The last government lived with a largely nationalised railway. It inherited public ownership of all the tracks, , signals and stations. It continued a regulatory control over most fares and all timetables. It added to the number of train operating companies run by the state as franchises ended or ran out of money.
The new government wants to show its Union bosses it still believes in nationalisation so it put a Bill through the Common yesterday that instructs the Secretary of State who designed the Bill not to use private sector companies in future or to have any competitive challenge to the state incumbents. It continues the bizarre Blair inspired idea of legislation to bind Ministers with no penalties for failure and of course the daily opportunity to simply change the law if it no longer suits. The last government did this too, setting targets that it could not guarantee to hit on net zero for example.
The Bill is a shoddy piece of political signalling. Why shouldnât the railways seek private sector bids to run parts of the railway better with less cost for taxpayers? When did a monopoly producer lower prices and offer better service than competing providers? How can the government control the run away costs of the largely nationalised industry as it moves to complete public sector ownership?
Last year the railways cost taxpayers ÂŁ33 bn in losses and capital spending, all to be found from a stretched national budget. This Bill will come at further excessive cost to taxpayers.
Where was the Shadow Spokeswoman highlighting the dangers to passengers and taxpayers? Where was the case reminding us of the great success of Hull trains,the  one example where a challenge to the monopoly was allowed? Where the reminder of the colossal waste and cost overrun of HS 2, a truly nationalised wannabe railway which will never get to the north of England despite that being the main point of the plan!
September 4, 2024
Good morning.
A lot of the railways were owned and run by companies that they themselves were owned by foreign governments. The UK has the some of the highest rail ticket prices in Europe, much like everything else that has been sold off to private (mostly foreign) investors / owners. Do not get me wrong, I do not have a problem wth foreign ownership, but I do have a problem with Foreign State ownership, particually combined with it being a monolpoly (eg Water).
We really have to go back to the time when the railways were first created to see a good enough model of how to build, own and run them. Back then we had the horse and cart, the canals and walking. No motor cars, lorry’s etc. Competition, such that it was, was not great and the investment and return from private companies in railways made them very popular. Then came the WWII which meant that the railways were basically thrashed to near death. Post WWII we had nationalisation from a bankrupt country and militant unions. Then we had the EU forcing the UK to sell off its nationalised industries for which foreign governments were most happy to buy and exploit. We paid with high fares and large subisdies. It was a shambles and we were taken to the cleaners (again) by our so called European friends.
Now we find ourselves repeating the same mistakes as before. Perhaps it would be better for some real fresh thinking on this ? Perhaps we need to take ownerships of all the rolling stock, tacks and stations but allow private companies to manage them on a very longterm license. The only difference here is that they cannot be majority owned by foreign companies and companies that are in part or completly owned by foreign governments excluded. Oh ! And they can only run the services without any subsidy.
September 4, 2024
The govt. ( they never miss an opportunity) took over the railways on the first day of WW1 as well by means of a Railway Executive Committee,
Goodness knows what the overall cost of requisitioning these private companies was ( for both wars).
Such opportunities for govts to land and asset grab.
But at some point âdown the lineâ someone picked up the tab.
We the ones with the deep pockets no doubt!
September 4, 2024
@Mark B +1
People need to wake up and see how much of the UK is being forced into being controlled by the Political Whims of foreign powers.
Nothing wrong as such with foreign ownership, but foreign taxpayer ownership funded and supported be the UK Taxpayer who has now been disenfranchised. One of the test should be can these deals be reciprocated i.e. the UK Taxpayer being subsidised by the foreign taxpayer
September 4, 2024
Any company or country buying into British companies must NEVER be subsidised by our government , they must sink or swim under their own efforts
September 4, 2024
And to think that we laughed at Barbara Castle because she could not drive!
September 4, 2024
A Transport Sec. who could not drive, John Major a Chancellor who failed his maths and nearly all his O levels, an Energy Sec and Health Sec. with PPE degrees, Indeed virtually one at all in the energy department or climate committee with any relevant skils. See the recent The Sceptic podcast latter part. Socialist VAT on school fees Gove failed his dribing test 6 times.
Why should anyone who does not use trains pay anything towards them. Free choice and fair competition please.
