The present debate about whether to nationalise the railway overlooks one crucial fact. In 2002 Labour did nationalise all the track, signals and stations and ensured a public regulator controlled timetables and many fares for the residual private train companies. Since then several of the train franchisees have given up and the state has taken over. It is not easy to run a private rail company if you cannot get the track slots you want, if the track and signals provider lets you down too often with track and signals faults, and if the timetables required do not conform with demand patterns of passengers.
If there was any doubt about the failure nationalisation can bring you then consider the case of the entirely nationalised HS 2. There over paid public sector managers spend their way through huge sums of donated public capital, happily overrunning agreed budgets massively and progressively announcing  delays to the arrival time of London to Birmingham and putting off the start tine for the northern routes.
Network Rail states the value of the track, land and buildings at ÂŁ82 bn but after 22 years of its management taxpayers only have ÂŁ15 bn of net assets left. Network Rail has lost us money and taken out ÂŁ53 bn of loans courtesy of a taxpayer guarantee. Strange how this justified high pay and bonuses.It looks like the work of a bad hedge fund, taking over great assets then borrowing and borrowing on the back of them, lumbering itself and us as taxpayers with huge interest bills.
There is plenty of bad commentary about this nationalisation idea. Margaret Thatcher with myself as her adviser did not privatise British Rail. When John Major did he rejected my advice on how best to do it.
April 26, 2024
Good morning.
Yes, but who was signing the cheques ?
To be fair to Sir John Major, it was his masters at the EU that forced a plan on him. There is a YT video all about it that explains how the EU created a situation that the UK government was forced to go in a certain direction when it came to rail privatisation. It was similar for the French and their Channel ship crossing services. The EU forced the French government to sell their controlling stake.
When going over past events, especially those that cover our time under the EU, we must not lose sight that we were NEVER a sovereign country. And sadly, due to one thing and another, that remains the case.
April 26, 2024
Why should we be fair to the disaster that was John (ERM fiasco and not even an apology) John Major though it was Thatcher who idiotically appointed the man who failed his maths and nearly all his other O levels as Chancellor. The only excuse he had for burying the party is that he is clearly extremely dim. An excuse Sunak superficially seems to lack as he is just a deluded, tax to death, huge immigration loving, net zero pushing, big state loving, QE currency debasing, letâs bury the party again, pledge trashing socialist.
April 26, 2024
When the left, centre and centre-right call the maths farr right they are really calling reality farr right for attacking their philosopher king utopias.
The SNP leader was also attacked by the farr right maths yesterday when he decided to run the country as a minority party. Scotlandâs latest utopia of a green economy with the euro currency has now been forced on the Scottish people by the farr right maths.
If only the police could stop the hateful farr right maths the utopian vision could become reality.
April 26, 2024
To be fair, Sunak’s Rwanda plan may not see many (if any) criminal migrants deported to Rwanda but according to the news, many are taking advantage of the open border with Eire and are moving from NI to the south, to avoid the risk of possible deportation.
Karma, Varadkar.
April 26, 2024
And once they get their Irish passports they can freely move back to live in the UK. The government needs to change the rules on freedom of movement to restrict it to only Irish people who have a grandparent born in Ireland. Of course our government never looks ahead to problems coming our way so won’t do anything about it until it’s too late.
April 26, 2024
Yes,, Christine, simple changes could protect the UK. It’s odd that our British politicians, who have the sovereignty now, don’t make these simple changes. No workplace benefits/housing benefits for anyone unless you have lived in the UK for x number of years. People are being prioritised for social rental property over people born here, especially in London.
April 26, 2024
Agree
April 26, 2024
+1
April 26, 2024
That’s making Macron very angry, every cloud etc
April 26, 2024
Vardakar is himself not of the soil. So he celebrates.
April 26, 2024
“The driver has been instructed to wait at this bus stop to even out the gaps in the service!”
These infuriating words are now regularly heard on our privatised buses. Drivers now change mid route with further delays to journeys. Itâs almost as if they are deliberately trying to ruin public transport.
At least we donât yet get this on railways.
Reply That happens on the tube quite often
April 26, 2024
Indeed but if the do not do they then they all end up bunched together. The one at the front of the front of the bunch is slowed by loads of passengers getting on and off. They ones close behind get fast as few passengers.
