spoke on the recent terrorist attacks in the Bryansk and Kursk regions. Some of the key takeaways:
🔸The Government and regional authorities were instructed to take all necessary measures to help the families of the victims and the injured.
🔸The incident in the Bryansk region was an intentional attack on civilians. International law deems such acts terrorism.
🔸The decisions to blow up railways in the Bryansk and Kursk regions were most certainly made by the political authorities of Ukraine.
🔸The crimes against civilians, committed ahead of the next round of the peace talks that had been proposed by Russia, were undoubtedly an attempt to disrupt the negotiations.
🔸The strike on civilians was intentional, and this only serves to confirm Russia’s concerns that the illegitimate Kiev regime is gradually devolving into a terrorist organisation, with its sponsors becoming accomplices of terrorists.
June 5, 2025
Russia is run by a bunch of selfish, cold-hearted sociopaths and narcissists who care nothing for the rest of the 99% of the population – nor for those in Ukraine – where the Ukraine War is just an excuse for them to stay in power – and a war which the Ukrainians have shown remarkable courage and fighting spirit in.
I love Russia (its ordinary people and culture). God bless Russia (including that it one day gains democracy and that its ordinary people may gain more from its natural resources). God bless Russia. But firstly, when it comes to the Ukraine War, God bless Ukraine – and may they boot the Russians out of Ukraine as soon as possible and then Russia pay, to a certain degree, reparations to rebuild Ukraine.
June 4, 2025
Have you got the right web site for this rant of yours?
June 4, 2025
Bill B.
I’m presuming you are aiming your pithy comment at Sakara Gold, because the topic of Sir John’s post is about the UK water industry.
June 5, 2025
+ 1
June 4, 2025
Rachel Reeves has now started to be photographed in front of a glum, captive audience.
The example in today’s Guido Fawkes is just as remarkable as any of Starmer’s speeches.
Enjoy – before they realise this sort of thing is counterproductive.
June 4, 2025
Watching the really bored guy to Rachel’s right was much more entertaining than listening to her! 🙂
June 4, 2025
Yes, but we didn’t pay large bonuses to management and generous dividends to shareholders for the service.
June 4, 2025
Broken Britain.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/06/03/england-cricketers-lime-bikes-oval-third-odi-west-indies/
If it is not the trains, it is the roads.
I can get to The Oval in comfort and rapidly when trains are running. However, as with all journeys, I now have to check the service has not been cancelled for a whole host of reasons. ‘Trespassers on the line’ is a common one during school holidays. Alternative stations and a bus may be necessary. I always check on a bus App before I leave the house to see when one is due.
June 4, 2025
@Peter Wood
That’s how most on the left view nationalisation, but it is no panacea – In fact by statistics and observation UK nationalised industries become more inefficient, waste more money and require ever more taxpayers money just to keep running.
Using private money to run industries works out better for all concerned.
June 4, 2025
I’m all in favour of free enterprise and competition, BUT, there was no proper competition for Thames Water. What happened was a monopoly was handed to commercial investors who did what they are mandated to do; produce the best return possible to shareholders. The first indication was that the majority investor was Macquarie Bank, who leveraged Thames with huge debts to take dividends. That’s what they saw when they purchased Thames. Being smart investors they sold on before the problems materialised.
It was a bad privatisation plan.
June 4, 2025
As I understood it, the utilities were unnationalised to get investment in, not for competition. As Sir John points out, nationalised industries had to compete with each other for investment from the tax payer and mostly didn’t get it. So we did indeed have sewage pouring into the sea. We could see it, sometimes both ends of many beaches. I think it was only in 2015 we began measuring it all, so the media-led public think that was when sewage started going into rivers and seas. As Sir John has also pointed out, the regulators kept down the water bills so there could be no investment to compensate for the vast increase in the population since the sewers were built.
Reply Exactly. We had big arguments about introducing competition. Where we did it as for phones and telecom line capacity it worked very well. Failed to do it for water or trains. Competition got electricity and gas prices down and supply up in the early years before being overwhelmed by complex regulation and net zero aims.
June 5, 2025
Rose
Agreed It happened because that is the way the system was designed to operate when installed 100 years ago, you need to change the whole system if you want a different result.