September 4, 2024
Good performance by JR on GB news last night (apart from the tie perhaps). Has Lloyd Russell-Moyle ever said anything sensible 180 degrees weong on everything (Peace Studies at Bradford it seems).
Moyle thinks electric vehicles especially for trucks lack âpowerâ. Power is not a problem not for well designed EVs mate. The problem is capacity of the batteries and so short range, the cost of the batteries, the short life and heavy depreciation of the batteries, the weight and space taken, the charge times⊠total insanity for the NHS to swith to electric ambulances.
EV cars save no CO2 and a bit more CO2 is not a problem anyway. Lammyâs move against Israel is appalling but then Lammy is appalling. As are Starma, Miliband, Cooper, Reeves who has already broken the rules it seems and that Scum Scum Scum woman.
September 4, 2024
Yes, a big problem for commercial vehicles to be EV is the time needed to charge the batteries which reduces the their availability to actually operate and carry freight etc.. Consider ambulances for example – running on diesel they can be available and operated 24hrs a day (by different crews) but make them EV and they’d have to spend a significant part of the day charging and so unavailable for use.
September 4, 2024
Roy,
I wonder also how stable they’d be. An ambulance carries a lot of weighty kit, plus the crew and patient etc.
The vehicle’s body is large and, travelling at high speed on blues and twos, the body rolls and sways. Surely the roll and swaying motion of the vehicle, not to mention stability, would be all over the place. Would you fancy being on the back of a glorified milk float going at sixty miles per hour? I know I wouldn’t.
September 4, 2024
Indeed mad people will die as a result of range issue and recharging times, they will depreciate rapidly and waste staff time. They will not even save any CO2 if that quite wrongly bothers you.
September 4, 2024
Sir J put his finger on the problem – power transmission, and sadly this critical point was laughed off as simply unpleasant vistas from the living room window. Wind power companies are paid for what they produce, not what is used. Far too much is wasted.
We need storage, of some sort, now. That’s where Millipeed should be spending our money.
Also note, photovoltaics are improving at pace and becoming cheaper. A LOT cheaper than windmills.
September 4, 2024
Yes photovoltaics are getting cheaper but in the UK you get most of the energy summer middle of the day when not needed. Cost of storage makes it hardly worth storing battery costs & depreciation can exceed the value.
Grid issues are huge. Especially if we in an act of insanity all switch to heat pumps. As they winter demand is huge for the few very cold weeks. Grid capacity then largely wasted for the rest of the year. Connecting up one huge power station to properties far far cheaper than doing it for thousands of wind turbines or solar often at sea and all over the place. Also you need 100% power capacity but only use circa 20% of it. The people in charge are religious net zero idiots, con merchants on the make or both.
September 4, 2024
Yes, but with efficient storage (90+% roundtrip), less windmills are necessary. But for now we don’t have efficient storage at grid level. Batteries, as presently constituted, don’t seem to be adequate. If Millippeed is going to spend our money, then do so on something that is a vital part of the system, that doesn’t yet exist, owing to the production side being inconsistent.
September 4, 2024
Amazing achievement for Sunak’s Con-socialists to be so dire as too lose to Starmer, Miliband, Lammy, Cooper… with even worse policies than them. Still hard to understand why the foolish Sunak went six months early and why he stuck to his pro immigration, net zero, tax to death policies when the country wanted the complete reverse.
So the Grenfell Tower report today:-
My conclusions a few days after the fire were.
It was moronic of the fire chief to send people back to their flats or to tell them to stay put when it was obvious the fire was totally out of control from a mere glance at TV. This was the main error.
The fire service failed to fully put out the initial fire fully.
It was moronic to insulate the tower block at all. This as the cost was far more than it would ever save in energy especially in fairly warm London.
It was even more moronic to do it badly and in flammable cladding materials.
Building control and fire regulators failed appallingly.
Whomever specified this material failed appallingly.
It was not installed very well.
Did anyone sensible from the regulators and fire service try to set alight to a bit insulation alight might have taken about 30 mins to do a test for say ÂŁ100?
A combination of green zealotry, gross incompetence mainly in the state sector and follow the money. Need anymore be said? Doubtless they used thousands of pages when on sheet of A4 would suffice.