If you look at true average occupancy over the full day depot to depot, the often very indirect routes taken, the end connections, the starting and stopping and waiting at bus stops (often holding up other traffic) the professional staff needed and their CO2/energy use, the large cumbersome vehicles with large engines, the ticketing, the slow journeys door to door⊠then buses are often far less efficient than cars in fuel and CO2 terms and certainly than a full car. Yet they have adverts saying one bus can replaces circa 50 cars. This is complete drivel, 2 – 4 cars at best is rather more typical & realistic.
April 26, 2024
Ken Clarke backed the privatisation too.
Railtrack took over in 1/4/1994 at first it did ok. “Between its creation and late 1998, the company reportedly had a relatively calm relationship with its first economic regulator, John Swift QC, who encouraged Railtrack to make its own commitments towards improvement.” WIKI
Then, the crashes Sept 1997 Southall 7 dead and many injured.
Oct 1999 Ladbroke Grove/Paddington rail crash, two passenger trains collided 31 dead 417 injured.
An operational automatic train protection system, which had been rejected on cost grounds, would have prevented both crashes.
network rail – was renationalised in 2002 over twenty years ago.
April 26, 2024
Meanwhile all cause, post Covid vaccines deaths are circa 50,000 PA up in the UK (similar ratios elswhere too) with many more than that seriously damaged. Many were young and many had already had Covid anyway. So they had zero need to take any new tech. vaccines – even had they been safe & effective. This to put these 455 deaths in train crashes into context very sad though they obviously were.
April 27, 2024
I know people that have had strokes and now have heart problems after having the vax, would they have these problems if they hadnât had the vax is difficult to judge, even heart consultants are sitting on the fence. I also think neurological conditions have increased but that is only a personal opinion.
I was never in a rush to get a vax, i disagreed with you frequently about speeding up vax for men and younger men especially, I wish my children hadnât had it.
April 26, 2024
O/T I see the CEOs of the main oil exploration companies in the EU are moving their business to Norway. That’s the end of skilled good paid jobs in Scotland. Tax revenues will also go to Norway. We will have to import more gas and oil products but the likes of the BBC can crow about reducing carbon emissions.
Starmergeddon will be worse so I expect we’ll have to increase the subsidies to the SNP to cover the shortfall in revenues.
You really have a death wish for our once proud country.
April 26, 2024
Uk companies.
April 26, 2024
Another cold and frosty morning and nearly 40gw of windmills generating 2.1gw. That’s blackout territory this coming winter.
April 26, 2024
Now down to 1.48gw
Priceless.
April 26, 2024
Now down to 0.89gw, surely a record
April 26, 2024
How much did we buy over the Interconnectors?
April 26, 2024
Scandalous
April 26, 2024
Indeed and how many GWs are wasted by running the gas plants less efficiently by then having to ramp up an down for the renewables. About the same as the power we get from wind on a calm day perhaps?
Pure lunacy like burning wood (young coal) is at Drax. Follow the money and the crony capitalism and the paid political âconsultantsâ scam.
April 26, 2024
Now down to 1.1gw, we’re producing more with our last coal fired station.
April 26, 2024
Don’t worry the French will save us
Energy interconnectors at 18.2%
…..and we have a whole government department called ‘energy security’
April 26, 2024
…who tell us to erect more windmills and have more solar panels.
April 26, 2024
â In 2002 Labour did nationalise all the track, signals and stations and ensured a public regulator controlled timetables and many fares for the residual private train companies. â
Because privatised Railtrack could not be trusted to run it safely. The Hatfield rail disaster showed that. Railtrack and contractor Balfour Beatty were later prosecuted.
Several franchises have had to be terminated because they did such a bad job. Things often improve again under public control. However, Conservatives persist with the franchise idea for doctrinaire reasons.
Other franchises give up when the going gets tough. They are used to government throwing subsidies at them but have no real long term plans for the business.
We no longer have a joined up rail service in this country but we do have the most expensive fares.
Reply British Rail had a poor safety record before privatisation.
April 26, 2024
Has there also be âflow trimmingâ with the railways?
April 26, 2024
The Railways are totally out dated and should be scrapped. With out of the ways stations and disjointed stations and journeys having to go into stations not on a direct route to ones destination, they have never advanced since Victorian days.