I guess the NIMBY’s would object to a new sewerage treatment plant near them
At the moment the choice is the River and Sea or if you switch them off, the Roads and Houses as the backfill builds up.
June 6, 2025
Yes, the brown water has to be separated from the grey water and both separated from the rainwater.
June 4, 2025
But john we have a Marxist government who believe the state should run everything. With Thieves as chancellor we will soon be reduced to receiving spending money or social credit to be spent on approved services.
This country is rapidly being reduced to third world status aided by the governments population replacement plan.
Short of a revolution i don’t see any solution.
June 5, 2025
@ Ian
Certainly looks that way!
June 4, 2025
I thought your privatisation was meant to facilitate that. What we know now is that the then Tory government pulled off a massive ‘con trick’ getting an industry with vast outdated infrastructure needing almost unlimited capital off its books on to private capital.
Add substantial increases in demand, vast new environmental legislation, a sclerotic planning system, continuing political interference, a weak Regulator and now a predatory one, plus greedy owners and you have an industry, or parts, completely uninvestable.
As for competition we see the fragmented nonsense in communications all using BTs pipes. Relatively low entry costs have at least forced BT to up its game but there will be/is massive consolidation.
I suggest start up entry capital costs are vastly higher in the water industry. I look forward to your next post as to how to create competition.
June 4, 2025
I’m not sure that in the context of the water industry that competition would improve environmental standards – what’s the commercial incentive for that to happen ? Wouldn’t it be more likely that in order to compete on price – the only real interest the consumer has (as we’ve seen with the electricity industry) – they would reduce long-term capital investment and cut corners on environmental issues ? If you are going to have a regulator so constrain a water company to force such economically non-productive investment then it might as well be nationalised. However having a national water grid might at least help a bit.
June 4, 2025
The State are generally useless at running things (not their money what do they care) alas also useless or even corrupt at regulating things too. See banking, transport, roads, water, rail, HS2, cross rail, the NHS, nuclear energy, net zero (this a mad misdirected agenda anyway from the outset)… Things are chosen for political or even corrupt reasons.
The net harm covid vaccines were approved by the MHRA.
The MHRA is the “independent” licensing and regulatory body for the supply and use of medicines and medical devices. The MHRA will only be approve a vaccine for supply in the UK if the expected standards of safety, quality and efficacy are met.
Actually funded largely by Big Pharma – and staffed by many people with conflicted interests too – that went well!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-responses-from-the-mhra-week-commencing-23-may-2022/freedom-of-information-request-on-funding-and-contributions-from-pharmaceutical-companies-foi-22702
June 4, 2025
It is the business model and quality of management that are key. Whether it is a private enterprise or a public nationalised one is irrelevant if you get the first two requirements right.
June 4, 2025
+ 1 A lot of sense there.
June 4, 2025
Agricola,
Agreed,
In nationalised water, for example, employees were mostly there for life and knew the service well. Wages from top to bottom were reasonable.
Once it was flogged off, it was bled dry. The owners took as much as they could with little regard to the future.
Train franchises mostly look at the extent of government subsidy. The number of passengers or the service they receive is a secondary consideration. If things don’t suit they pull out, like Aviva in Wales. Sometimes they have to be removed too.
June 4, 2025
Competition when there is just one pipe or track for delivery is problematic. So are nationalised monopolies.
For water perhaps the answer is to introduce competition for the product and have privatised reservoirs and treatment plants from whom the water companies can buy our water to deliver to us. Much like the gas and petrol market.
For trains I do not believe that privatising the Train operating companies has led to fewer cancellations. The track can only stand a certain number of trains. I have certainly never chosen a journey dependant on the provider, it was the times that drove me decision. The prices don’t change with operators on the same line.
Rail privatisation has not worked, possibly because the unions remain
June 4, 2025
NS,
Before SW railway went back into public ownership I received an email from the company. It said :-
“Although the legal operator is changing, your experience won’t.”
This is definitely not what most passengers (customers?) want to hear.
First train out under the new regime famously involved a bus replacement service.
The damage is deeply entrenched. Engineering works was mostly scheduled overnight when it was British Rail. Afterwards, weekend works quickly became the favoured option. Replacement buses are a lot cheaper than trains. Never mind about the passenger experience.