September 4, 2024
LL : “Still hard to understand why the foolish Sunak went six months early and why he stuck to his pro immigration, net zero, tax to death policies when the country wanted the complete reverse.”
Sunak went early to avoid the testing of his Rwnada scheme knowing full well that Labour would cancel it. He didn’t want to take the chance that it might work. Neither Uniparty colour wants to stop mass immigration, whether legal or illegal nor Net Zero.
September 4, 2024
LL,
Why would a very rich man stay in a job he is not very good at, is not liked and widely criticised for doing a crap job? I think if I were in his shoes I would not have let my ego convince me I would be good at a job I was incapable of doing. From his decisions and actions I do not think he was as clever as reported. He had a very good education but that does not make him intelligent.
September 4, 2024
@Lifelogic – the products that were at the root of the Grenfell situation were never at any stage approved for use. They have been banned elsewhere in the World. It was a self-certification sign off by the Council and the Developer that led to a product not fit for purpose being used fo no other reason than to save money
September 4, 2024
@LL – Just seen the media reports of the Grenfell inquiry, the findings are exactly as everyone in the building industry knew from day one, some would say before the fire even happened.
Self Certification needs some checks and balances
September 4, 2024
@ Hope
Well Sunak did not seem to realist that the Covid Vaccines were not only not “unequivocally safe” but killed and injured hundreds of thousands. Also that the lockdowns were insane as was HS2, Net Zero, the pointless/worthless degrees… That he and the BoE were the ones who debased the currently causing the inflation and Truss economic bomb that he set.
The man may be “bright” at PPE as it seems for Gordon Brown History and 98% income tax Denis Healey Greats but they we all total disasters with zero common sense. Sunak if he is bright is surely a blatant liar over vaccines. He cannot really think they were unequivocally safe if he understand any basic maths can he?
September 4, 2024
Do not allow yourself to be âeducatedâ into stupidity as the fire chiefs seem to have been. As indeed have the Net Zero zealots!
September 4, 2024
Rather like the Covid Vaccines and the Big Pharma funded MHRA which alas killed and injured far far more. Follow the money!
September 4, 2024
Now we see car manufacturers refusing to sell petrol and diesel cars to the public because they are fined if they donât meet their EV quota. So purchasers must wait until the following year to buy the vehicle they want. This will cause an ever-increasing waiting list. Soon we will be like old East Germany where people had to put their babies on the waiting list for a Trabant as the wait was 25 years. Once we were referred to as Treasure Island now we are just referred to as a basket case thanks to our clueless politicians.
September 4, 2024
Christine :
Yes, and don’t forget that according to engineer Steve Broderickâs written evidence to the HoC Business & Trade Select Committee concerning the inability of local grids to supply the power for 7 KW ev chargers only 1 in 7 homes can have ev chargers :
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/82722/html/
80% of local grids can only supply 1 -2 KW/household continuously which means that all local grids will need to be upgraded for heat pumps and for Time of Use Tariffs (TouTs) for âcheapâ electricity when the wind is blowingâŠexcept that intermittent wind electricity is more expensive than reliable gasâŠ
September 4, 2024
Christine
Yes a real problem for those on PCP rental type agreements, present contract finishes, but only options, an electric car as a replacement in stock, unless you purchase the existing one you have been renting, or another used vehicle.
What a farce, the law of unintended consequences strikes again, but was it really not obvious to the clowns in charge, that putting a fine of ÂŁ15,000 on each new Ice car sold (depending upon the number of EV’s sold) would cause such a problem.
September 4, 2024
Yet more insanity.
September 4, 2024
BA & LL :
Of course they knew that ÂŁ15K fines per ice sold after the yearly diminishing quotas would cause a problem. From their point of view it is not insanity but an intended consequence.
September 4, 2024
Where did Einstein study? Remind me, what was his degree in? Which university?
September 4, 2024
Zurick was it not Maths & thoretical Physics. People are usually bright or not bright and in different ways.
Many people are hopeless at maths other hopeless at memory and others hopeless at languages or hand, ball, foot eye co-ordination. University rarely make much difference but gives you a few tools. Different types drawn to different subjects and activities.
September 4, 2024
This on Farage GB news last night. Mogg was good too following this.