Convert tracks to roads and increase the capacity for cars on the road! A much more comfortable way to travel, even better than flying, which also suffers from disjointed destinations requiring onward travel!
April 26, 2024
‘Who was signing the cheques’ is exactly the pithy summary for the rail ‘privatisation’ fiasco. It was never really privatised; it was carved up to allow a number of monopolies to replace a single one, while leaving all the problems in place and the costs for the public purse.. So long as there’s a government (read taxpayer) guarantee, then the commercial operators will take advantage. The public/private structure was wrong, and it was always going to be because the commercial folk wouldn’t take any part of it unless their investment was secure. So the Tory party dogmatic approach is going to come to an end, at great expense to the public. There must be a better way, start by understanding why real cost of rail is uncompetitive
Admit you made an error.
April 26, 2024
You should have told that to John Major, perhaps he would have listen to you when he dismissed John Redwoodâs warnings!
Perhaps you should start by understanding the sequence of events and who insisted, against all advice, to âmake the errorâ. It was NOT a capitalist, a democrat or a conservative.
April 26, 2024
Indeed if only Major and the country has accepted your sensible advice over the years on this and the EURO, ERM, EU, tax levelsâŠ
The trains have an absurd level of subsidy. Road transport is absurdly over taxed, motorist are mugged, roads full of potholes and blocked with bike, bus lanes, environmental areas and other such vandalism.
If trains and road competed on a levels playing field then trains would cost more that twice as much as they currently do and cars about half as much. If trains charged the real cost even fewer people would use them and so charges would have to go up again. A return train for one person London to Manchester might cost more like ÂŁ500. By people carrier you can take seven for about ÂŁ20 a head and this goes door to door avoids end taxis and give you transport while there. Yet they still claim public transport is more âefficientâ and âgreenâ and saves CO2 (in reality it is not and does not). Yet you even can fly to say Spain and back 5 times for less than ÂŁ500.
April 26, 2024
If only Major had just butted out and let the superior candidate take over.
Wondering if all that was an early idiotic Tory DEI?
â The first Tory PM to have NOT gone to public schoolâ âŠhow very EQUAL of them. And straight after breaking neck to have the first woman PM.
Well Whoop! Whoop!
Look where all that has got us!
April 26, 2024
Was Wilson not at some Grammar in Huddersfield that later became a Comp.? but he was at least fairly bright unlike Major even if he did choose to read PPE Oxon. At least he had the sense to keep us out of Vietnam.
April 26, 2024
Zieglerâs âHonest brokerâ?
April 26, 2024
Harold Wilson was an Oxford don in economic history. No-one ever called him dim. But of course the American leadership never forgave him for keeping us out of Viet Nam.
April 26, 2024
Major could not win a scholarship. You donât have to be rich to go to public schools, although of course you can pay, but you have to have ability to be a scholar.
April 26, 2024
Actually, we canât possibly know that.
He had to leave school early to help support his family. He worked in insurance.
My point was that selection for reasons of DEI often deliver the wrong person to a job.
We also can not know why Major was selected. He was a mild mannered, softly spoken contrast to Mrs T? A softening exercise maybe? âWe arenât the nasty partyâ!
My suggestion is that a non-public school background was a politically correct feather in the Tory cap.
April 26, 2024
And yes..I know that May coined the phrase âNasty Partyâ but Conservativesâ enemies have always used similar terminology.
Thatâs why they are called tories.
Left wing enemies are wolves wearing the proverbial and hiding under a cloak of faux moral rectitude.
April 26, 2024
Major was like a robot when you spoke to him. Quite unnerving. âPost-humanistâ experience almost!
April 26, 2024
most people would say they cannot afford the fees to a Public School. aka ‘rich’.
April 26, 2024
Ted Heath went to a Grammar School, as did Margaret Thatcher. In those days Grammar Schools were state schools exclusively.
April 26, 2024
Yes.
And from there to Oxford.
April 26, 2024
Most trains that run outside main commuter peak times are almost empty. It really seems to be outside the thinking of marketing to offer hard to refuse price deals. Whatever extra revenue would be gained is better than zero, isn’t it? Deals could be for specific days, perhaps only 1 or 2 days ahead, thus avoiding replacing those paying travellers tickets who need to book ahead.