June 4, 2025
How many electric meters and connections do you have?
June 4, 2025
That was my point the, competition should be in the wholesale market not the consumer market
June 4, 2025
My point is that you can choose your electric supplier even though your have one connection.
June 5, 2025
I considered that but the spillages from the water companies is a result of poor productions rather than poor delivery so went for competition in production rather than delivery.
June 4, 2025
How many different sources of water do you have access to compared to ways of generating electricity?
Reply Only one all the tine they are legally enforced monopolies!
June 5, 2025
Yes, my point was to make competition in the production phase like they have in gas and electricity markets.
June 4, 2025
You are very critical of nationalised industries. Ask yourself have de-nationalised industries been an improvement.
Railways. Complex ticketing arrangements at extremely high cost. Still cancelling trains, paying ludicrous salaries to drivers.
Water companies virtually broke, despite continually raising their charges. Still pumping sewage into rivers. Once again threatening drought orders because no new reservoirs have been built (despite the population increase) Still paying huge salaries/bonuses to executives.
If nationalisation didn’t work. It’s replacement hasn’t worked either.
June 4, 2025
Old Albion,
Agreed. The public experience means they have a very dim view of privatised water and other utilities.
It may have looked a good idea on paper….
June 4, 2025
That is down primarily to parliament not doing their job – subsequently everything they were supposed to be managing didn’t work effectively.
For the last decade, or more, we’ve had rogue parliaments that sat back allowing the fat cats to take the profit — An effective parliament would have ensured money was invested and used more wisely.
June 4, 2025
As an aside to the argument of who manages an industry better – private or government – the basic problem is that most of the services provided do not have the capacity to meet the needs of the ever growing population.
June 4, 2025
HMG want their sticky fingers in every pie – wishing to control all decisions and feeling like Gods.
We’re already agreed on here that nationalisation has never worked effectively for us, but with government induced shortages on energy and water they insist on monitoring our usage rather than doing their job to provide adequate supplies – Irrational net0 policies drives these ideas.
We can expect rationing of all resources and while energy is vastly over-priced already, we can expect to pay a very high price for every drop of water that comes through our taps. This goes well beyond the socialist instinct to control everything in sight.
Energy and water are basic requirements for living, so in restricting our supply they limit the extent to how well we can live, and in what condition.
They want us to live off the land, not using resources, in small communities, that will provide very few of the attributes we have come to expect of this age. I still believe they want us to emulate the dark ages.
June 4, 2025
Water services would be better mutualised – owned by the customers. Then if they get poor service they have only themselves to blame for not being prepared to pay more on their bills.
As to rail, end the subsidies and let it fail. I pay £100 every year in taxes for a service I don’t use. I don’t even get free tickets and I would like to terminate my subscription. Use the trackways for cycleways as they do in many places.
June 4, 2025
Again I say competion doesn’t work for the consumer especially when it comes to these big utilities as there is too much money involved, and so with my cynical hat on I’d say ‘cartels rule’ – of course which is very hard to prove – but am justified in saying it by noting the number of top executives I see out on the golf greens Wednesday afternoons.
June 4, 2025
There is too much sewage because of the population explosion!
June 4, 2025
Well this one is a bit of a nonsense. I travelled from East Anglia to the City during the mid sixties to the late eighties and things were never as bad nor as expensive as you say. On the whole the commuter trains worked well for me, with the odd late night due to breakdowns etc. and of course I resented paying so much for a season ticket, but that cost was nothing like the ripoff cost and crap service offered since the brilliant privatisation idea. And I never remember our rivers being so polluted or having paid so much money for the water. We used to have the water rates included in the rates (council tax now). I don’t know what the opposite of having rose tinted glasses is but you certainly seem to have it regarding nationalisation of rail and water. They just worked better and were cheaper though I would never expect you to accept that.
Reply When water monitoring first came in the nationalised water industry was exposed with sewage in the sea by beaches and very polluted rivers. They used not to measure or tell.
June 5, 2025
All I remember was the rivers I used to fish in were clean and the cost of water was minimal compared to today. They may measure it now but that does not mean it is cleaner – it is filthy and I wouldn’t fish in my local rivers now, just lakes.