Very sad that Labourâs moronic âzero deterrentâ and âmuch more encouragementâ migrant policy has resulted in more crossings and more very sad channel deaths already. But what did the moronic âsmash the gangsâ Starmer and Cooper-Balls expect? No comment from him on the death year. Doubtless all the fault of the far right in Starmaâs view.
More Moronic expansion of intermittent wind from deluded net zero Zealot Miliband. Vast subsidies and market rigging yet the morons claim this is the cheapest electricity!
September 4, 2024
LL :
Yes, wind is supplying 1.58 GW as I write (09:13) from an installed capacity of more than 31 GW.
September 4, 2024
1.6 GW is perhaps worth about ÂŁ240,000 per hour, less maintenance costs, backup, distributions losses etc. Economic lunacy.
September 4, 2024
On GB news this morning, Film of over loaded rubber boat leaving France this morning, with their Police and Border force boat doing nothing to stop it. I wonder if they were shouting good journey and good riddance.
Once again all of the Mayors in French coastal Towns blaming the UK for doing absolutely nothing about the pull factor.
September 4, 2024
Einstein studied to TEACH Maths and Physics at a polytechnic school in Zurich. He worked for the Swiss Patent Office from 1903 and submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. He did not study at the University of Zurich.
Your snobbery about degrees and universities is just that, snobbery.
September 5, 2024
Not at all, but do you want, for example, UK energy policy in the UK run (as it is) by people with no relevant skills, politics degress and a religious obsession with net zero? Listen to The Sceptic podcast (latter part) to see the scale of the problem. It is like getting me to advise on Russian to Korean translations or the finer points of Beowulf.
September 4, 2024
Labourâs Israel arms ban is a shameful betrayal of a heroic ally
Israel is an oasis of democracy in a desert of tyranny â and our Foreign Secretaryâs grandstanding appeases terrorists
ALLISON PEARSON today is surely right as is Ambrose for one he usually talks drivel on energy but is right here. âLetâs be honest: shale fracking has saved the West
Without Americaâs wildcat drillers, Europe would be facing an industrial death spiralâ
AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD
The UK has very good fracking reserves too. Alas we have Milibandâs deluded et zero Zealots in charge. So we imoort wood and gas instead and export jobs.
September 4, 2024
Yes, why should the taxpayer fund rail journeys when 90% of them don’t use them and can’t afford them.
September 4, 2024
Indeed trains fares are subsidised by about the same as the fare and & cars taxed at circa 40% yet still cars are usually far cheaper even if only one in the car. With a full car it can cost less than 10% of a train fare. Despite this circs 9 times more people choose the car over the train. Without this tax subsidy bias the real demand for trains would be more like 1 in 20 miles. Plus with the train you still have the end journeys usually double road ones by taxi or wife pickup drop off. Free and fair competition please. The rail sector need to be about 40% of its current size in a fair market. And no it is not really even more CO2 efficient either considered properly with staff, tracks, ticketing, end journeys, indirect journeysâŠ
September 4, 2024
What about the young who can’t afford to buy a house and paying large rents who need the train to get to work but only if subsidised. The tax payers had to bail out bankers. It’s a bit of give and take. Don’t be overly idealistic!
September 4, 2024
Also if we don’t do more to help the young including the middle class there’s going to be even less procreation amongst native British (or living here will become intolerable for the young middle class and more leaving to live and work abroad) and we’re going to end up with even more immigrants that the middle class tax payers will have to pay for in the longer term ..
September 4, 2024
I would never use a train, they do not get you close to place you are travelling too! !
Useless.
September 4, 2024
To or from plus they often do not run at all and cannot divert to pick little Johny up after football and Beatrice after gymnastics then via the supermarket home.
September 4, 2024
I should think that a willing and enthusiastic workforce might be needed to make such a plan work.
Disconnect rights, four day weeks and strike at a hatâs drop just wonât cut it!
September 4, 2024
Nationalisation of the railways will be a short chapter in the life of this nacent government. Nationalisation/Privatisation do nor in themselves run a railway, good management free of political constraint does, witness Japan. Unfortunately the current government is a boiling pot of politics that produces the answers to very little. Sit back and watch them impale themselves on their own petard.
September 4, 2024
I think the main issue with the railways has been long-term lack of capital investment in infrastructure and IT upgrades. This is the issue in Germany where (if you can believe it) the rail service is in an even worse state than here.