Reply There are many cheap ticket offers
April 26, 2024
âThere are many cheap ticket offersâ well so long as you can fix your times in advance and can spend ages hunting about. But if anything changes it can often cost even more. Without subsidies and if taxes similarly to cars trains would typically cost at least 4 times as much as a car with one person in and as much as 20 times a full car per person and generally takes far longer, cannot be used to carry and store much luggage, needs end connections and is hugely inconvenient and inflexible too. Try asking the driver if he can stop at school to pick up the kids or go via Waitrose as you forgot the groceries.
April 26, 2024
Someone yesterday said each household subsidises the railways by ÂŁ400, so we should get ÂŁ400 equivalent dockets to use only on under-booked trains with the ability to top up the freebie offer, use it against your annual ticket. Why should railways get money for nothing in return for your average out of London or other big City household.
April 26, 2024
The on-cost of the seat is the same, no matter the time of day or even if you book ahead, the running costs are the runnings cost …..those deals are scam, just make the cost of a journey ‘honest’
April 26, 2024
reply to reply ..Cheap tickets to where? If you happen to want to go to a single place in Wales you might be lucky, but if you’d like a trip during the week to a place of your choosing then zilch.
April 26, 2024
No mention of the destructive Marxist unions. No surprise, typical Tory. Avoid the real issue and therefore a confrontation and pass on the cost and inconvenience to Joe mugging’s in the street.
Tory intransigent and their endorsement of Blairism has destroyed our nation. Only now are people waking up to the cancer of the Tory-Labour scam
April 26, 2024
The real issue is trains need staff and dedicated tracks and so are inherently far less efficient and more costly than cars, coaches, trucks and often flights on average (with a few exceptions). Often by public transport a trip of 100 miles door to door need public transport travel plus taxis of up to double this due to indirect routes.
Flights only need a strip of concrete at each end, plus planes can move to where the demand is over the day and year as demand changes (unlike trains and fixed expensive tracks). Then we have the unions on top. With train drivers paid double what junior doctors get. Plus the sick joke of HS2 like net zero moronically backed by all the main parties.
April 26, 2024
Train driving being s job a computers could do rather better, rather more safely and far more cheaply.
April 26, 2024
And of course, computers never go wrong do they? Post Office, Air Traffic Control for instance.
April 26, 2024
Well can certainly be made to be more safe than human drivers.
April 26, 2024
Probably been that way since the unions prevented the Victoria Line from running entirely automated in 1968.
April 26, 2024
With luck Starmer will finish off the railways and we can build motorways on the beautiful tracks right into city centres. All the shunting yards are available for high rise parking for all ice cars.
April 26, 2024
đđ»well Said Lynn, i second that proposal!
April 26, 2024
+1
April 26, 2024
Have the unions been useful though?
Enabling the closure of mines and steel works etc. ( not just tories who closed them eitherâŠc160 coal under Mrs T and c290 under Wilson).
Working in concert with the EU/EEC whatever? This climate scam has been bubbling under the surface for ever.
Used in the same way that vandalism ( perfectly preventable) was used to close public loos.
And used like so much of what we see nowâŠto get public support for unpalatable measures.
April 26, 2024
Unions can sometimes get higher wages for their members but in pushing up these wages they inevitable make sure fewer of these now more expensive workers are employed in total. Also more likely to have their jobs mechanised, replaced or subcontracted and they make their industry, like say rail, rather more expensive so more people go by car, coach, bike or do not go at all. This reducing their jobs yet again.
April 26, 2024
The problem John is, the Public are never given the cold hard financial facts by either the Government or the opposition, of all of its hidden subsidies, or so called investment (debt and borrowing), thus the vast majority of us out here are clueless as to what the actual costs are of the present or proposed rail system.
All we see are higher and higher fares, and very complicated ticketing system, which few really understand.
I wonder how many have already linked the vast costs of HS2, with a Government owned owned rail service, how many fully understand that the actual rail network is already nationalised ?
I would guess even some Mp’s do not yet understand much of the above given some of the statements made..
So thank you for exposing some of the figures
April 26, 2024
Nationalisation will mean that the rail industry will be even more at the mercy of the trade unions and yet another bottomless pit swallowing gargantuan sums of cash. The sooner the current cohort of financially illiterate MPs are booted out of office the better.