June 4, 2025
I prefer certain nationalisations eg. utilities and rail subject to rigorous independent controls with penalties on the company and its top management for non-compliance
June 4, 2025
Very hard in practical terms to fully stop sewage overflows when you get large downpours in a short time and thus overflows and flooding. They cannot stop cars flowing down rivers into the sea sometimes let alone sewage!
June 4, 2025
Quite clearly the privatised water model chosen has been a massive failure.
Thames Water is probably the worst example. Billions have been paid out in dividends, all of it borrowed money, while the business has suffered for lower than necessary investment.
The obvious outcome would be to allow the company to go bust and the liquidator then sells the business to an investor or several, who are required to give cast iron committments to the government on both service standards, improvements, and limits on both borrowing and dividend payments.
The new company must have far lower and sustainable borrowing than the current £20bn which is never going to be recoverable, let alone repaid.
The current owners will scream in pain about their loss but they were foolish to have bought the shares from the previous “investors” who did nothing more that borrow billions simply to take it much of it out in dividends.
They deserve no sympathy whatsoever.
Reply Shareholders and lenders should take a hit for failure. This is a highly regulated industry where businesses are often prevented from investing by Ofwat refusing permission or imposing too low a price control to make needed investment unaffordable. What hit for the Regulator for their contribution to failure?
June 4, 2025
Reply to Reply
There can be no justification for the amount that has been borrowed just to be extracted in dividend payments when there have been a lack of investment to limit pollution and failing to reduce leaks.
It is unsurprising that KKR withdrew : nobody with any sense would have invested in a business so over-burdened with £20bn of debt. The surprise was that they were ever prepared to pour £4bn into a business that was already effectively bankrupt.
June 4, 2025
How on Earth can we have competition in water and sewage ?
Also, privatisation in other areas has hardly resulted in better service to consumers has it ?
There is this old fashioned mindset which sees all business as market stalls with costumers browsing who is giving best value for money.
That is far from the case today, where customers are told what to do by global corporations. The days of the customer being king are long gone.
Reply Companies offer to supply better/ cheaper water down your pipe, and offer better,cheaper disposal to water company
June 4, 2025
Reply to reply: How, exactly? Saying “do X” without any detail as to how that could be delivered is a pointless statement. Electricity can be sourced from various places – wind, solar, gas, nuclear etc. What’s the equivalent for water and sewage?
Reply Water can be sourced from boreholes, rivers, rain collection, lakes etc. Anyone could install and run a sewage works.
June 4, 2025
So how would something like rain collection work without new reservoirs?
We expect, want and need water to be available when we need it. That requires reservoirs.
Where would somebody be able to install and run a sewage works? We have enough problems with NIMBYs objecting to houses, imagine the reaction to a sewage works.
Reply Either the current monopolist or a new competitor will have to put in more reservoirs and sewage works. The huge population growth requires more capacity. Of course sewage works need sites well away from homes.
June 4, 2025
We have a direct comparison don’t we. Scottish water is publicly owned, they say every penny they make is reinvested in infrastructure, so how many reservoirs did they build? Do they still put sewage in the rivers and sea? When they say its owned by the taxpayer, what return on the ownership does the exchequer get? A private owner provides dividends for its investors – isas, pension plans, etc., the public-owned utilities don’t seem to give a dividend to the tax office, why? How do staffing levels compare to English water companies? How does the pay and pensions of the executives compare?
Northern Irish water is publicly owned. Same questions.
Welsh water is owned by Dwr Cymru (Holdings) Ltd. a single purpose company with NO shareholders run solely for the benefit of its customers. Same questions.
Does England pay more for each unit of water we use than Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish customers?
How does the pollution of rivers and sea compare?
Who makes all the money the public companies generate the workers in the organisations?
June 5, 2025
Difficult to compare tiny populations of NI, Wales, and Scotland with the huge population of England. Probably only the sewage companies know what the English population truly is, though Tescos and co have an idea.
Southern Ireland has a small population but a large sewage in rivers and seas problem – maybe some of it agricultural.
June 6, 2025
The water boards were broken up into eleven regions.