Reply And is nationalised
September 4, 2024
Just to add to railway nationalisation, smell the litany of failure, driven by doctrine, that is building in committee to assail us.
Following the removal of Margaret Thatcher’s portrait, we have the proposed removal of right to buy. As it is Labour it is heralded by a minister who has not long benefitted from Margaret’s foresight.
Mass migration is a phenomina created by Labour. Blair displaced thousands around the Middle East with his ill judged wars, and then opened the doors to millions of immigrants in the hope that they would add to the labour vote. Result the country is on its knees and we now enjoy the birth of sectarian politics.
They are opening a war on the very best of private education by charging VAT on its fees. Have they considered that everything a school buys has VAT on it that can now be offset against the charge. Do they have the high quality places available in state education to cater to those forced to leave private education on cost grounds. Is high quality private education to be forced offshore.
Ideology drives the race to nett zero with Rasputin at the wheel, with little concept of what the consequences will be.
The Chancellor, while claiming to be in a financial hole, seems intent on digging deeper while at the same time spouting clapptrap about incentivising an entrepreneurial UK.
Anti semetism comes to the fore in Labour once more with Lammy’s ill judged ban on arms sales to Israel. It may for the moment only be partial, but that does not make it less critical. A bomb is not a bomb without a fuse. All to satisfy their sectarian UK politics and covert support of Gaza terrorism. To emphasise Labours ineptness, all announced on the day that Hamas murdered six hostages. Know Labour by what they do, not by their weasel words.
Meanwhile the rump opposition are practicing their Neroesque violin skills, intent on presenting Conservative party members with anything but a real Conservative to lead the parliamentary party of consocialists.
If it were not so serious it has all the ingredients of a Whitehall (theatre) farce. Meanwhile the population grow in disbelief while sliding down the personal GDP league table. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday is nigh.
September 4, 2024
Most have passed caring on this and every other issue.
I read this morning a strange move by Macron that would illegal migrants coming to Europe to claim asylum in the UK from anywhere in the EU. I have no doubt this idea comes from odious Starmer after his meetings with dwarfish Macron. I find this another sinister Marxist development in the continued assault against the demographic and cultural landscape of Britain
September 4, 2024
‘that would afford illegal migrants the right to claim asylum in the UK from anywhere in the EU’
Even outside the EU we have a pro-EU PM in Starmer who’ll work with the EU to undermine British sovereignty
The cultural and demographic realignment strategy continues unabated and people vote for this. I give up. People have a death wish
September 4, 2024
I agree with your outlook Dom. this is the first I have heard of this. I cannot watch the news or current affairs programs anymore. Of course if their claim made as soon as they land in Italy be rejected they will still head for the boats. So I canât see the point.
September 4, 2024
The illegal boat people have no right to cherry pick which country they asylum or refugee status. They are being allowed to do this in EU to help those countries where they enter and because Merkel wanted them!
Stasi is openly betraying the nation and British public who repeatedly voted against mass immigration and freedom of movement to rid us of our nation state, culture and way of life. Labour need to be ousted. No letting the other half of their Uni party back in either.
September 4, 2024
When were we ever given the choice to vote against mass immigration? Our rigged voting system only allows either Labour or Tory governments and they are both insistent on mass immigration.
September 4, 2024
So they perhap ps apply wait months the. if rejected they get on the boats anyway. How would this help?
September 5, 2024
Mike,
You are totally wrong. Tory manifesto stated each time it would reduce immigration, that was a choice. The party ratted on it each time. Brexit vote was against freedom of movement ie mass immigration. So there were many times the public given a choice but the Tory party had no intention and lied.
September 4, 2024
At this rate it could take another fifty years of crippling tax payer subsidies before the railways die the death they should before the end of the last century.
September 4, 2024
This Government has no more concern for the people who pay the bills for everything than the last one had, as was demonstrated, from what you day, by the silence of the opposition spokeswoman.
September 4, 2024
Labour carelessness playing with trains like toys is prone to break them. Theyâll then wail for more money to pay for something else to do.