April 26, 2024
i would enjoy reading your recommendation’s to John Major on rail nationalisation,
April 26, 2024
wikipedia âPrivatisation of British Railâ
April 26, 2024
The appalling management of HS2 was permitted to squander OUR money by successive so-called Conservative Prime Ministers. If they’d pulled the plug on the white elephant, as they should have, the squandering of our money would have stopped.
The Major Government complied with an EU Directive when it “privatised” the railway. Labour will now re-nationalise it and once again, the service will decline and the unions will rule. But then it looks like they’ve been doing that for the past year anyway.
April 26, 2024
They donât understand âsunk costâ. Now Iâm expecting Sunak to announce more billions on Challenger tanks which perform so well on Salisbury plain. In Ukraine they are submersibles!
Oh I know, Iâm just an old stick in the mud! So is Challenger!
Any hour now we will see F16âs sink too, complete with âvoluntaryâ pilots from individual-countries-who-belong-to-NATO-but-not-NATO.
You think RAIL is costing fortune. Just waitâŠ
April 26, 2024
Just been announced the US Abrams tanks have been withdrawn from the Ukrainian front line.To see them burning is not a good look for the arms dealers.
Big display of captured NATO equipment in Moscow has got Stoltenberg very upset-gives the impression NATO is a party to the conflict he says-no sniggering at the back!-and being defeated.
April 26, 2024
While load of Abrams too slow to clear Berdychi where there are pictures of them burning brightly. The retreat is too fast for tanks – luckily the Ukrainians were told NOT to take Challengers within 1,000 miles of the front line đ, so no pictures of them burning – yet. But the front line is catching up with the Challengers ⊠donât buy western MIC shares yet – they might tank!
April 26, 2024
But Donna, EU wanted its end to end HS Rail Travel so the Brit Politicians
HAD to obey their masters!
April 26, 2024
The Swiss used to be the only rail service in the world to pay its way. Some subsidy remains inevitable yet user demand dictates what succeeds or fails. SJR makes the better-reasoned case for reliability, values and efficiency, including on Farageâs GB News programme last night; but too many obdurate commentators disregard the truth. The public tend to be influenced by the majority of such misleading opinions.
April 26, 2024
If it does not pay its way the. it is surely unfair competition for all other unsubsidised and taxed modes of transport.
April 26, 2024
It is unfair, yet without some subsidy rail might not exist.
April 26, 2024
Sir John, You’re clearly no fan of railway nationalisation. But come on! the current system is a totally over expensive hopeless mess.
How would you fix it?
April 26, 2024
Running and managing a Network of connected inlets and outlets to transport something is based on some general rules. The major point it has to have only one body for overall control and responsibility for everthing in the process from input to output. This provides for maximum efficency and lowest overal cost for the user of the network.
There is a basic cost to provide a reliable product. You can always reduce cost but the product is longer reliable for the end user.
April 26, 2024
JMc,
Yes you need a joined-up system.
You also need long term commitment from both the service providers and their staff.
We no longer have either.
April 26, 2024
They managed to both increase costs and produce an unreliable product.
April 26, 2024
Sensible safety controls need to be separated from profit motive.
April 26, 2024
The Public Sector and by extension, the nationalised Rail system will always provide mediocre and poor service because there is no mechanism to make the managers do anything else.
No public sector employee ever feels the worry of failure because they never pay any personal pain or financial price for their service good or bad.
No one gets fired.
Until the full spectrum of business conditions which included[s the risk of being fired (not early retired) is brought into the public sector, there will only ever be bad services why do they need to even worry about costs or efficiency or public perception?
The roads are a mess
The Railways are a mess
The NHS is a mess
The Councils up and down the country are in a mess.
The BBC is a joke.
What do all of those have in common?
The answer can be found in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged.
April 26, 2024
RE,
The assumption that the public sector will always do a worse job than the private sector has been proved wrong so many times over recent decades now.
We are at the mercy of chancers who promise improvement but never deliver. At the same time looting the existing infrastructure and then demanding the taxpayer bail them out.
April 26, 2024
Peter, so why is our nationalised network rail, removing services on every bank holiday when the public are trying to get away on holiday or to see their families, all services out of Euston were cut without adequate alternatives and only replacement bus services which were snarled up because the roads were too busy, a usual two hour journey was taking 6-8 hours.