There are nine water only companies.
There are six local water companies.
Info from discoverwater.co.uk
26 Sept 2023 — Each year Ofwat looks at the performance of the 17 largest water and wastewater companies in England and Wales. Says Ofwat. You can read the Water Mark 2024 there.
June 6, 2025
Sorry, A-Tracy, I was at cross purposes with you. If you break it down like that, our company, Bristol Water, comes out very well and always has. An original Victorian company and one of the first.
June 11, 2025
I didn’t explain myself very clearly, Rose.
I’m surprised the water companies that are doing well and better than the nationalised water boards don’t speak out and tell their customers how well they are performing, get into the press, onto news shows, it’s all so negative. Everything is very negative. Some people in the UK struggle to cope with being constantly told things are bad, bad, bad. Mental health problems are rocketing, and it is suggested that this is keeping people out of work, and why should they return to work if they can exist happily on sufficient benefits.
June 4, 2025
Let us remember that the water companies were all privatised with no debt. It is the management since then that has run up billions in debt. Effective management is the key to success in business, regardless of the ownership model. At least in the private sector, there is the penalty of going bankrupt/ getting sacked if you get it wrong.
In a nationalised industry, such as the Civil Service and the NHS, there is no penalty for getting it wrong. When managers make mistakes, they often get promoted, moved sideways, or receive a generous redundancy package and are then re-employed elsewhere within the CS or NHS.
The Water Regulator has been fast asleep. No water company should be discharging sewage into rivers or the sea. New Reservoirs should have been built to cope with the population increase of the last twenty years.
June 11, 2025
Is this every water company Keith?
June 4, 2025
The ONLY duty of a global corporation is to funnel as much money as possible up to the billionaires. Whilst giving as little as possible back.
I’m afraid there is an romantic view of private business that is a long way from today’s realities.
Just look at the banks. Or any tech company.
Even our supermarkets have been given the power to fine us without going to court. How did that happen ?
June 4, 2025
“Reply Companies offer to supply better/ cheaper water down your pipe, and offer better,cheaper disposal to water company”?
No, they don’t! Which is why we are back is this position, again. Aren’t you fed-up of defending this nonsense!
That’s why it’s call a ‘Natural Monopoly’!
You are not even saving money short run, the Asset owning classes will have to accept these things are owned by the British People, collectively!
There has to be a time when we expect our senior Politicians to become more sophisticated in their thinking, or politics will never serve the People very well! I am not trying to Patronise you, just stating (the obvious) what I believe to be the truth! Lessons Learnt!
Neither, the State or a Company, can run a Natural Monopoly’s, and certainly not for Profit (There is no extra Returns or added Value, to be had, by definition), so why should the People pay Taxes for their Profits?
Just Social Benefits, Values! The British People’s Values, the People you use to represent!
Reply Of course it is not a natural monopoly. There are many sources of water and ways of cleaning and piping it to consumers if they are allowed.
June 4, 2025
Never going to be allowed! One set of pipes, from one Reservoir, to one house (which would need to be many enough, to earn a Profit)! No one would build it any other way! Even the USA has single sources water supply, and can’t in still Competition!
Of course it’s a ‘Natural Monopoly’!
Reply Lets break the legal monopolies and see.If you are right nothing will happen. You have failed to see how electricity, telecoms and broadband and gas, each needing wires and pipes into homes turned out not to be natural monopolies.
June 5, 2025
Mostly, not true. Take BT, you can buy ‘Bundles’ of Data. They cannot create a real competition, it’s artificial, abd People can see it!
It is so difficult to set-up a competitive structure, building new infrastructure, that it becomes almost impossible!
And, without Real competition, there is No Free Market, with low Prices, free Entry, etc,…
Impossible to believe you!
Reply I used to have to use monopolist BT. Now BT provides none of my broadband/ phone needs.
June 5, 2025
At what cost (Price, Overheads, and extra interest payments)? With loses of Economic Efficiency? And, to implement, it would force the People to accept many other layers, with the connected lose of choice (or control)?
None of which you could guarantee, you would need to accept it just to get buy-in from investors!