September 4, 2024
I think a big part of the problem is that many current politicians and voters are simply too young to remember when the railways were fully nationalised and they wrongly assume that if they were they would be cheaper, have more frequent and better services, and would be strike-free. Of course those of us who remember know that either the exact opposite would be the case, or at best that nothing at all would change. I’m afraid they will just have to learn this afresh.
September 4, 2024
Labour would probably argue that train services in many continental European countries have remained in public ownership, are reliable and charge lower fares than in the UK. Portugal is one example.
September 4, 2024
Sadly we are now being ruled by Political Dogma, no longer by economics or common-sense.
Simples.
September 4, 2024
What did you expect? This appalling Government is doing what its 20% of voters want and is rewarding its Union paymasters/backers.
If the Not-a-Conservative-Government had done the same for its Conservative/conservative voter-base between 2010 – 2024 (particularly 2019-2024), it would still be in Government …. not a shattered remnant of the once great Conservative Party.
September 4, 2024
I’ve been retired for a while now. But I’m thinking of applying for a job as a train driver. After Two-tier Keir collapsed and gave them the latest pay rise, they now can get up to ÂŁ80K/year. For sitting in the front of a train with one lever and watching the signals. Great work if you can get it.
September 4, 2024
For a joined up national railway, the privatised model doesn’t work very well. There again, the nationalised model doesn’t work very well either.
That leaves the mutual model, where the railway is owned by the season ticket holders, freight companies and employees. Then, if there is a poor service, the passengers can only blame themselves for voting for low ticket prices. If government considers some unprofitable lines necessary to maintain in the national interest, a subsidy is appropriate.
For the little use I have of the railways, they could disappear and it wouldn’t matter to me. So why am I paying for the profit of foreign owners who run a poor service?
September 4, 2024
I suspect that this move will also deter foreign investment in the UK and possibly increase the costs of government borrowing. The privatisation of Railtrack had these effects.
September 4, 2024
The Hull railways experiment succeeded because the local people supported the initiative. Trying to replicate it across the country would probably be impossible
Working from home, meaning far less commuters travelling on the railways to work – and the collapse of freight business has meant that the last government’s effective nationalisation of significant parts of the network was inevitable.
The new government has swiftly settled the majority of the long running industrial disputes. I’m inclined to wait and see if they manage to improve services for those of the public who still wish to travel by rail
September 4, 2024
How will you know? Between breaking up the roads in your EV and heating your Orchard House, you canât have time to monitor the quality of the railway service.
However Iâm inclined to consider that any country that pays train drivers in the top 1% of wage earners is riding for a fall.
September 5, 2024
In what way have they settled the train strikes?
They threw money at the train drivers, who promptly voted to strike again. And now the train guards are demanding a 15% pay rise.
They’ve settled nothing.
September 4, 2024
A short-term âsolutionâ to improve the railways would be for a new incoming administration to bribe the existing train drivers sufficiently for them to install driverless trains.
The long-term solution, as we saw with the dockers in the 1960s and the printers in the 1980s, is to change the technology. Convert steel wheels on a steel track to rubber wheels on a tarmac track and run licensed individual private vehicles (coaches and lorries) running on this tarmac (road) track controlled by computer. These licensed coaches and lorries will of course be able to run on the normal roads to provide the door-to-door flexibility needed.
September 4, 2024
Single track lines can be as narrow as Cornish lanes. Put a road on them and if you have to pass anyone on an embankment, one of you is in the ditch.
September 4, 2024
And so?
Now you claim to be free of political loyalties what would you do if you were in charge? Leave everything as it is? Privatise everything?
What exactly?
September 4, 2024
Like most of the privatisations, the railways has been disastrous: water was the worst. The argument for privatisation was that free from government control and union influence, the railways could raise capital and develop using private sector business nous providing a better more reliable service at competitive prices. However, the size and geography of the country which militated against railways and for road transport meant the former would always need public subventions to balance the books; now much larger public subventions are going into the pockets of private owners and users of railways are having to wrestle with a complexity of separate businesses and ticketing systems which did not confront them before. Technological change will always do more for the consumer than so-called competition.
September 4, 2024
ScotRail,
Welsh Railways,
the East Coast mainline,
Transpennine,
Northern,
Southeastern and the
Caledonian Sleeper are all now in public ownership.