April 26, 2024
Railway repairs and replacement of infrastructure is done at weekends and Bank holidays due to the massively increased terms and payment to the staff. No shortage of workers!
April 26, 2024
You are so right.The services inevitably worsen
April 26, 2024
Peter,
The fundamental difference between public and private is this. If a private sector business does a bad job it goes bust and investors lose their money,
If a public sector business does a bad job is continues and simply consumes more public money I.e. tax payers funds. The heads of failing public sector businesses are then found another public sector business or departments to run and fail in.
April 26, 2024
Rod Perhaps you are speaking for todays generation. The attitude you mention is now common in both public and private organisations. The unions don’t change even when privatised.
The threat of being sacked does not inspire productivity just doing enough to keep your job.
It’s the raise of the management culture which has caused the most damage with over paid higher management who are not competent in delivering the core business. The theory is you don’t have to know how bricks are made to manage a brick making business. A bit like you get a degree in politics and you can govern a country not having ever had a real job in the real world.
April 26, 2024
đđ» and she a Russian. But Putin is also from St Petersburg and seems to have the same ideas. He Shrugged! Russia has pulled itself together.
We used to produce tee shirts with âwhere is John Faultâ on them – during the Major debacle.
April 26, 2024
I donât think any U.K. govt. has ever pondered nationalising and making the service free at the âpoint of need to get somewhereâ.
I once knew an economist who often referred to a notion that totally free rail would work out less expensive ( not sure to whom or how!).
However, it appears that Spain is dallying with the ideaâŠmaking energy companies etc. foot the bill.
Perhaps all the expensive stuff that they did here like doing away with slam doors and ticket offices and installing âtrap me quickâ loos and constant painting of stations to use up budgets before AprilâŠwould have been better left undone?
April 26, 2024
Oh like the NHS you mean?
April 26, 2024
Exactly!
April 26, 2024
Could you remind us of how you said it should have been privatised?
April 26, 2024
What the government ought to do is to can all the non-productive network Beeching style, leaving just the commuter routes. If the government really believes there is a strategic argument for retaining some lines, then make it plain this is a nationalised service.
I like everyone else have to contribute ÂŁ500 per annum towards rail subsidy. If we all had ÂŁ500 of free tickets each year, that might encourage more rail use.
My purchases of rail tickets in the past 12 months has been ÂŁ0, so I’m paying for someone else’s train set and I don’t get to have a go.
April 26, 2024
+1
April 26, 2024
? What have they done with ÂŁ67 billion of assets?
Reply They have taken out huge borrowings against them and lost money
April 26, 2024
How did they lose money if the borrowings were for investments? Aren’t the investments sound and producing more revenue now? I thought they were saying only private companies like the water were making errors like that?
April 27, 2024
I believe they used index linked debt, which has become very costly since the end of ZIRP and the start of QT and with recent high inflation. All on the government tab of course, since it is fully nationalised.
April 26, 2024
Good to hear you talking about this on GBNews Farage programme last night.
https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1783573899667538298
April 26, 2024
+1
April 26, 2024
I just want the pot holes in our roads fixing. We have become like a third world country. I’m currently in Spain and their roads are perfect. Why have ours been allowed to get into such a state? I’m sick of our politicians with their war on the motorist and their net zero scam. Not everyone lives in a city with subsidised public transport.
April 26, 2024
Because of silly planning that puts major manhole covers right in the centre of very busy carriageways, too many pipes under the tarmac rather than in the verges (even in new estates).
Because of patch repairs that disintegrate.
Because of asphalt overlays rather than dig and replace (undercutting) as often the surface underneath is where the actual problem was.
April 27, 2024
and they don’t want thinkers .. too arty???
April 26, 2024
My council and the highways agency recently erected some new metal roadway fencing, put traffic lights on two small roundabouts and changed the lights at all road crossing at a huge cost (and producing co2 and energy on-costs) and jobs that didnât need to be done, nothing was broke
But they wont fix a single pot-hole âŠsomething that needs to be done
April 26, 2024
The big question that keeps popping up with all these infrastructure type projects is who is the âmanagementâ? The override of competition, of Customer choice is missing or depleted so there is no driver to cause customer service. There is talk of Regulators or Quango Control, the seem to work for personal self-esteem not consumer protection. There is even talk of independence, but once there is a call on the taxpayer to fund something, it should always be the Government with a dedicated minister in place to take on the democratic principle of accountability and responsibility. We have seen this governments record on the PO for this â no interest.