The British People are not going to accept it! Not for many years, yet! They haven’t forgotten the Eighties and David Cameron’s nonsense, not yet!
No, sorry; A ‘Natural Monopoly’ !
Reply If a competitor offers a dearer answer it will not be accepted
June 6, 2025
None of it will be accepted, not now!
But, unlike the 90’s they will not be able to hide the extra cost! Like the Rail franchises, should have been real Competition (a complete sell off to GWR, for example). Too late now!
And, should of concentrated of Strategic completion model. E.g a Lorry/Car (Not passengers focus, they can sit in cars/buses) rail transport connecting the channel tunnel station! Regional connections, avoiding London! (Not HS2 like).
June 4, 2025
The supply of electricity is a rigged and an effectively nationalised industry that has cost us £220bn or £8000 per household since 2002 with 5 direct and 5 indirect subsidies for renewables. The annual subsidy now amounts to £25.8bn/year and comprises 40% of the cost of electricity. Not only do renewables get subsidised prices higher than the market prices they also get get grid priority and constraint payments when their energy is not needed.
June 4, 2025
Reply to Reply: water falls out the sky for free. Virtually all the cost is the infrastructure required to deliver it to us. There is no realistic prospect of several sets of infrastructure competing with each other.
On the sewage (which is a bigger cost than water delivery), I suppose diverters could be built in to route sewage to whichever sewage works is offering the best price that minute. But that is surely unrealistic and it has not happened so far.
Private corporations add massive costs. The wholesale cost of gas and electricity is less than 40% of domestic bills; who is getting the other 60% ? Also the profits are funnelled abroad. This is what you get with privatisation of public services.
Reply The biggest cost in energy comes from taxes.Competing sewage works could win longer term contracts. Unlikely to be bidding hourly.
June 4, 2025
Would you build a Sewage Plant with only a hope of winning a contract for a limit (Short) term contract?
Doesn’t happen!
Reply It is not allowed today.You might well build a sewage plant and new pipes to provide a service to a water monopoly that is being fined and pilloried for sewage discharges
June 5, 2025
I don’t think the biggest cost is taxes. The high prices are a result of the ridiculous market structure that was set up.
That’s as far as we can tell anyhow. Because another (no doubt intentional) feature is that it is so opaque and complex that no-one can tell us how are bills are made up, least of all members of the government.
The tech companies and other big business are out of control. Life is turning into a nightmare, all under the control of global corporations that treat their customers like farming cattle, from which to extract wealth.
June 4, 2025
Competition in rail needs to follow the TFL model – private companies compete to deliver services which are integrated from a customer experience perspective.
I’ve experienced the “benefits” of the privatised rail network. Being stood on a platform at A wanting to go from A to B and not being able to get on the next train to B if I hadn’t bought the right sort of ticket from the right operating company.
Effective rail services are ones that provide a regular, frequent, reliable service, not ones where you have to work out the complexities of a confusing ticketing system and, if the train you planned to catch gets delayed or cancelled for some reason, you find you can’t just take the next one because it’s a different company.
TFL gets me from A to B on their network and I only have to deal with TFL, not a myriad of different private companies (even though the TFL service is delivered by a myriad of different private companies). Rail needs to work in the same way, not the way it was originally privatised under the Conservatives.
Reply Completing airlines using the same airports work fine. Inter ticketing is easy.m
June 4, 2025
Airlines are fundamentally different to rail companies. Their only constraints are takeoff and landing slots. It’s possible to redeploy a plane in a way that’s impossible for a train tied to tracks.
Railways also serve different purposes e.g. commuting in and out of major cities.
Reply There are more risks with planes that have to be offered emergency slots if they run out of fuel or have problems. Trains can be easily isolated or. parked with all the track available. Commuting is no longer so dominant with so much home working.
June 5, 2025
It is easy to say competition drives down costs and raises service levels but when the consumer has little or no choice of supplier it rings rather hollow. If franchises are for five years or less then investments tend to be short term and the long term needs are not addressed. I don’t mean to be negative but for fixed services it is very difficult to engineer a market in which competition is the main driver of investment. How many countries have succeeded? Any?
Reply Competitive markets work well for bread so why not water? All I am arguing is competition should be allowed so we can see what is on offer.