Railtrack failed in private hands so publicly owned Network Rail was created in 2002 to look after rail infrastructure and major stations.
https://weownit.org.uk/who-owns-our/railways
September 4, 2024
A quick look at who owns the private railway companies in the nationalised network:
First – listed on the LSE owned by institutional investors – global and UK based asset management firms.
Transport UK – seems to be owned by the Dutch State after management bought out Abellio.
MTR – mostly owned by the government of Hong Kong.
Trentialia – Rail Operator in Italy mostly owned by the Italian State.
Arriva – a company registered in the Cayman Islands!
Govia – 65% Kinetic Group an Australian bus company owned by a Canadian Pension fund and infrastructure companies in Australia and Spain. 35% Keolis – which is 70% owned by the French State and 30% by a Canadian pension plan.
These Canadian pension plans seem to profit a great deal from the UK whereas our pension companies like Nest don’t seem to do well at all, why? How many rail shares do Workplace Pensions UK own?
September 5, 2024
They are likely to be facing huge losses as the Canadian Pension Schemes own a significant stake in Thames Water !
September 4, 2024
‘It continues the bizarre Blair inspired idea of legislation to bind Ministers with no penalties for failure’ A doctrine and practice picked up by the faux Conservatives, that had no interest in the economy just more contrived taxes and extra borrowing to embed their WEF Socialist ideals into society. No interest in managing and controlling their spend.
Although this new version of the UniParty has added zeal and ideology to the Socialist cause it has been aided by the nurturing of the Blair, Brown years from their acolytes and worshippers of Cameron, May, Johnson and Sunak. They still fight the people, their freedoms and democracy, pushing the great reset to stroke personal self-gratification and ego
No one can condemn or complain about this Government and let those that created the trend off the hook. The condemnation going forward should be for the lack of opposition contrived by the pseudo club of the 1922 Committee and CCHQ that are setting the scene to ensure a continuity candidate is the only choice for an opposition to achieve just more of the same. The default has become to praise the failures and suggest failure is the way forward.
September 4, 2024
The downfall for all the selected Conservative leadership candidates is their position of being culpable for failure. The collective responsibility of Government is shared between all its Ministers, a failure for one is a failure for all. While I agree you get to move forward from having the experience of being a failure, but pushing the failed agenda to become a leader says the opposite.
We hope and to a certain extent and expect our elected representatives/leaders to have a degree of impartiality, while accepting them having a strong purpose and direction. There should be some neutrality so as to be able to serve those that lend them power and pay the wages. To achieve that it gets clouded, if you come from a strong minority religious belief set and background, that as such challenges the majority those you wish to serve. It also gets difficult to be seen in the correct light when you have dual nationality citizenship and your immediate family members work for a foreign government, especially a government that has opposing views to those you wish to serve.
The candidate list has more flaws and holes in it than can be imagined, all the candidates will be seen as ensuring the demise of the Conservative Party, the one Party this Country now desperately needs.
September 4, 2024
The candidates background, their per-sieved loyalties will always be exploited by all and sundry come election time, no matter how polite and accepting the majority of the UK’s voters seem.
September 5, 2024
We should also be told who their choice of Chancellor and deputy is. We can’t trust them if they’re not prepared to say.
September 4, 2024
Successive governments have laid waste to our railway system and this one is determined to complete the job.
When Major’s government split track and infrastructure from the running of trains it seemed like a good idea, but too much interference by all concerned has ruined the concept. Now what we have left is an over-priced white elephant that few can afford and few want to use.
Like all socialist ideas nationalisation cannot be justified, nor will it do anything to make the railways more efficient or popular. Socialists can only destroy!
This is yet one more encouragement for 15 minute villages.
September 4, 2024
Time for a major rethink on the subject of railways. in the 21st century, railways have very limited use.
Commuter services are hugely loss-making, with trains idle for most of the day and separate crews needed for the morning and afternoon services.
For individual trips, they are immensely inconveneint for anyone who is not going to a destination in the centre of a town or city where the stations are situated. A car is a far more convenient method of transport, or even a coach or bus.
For long distances onthe motorway network, electric buses powered by induction cables under the road surface, travelling metres apart under dynamic cruise control would be a far better, more flexible and cheaper mode of transport. They can then use their batteries to go into town centres or at interchange stations near a motorway exit to deliver passengers to their destination. Eventually these busses would become driverless.