In practice as it is the Chancellor that creates and Budgets hands out âourâ money that becomes the person that controls expenditure â the management. There is no economy all the time money just floats away, with a government using laws to grab it from us then losing interest on the control of it as an expenditure. The system is fractured, it has lost its way we have a transport minister, but for what purpose? The transport minister seems to refuse to manage the regulators. What is called private rail companies donât appear to be Private at all, rail staff wages seem to be a government problem.
April 26, 2024
There is a general display from this Conservative Government that there only job is electioneering, the running around the Country like headless chickens looking for ways to trip up and trap the opposition.
What they refuse is their basic job. Our money the taxpayerâs money is not their personal campaign money. They have shown the way, of this abuse that has led to others including the London Mayor to follow the trend. The Conservative Government refuses to manage
A budget, the budget is 2 elements the money that comes in and the money that goes out. This Conservative Government even today are contriving newer and more methods to take money out of peopleâs pockets, the economy. Hence, we have a 70 year high on the taking. What we donât have is the control of the expenditure that this Government makes, it is not Budgeted it is given away. A minor instance when did Parliament make it âLawâ that everyone in receipt of taxpayer funding must, set up Discrimination (DEI) Departments at the expense of the taxpayer and without their approval. Is creating discrimination in the UK the function of the taxpayerâs money?
There are many more, more expensive loses that this Government makes on the taxpayer that the show and demonstrate their disdain, contempt for the people they have been elected to serve.
Sir John, nearly each and every topic you highlight, has an answer, the answer is a Government that knows how to manage, to take and accept responsibility – above all do the job they promised those that elected them. 14 years of ever increasing failed promises is no longer a joke, a joke on everyone that elected them maybe.
April 26, 2024
Nationalising the railway system is akin to handing control to the Unions ; it would would be costly and fateful to users . A consequence would also put extra traffic on the roads – already a nightmare !.
April 26, 2024
No half measures, no pleasing outside bodies or lobby groups etc,.either
Nationalise the whole shebang (everything)
Franchise it on a 5 year team to a single provider or
Privatise it selling to a single company (it must remain as a single entity)
April 26, 2024
Sir John
If yourself and your other contributors here want to absorb what is wrong with this Conservative Government and the Society it is creating, they should head over to the Telegraph were the problems that are being afflicted on us are highlighted – âJohn Cleese: Basil Fawlty would be bewildered by the country England has become â and so am Iâ
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/john-cleese-basil-fawlty-towers-west-end/
Everyone gets it but those entrusted to defend us!
April 26, 2024
The railways might as well be fully nationalized to afford full control and direction. That a Labour minister or worse some chums-staffed quango will fail to deliver any improvement is of course probable but then none are in prospect now, just more subsidy over the present ÂŁ33 billion.
April 26, 2024
It would be interesting to know the plans our host proposed.
April 26, 2024
Why are the British railways a train wreck? In Germany, Deutsche Bahn is a successful company owned by the German government. It complied with the EU directive to separate train from track by creating separate subsidiary companies.
It is a reasonable deduction that the problems besetting this country are a consequence of politicians continually making poor decisions about every aspect of our lives.
After the Tories are wiped out at the next election they will be able to ponder whether their unfair First Past the Post electoral system is such a good idea even if they are not persuaded by the argument that it generally leads to results over which two thirds of the electorate’s votes had no effect and to continual poor governance which is leading this country to decline and dissolution.
April 26, 2024
@ forthurst – the “continual poor governance” to which you refer could be more likely under some proportional representation voting system for often then the third party (behind two dominant rivals) would find itself perpetually in power. A virtue of FPTP and a critical element of aany good system is that voters can more easily eject from office those in government.
April 27, 2024
You might finish up with a government lead by a leader like Giorgia Meloni. When a government is described by the enemy within as ‘far-right’ you know you have a party that represents the people for a change.
April 26, 2024
They get their information from research ,which is in the form of pixels,lifted off and the inaccurate information provides the basis for change.
April 26, 2024
Thanks, Sir John..as you continue to point out the same mistakes our governments make over and over again. Your life must be a bit like a teacher teaching for years and years the same curriculum. He/she repeats and repeats the same ‘message’..for very little changes over the years. The same need for ‘doing better’ returns year after year. ‘They’ (whoever is in power) listen to you, however do not take on your experienced advice. I can easily imagine the likes of Major ignoring you…I can easily imagine many silly people (who got lucky and into ‘high places’ doing ever the same). Your emphasis is on ‘delivery and ‘good business practice’. The average politician’s emphasis is hardly this, as we know..and you point it out. When will the powers-that-be get it that all departments need to be run by good managers with good strategies? Probably never. It’s not in their natures to look for competence. They’re another breed (most of ’em). They’re too busy with ‘the power thing’ and blind to everything else…Very frustrating for you..and all of us who watch the same rubbish repeated by incompetent people (who know nout much about out)…Keep smiling. (Bear in mind Job and his laments. Somehow it’s in our nation’s fate – so far – to put up with things…Ugh!)
April 26, 2024
You also need to look at the calibre of staff. Over the years general alacrity of thought in correspondence with the English language has deteriorated to such an extent more mistakes are made and an initial understanding of instructions is not present.
You also need to look at the commuters who have been encouraged in the last 30 years or more to complain.Written complaints for the sake of it distract from the central purpose of travel and don’t the solicitors like it.
April 26, 2024
Was it Albert Einstein who defined insanity as, doing the same thing over again, expecting a different result?
Well, surely, this must be Labour very own definition, too. Why are they even talking about it?
Nationalisation has already been done here and was a compounding disaster for the country and its taxpayers.
If Labour cared to compare the achievements of North and South Korea, they will find it blindingly obvious that North Korea’s permanent nationalisation MO keeps both its growth and the standard of living for its citizens way behind those of the South. Similarly, the old USSR, which was governed on a like basis.
Where the Civil Servants and Government staff have total control of any productive organisation, inefficiencies reign supreme, along with over runs and increasing costs.
Government should be there to promote economic growth, not impede it with burdening and ballooning red tape and the huge costs that go with it. Labour, will again, make a grotesque error by reintroducing it, and it’s us from the backstreets who’ll pay the price. Again.
We really need true conservatism back to improve our lot, but the existing pseudo-tory Government are far too left to do it.
April 26, 2024
Derek : âIf Labour cared to compare the achievements of North and South Korea, they will find it blindingly obvious that North Koreaâs permanent nationalisation MO keeps both its growth and the standard of living for its citizens way behind those of the South.â
Do you not think that our ruling elites would also prefer to enjoy permanent power, as seen in North Korea, to a higher standard of living for us?
Why do you think theyâre all signed up to the economy destroying Net Zero Strategy with restrictions and rationing on energy, food, heating and travel?
Read the the Government funded UK FIRES Absolute Zero report describing how the Government intends us to be living by 2050 :
https://ukfires.org/impact/publications/reports/absolute-zero/
April 26, 2024
I see the Met police after weeks of masses of the public replying to their tweets, telling them exactly how useless the ordinary decent citizens think they are, have put out some new tweets but blocked anyone from being able to reply.
The Met are delusional if they think we have not spotted.
I am enjoying Laurence Fox openly saying how incompetent and useless the judge in his recent court case is. Most of use are too scared to get locked up for contempt of court, or punitive fines which would force us to sell our house, etc. I am glad someone is prepared to openly say what I have thought for a long time, having sat through a number of court cases, that our judges are very low quality, openly biased, and a large part of the problem with UK society. I hope Laurence wins longer term. I think more people are going to speak out ever more about the sheer injustice in our society and refuse to be threatened into submission.
The public sector really has descended into clown world.
April 26, 2024
Indeed.
April 26, 2024
Whether the railways are privatised or nationalised the problem is always the same that either lines or the whole system is not subject to any competition. Nationalisation therefore would seem the obvious choice but without any controls it will inevitably and eventually be run simply for the benefit of the rail employees. There will, for instance, never be any incentive to reduce staffing and improve reliability by transitioning to driverless trains. The rail unions will be holding the country to ransom having been given even more power by Parliamentâs desire to achieve Net Zero by restricting, if not actually ending, the use of private cars.
Like the NHS it will succumb to Robert Conquestâs 2nd and 3rd laws of politics.
Perhaps the railway should become a co-operative business with all staff being required to pay for and own shares for the time they are employees?