Once set up, this system would be far cheaper to operate than a railway network.
September 4, 2024
In the meantime, the rail unions can’t wait for re-nationalisation because it will put them firmly back in charge.
September 4, 2024
From Guido – Sadiq Khan is asking for a ÂŁ25 billion handout from the government to pay for his vaunted election promises â he might want to cut some chaff from his bloated GLA bureaucracy first.
ÂŁ22billion Black-Hole, appears to be a labour fantasy trip, Over inflation wage awards to supporters, GB Energy ÂŁ8billion? Additional UK Overseas aid to NetZero in other parts of the World? Enforced raising of energy prices in the UK to make the UK uncompetitive, and so on, all enabled by the squandered 80 seat faux Conservatives.
September 4, 2024
317 illegal economic /criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France âŠdespite the tragedy yesterday âŠ.this government data – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/5cede69b-a408-47eb-8933-31fb2813ab77
September 4, 2024
Just seen a report ( PA Media 4/9 ) – the PM having stated that hundreds had been deported on planes since the new government came to power 2 months ago; 400 put on planes with destinations being Albania, Brazil and Vietnam. Home Office also announced that 46 foreign criminals & illegal migrants deported to Vietnam and Timor-Leste on its first charter flight under a returns agreement. Would be good to hear comments from the Opposition.
September 4, 2024
Born again “righty” Jenrick, actually a libdem remainer in sheeps clothing, getting all leader-like about the liberal elites fobs off concerns about “culture wars” – yet again demonstrates the utter lack of awareness of what concerns people in this country and what the left are up to.
Would he fob off antisemitism as lightly as the anti-British attitudes prevalent in our institutions?
September 4, 2024
@dixie – its the same team that precluded local supports, local members and local constituents choosing who would best serve them as a Conservative MP. The club is holding the reins on who will allowed to be voted for as the leadership. In the mean time the Conservatives of the UK, the real people, the majority are being pushed away, disenfranchised. The tribes in parliament have decreed being to the left of Ed Davey, having candidates that are as divisive as Corbin, being of a deferent cult to the UK’s mainstream is the continuity that will suit those in Parliament best.
September 4, 2024
I know that whatever will be decided by Parliament and our Civil Service, institutions and regulators for the future of the railways it will not be in the interests of a majority of the UK population, just like almost everything else in this topsy-turvy country they have created.
September 4, 2024
Thank you to the blog for pointing our where ÂŁ33billion of public money is wasted. That is over ÂŁ1,000 per household out of the over ÂŁ42,000 per household of annual public expenditure. For over 100 years since extensive road transport became available the railways have been demoted from the primary to a secondary mode of transport and therefore there should (like commercial air and sea transport) be no public subsidy for it. The rest of the railways (such as the track) should be privatised and if the private sector cannot run some of the railways profitably, such parts need not be run at all.
The 33 billion is about 20 times the cost of reinstating the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and is much more than Labour’s alleged financial black hole. It would underpin abolishing Corporation Tax entirely (which should more than self-finance anyhow by turbo-charging growth and producing huge amounts of extra income in Income Tax, NI and VAT) or alternatively amount to a 4p (or 5p when resultant extra V.A.T. etc; is taken into account) cut in Income Tax, pointing the way to the complete abolition of Income Tex which I am saying should become the election winning mantra of the British political right.
September 4, 2024
Sorry – off topic. Boris Johnson has been pranked by Vovan and Lexus. He thought he was speaking to Jacques Attali.
Johnson stated that Ukraine needs mass mobilisation of teenagers: “They haven’t called up many young people yet.” Moreover, the West should allow Ukraine to strike any targets in Russia with long-range missiles, primarily to bomb the Crimean Bridge: “We must give Ukrainians the means to put Crimea at risk.”
“Zelensky would have accepted the loss of Donbass and Crimea in 2022 if not for the United Kingdom (me)â
Despite having a “high appetite for risk,” Boris understands that sending a NATO contingent into Ukraine would lead to World War III. Nevertheless, Johnson stated that he himself “could have gone and led the foreign legion in Ukraine if he were a general.”
đđ€Łđ€Șwhat a pity Johnson did not go to Sandhurst – he could have started WWIII single-handed!