June 8th General Election

[t1t3h]

Is the UK's rail network not out of date compared to most of Europe now? Although I'm in favour of re-nationalising the railways, it will probably take years and billions of pounds to sort it all out.

In all honesty though, I don't know enough about it. Is there anything interesting to read about re-nationalising the railways? I think I'm a going to have a look for articles for and against re-nationalising them.

[Tommy Nooka]

It was a nationalised rail industry that removed vast swathes of the country from any local access to the rail network.    Will it bring any track to the NE Scotland, we subsidise all these commuters that you mention with no access to equivalent service (regardless of how shit it is). 
It is true to say that the best rail experience I have had in recent times was on the East Coast mainline before it went to Virgin.  An example of how a TOC can be run at a profit, within public ownership and provide customers with a very acceptable level of service.  I am not against the nationalisation of the railways, I just don't see it as some sort of easy fix.
As for the cost issue, I did post about the protected rights that ex-BR employees have kept through all the changes within the rail industry.  These are not free.  Others have attempted to turn this into a dig at the private sector and the poor employment conditions that many of these companies offer but there has to be a balance between the employee interests and those of the customer (i.e. the travelling public).  You complain about the cost of the railways in this country and yet there are still subsidised with TOCs handing back franchises as they can't make money from them

Abellio are only making £1 million profit per month from the Scotrail contract, i'm sure they'll be handing that franchise back pronto!

[The_Kincardine]

3 minutes ago, t1t3h said:

Is the UK's rail network not out of date compared to most of Europe now? 

I doubt that it is.  Maybe some blokes who know about railways will correct me but it does seem to function well.

[Tony Ferrino]

He'd be giving his best Beachy some head.

[t1t3h]

I doubt that it is.  Maybe some blokes who know about railways will correct me but it does seem to function well.

Fair enough, I'm sure I read that somewhere when HS2 was being discussed. Like I said though, don't really know enough about it so I'm happy to be corrected either way.

[strichener]

1 hour ago, Tommy Nooka said:

 

Abellio are only making £1 million profit per month from the Scotrail contract, i'm sure they'll be handing that franchise back pronto!

Which was less than 2% including the addition passengers that they carried as a result of the closure of the Forth Road Bridge, this is hardly excessive.  They have also made commitments to capital investment that had not started in the 9 months after taking on the franchise.  At the end of the day, there are mechanisms whereby the Scottish Government can ensure that where revenues increase, subsidies decrease.  Perhaps you should be asking the Scottish Government why they are providing tax payers subsidies to Abellio?  Scotrail has one of the highest subsidy levels of any TOC.

[Tommy Nooka]

Which was less than 2% including the addition passengers that they carried as a result of the closure of the Forth Road Bridge, this is hardly excessive.  They have also made commitments to capital investment that had not started in the 9 months after taking on the franchise.  At the end of the day, there are mechanisms whereby the Scottish Government can ensure that where revenues increase, subsidies decrease.  Perhaps you should be asking the Scottish Government why they are providing tax payers subsidies to Abellio?  Scotrail has one of the highest subsidy levels of any TOC.

Yet still make a 'profit'. I'm failing to see where privatisation of Scottish railways is an improvement over nationalisation.
Other than for commuters/taxpayers in the Netherlands of course.

[strichener]

2 minutes ago, Tommy Nooka said:

 

Yet still make a 'profit'. I'm failing to see where privatisation of Scottish railways is an improvement over nationalisation.
Other than for commuters/taxpayers in the Netherlands of course.

They still had net liabilities even after the profit.  It isn't like they paid any dividends to their owner but did pay millions on tax.

[Tommy Nooka]

They still had net liabilities even after the profit.  It isn't like they paid any dividends to their owner but did pay millions on tax.

Are Abellio losing money on the Scotrail contract?
They bid for the contract for a reason and it wasn't to benefit Scottish commuters.

[G-MAN]

Tonight's useless fact.. COMRES poll states 71pc support Labour manifesto.

[Paco]

Tonight's useless fact.. COMRES poll states 71pc support Labour manifesto.

Would be interesting to see the same poll in a few days - Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph all have exceptionally negative front pages about him.

The Daily Mail has plucked from its arse that the manifesto would cost every family in the U.K £4K a year. Why do people believe this utter shite?

[jamamafegan]

Would be interesting to see the same poll in a few days - Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph all have exceptionally negative front pages about him.

The Daily Mail has plucked from its arse that the manifesto would cost every family in the U.K £4K a year. Why do people believe this utter shite?

Because Corbyn wears cardigans.

[Mark Connolly]

Just listening to Chris Evans' newspaper round-up there - it was amazing how many times he read out "Corbyn runs over reporter".

He also immediately corrected them all individually, but the damage will be done.

[Baxter Parp]

16 hours ago, strichener said:

It clearly has.  Otherwise there would not have been 1.6bln passenger journeys.

If you think millions of constant packed standing-only journeys, as they do in the south east, is coping then your standards are not high enough.

[Baxter Parp]

15 hours ago, strichener said:

Were the 800m before privatisation?  Let's not pretend that BR was anywhere close to an efficient business.

Fascinating.  What was inefficient about it? Railtrack lasted from '94 to '02 and their inefficiency was the cause of the deaths of a number of people before they went bankrupt.  That the kind of efficiency you admire?

[Baxter Parp]

12 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

My take is that a. the rail systems/set up is too complex to make a crass "We'll nationalise it" statement and b. it works pretty well and much better than it did 40 years ago.

Bullshit.  It's more expensive for taxpayer and traveller and no more reliable than when it was privatised.

[NotThePars]

Would be interesting to see the same poll in a few days - Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph all have exceptionally negative front pages about him.

The Daily Mail has plucked from its arse that the manifesto would cost every family in the U.K £4K a year. Why do people believe this utter shite?

That ComRes pool is hilarious. Turns out Britons like nearly every Labour manifesto policy but still think the Tories have a more well thought out set of policies. We really don't like the idea of being anything other than completely miserable do we?

An ex-Tory voter on the radio this morning saying he's voting Labour because of their health and education policies. It's the hope that kills you.

[vikingTON]

The majority of the British public would like to pay no tax and have a universal basic income of £10,000 a month, if asked about it directly in a poll. That's not a credible election pitch though. Policies shouldn't be chosen simply because they're popular and no-one will take Labour's populist posturing seriously until at least the costs are accounted for. And not by Diane Abbott or the mumbleclown.

[Ivo den Bieman]

It's a mark of how far to the right the UK has shifted when Corbyn's soft-left manifesto is suddenly presented by the right wing press as the new version of Chairman Mao's little red book.

We no longer live in a democracy. The carcass of the old British democratic system is kept flapping for PR purposes whilst power is grabbed by a very ruthless few. Our democracy is "managed" in their own interests by this small claque of the very wealthy in whose name the Tories govern.

May will win by a landslide, by gaming the system and keeping the 4th estate, including the shamefully biased state broadcaster, onside. This is a government that should be disintegrating but is prevailing through sheer demagoguery and what people think is a lack of a viable alternative.

Corbyn's manifesto is a pretty remarkable document for 2017 but he could promise free beer in the pubs and free football for four seasons for all, and he would still be demolished.

It used to be that folk who said "we no longer live in a democracy" and "the system's rigged" were laughed at / shouted down as tinfoil hatters. This election, featuring a PM who refuses to actually engage with the public, refuses to take anything but scripted, pre-arranged questions from journalists, repeats the same robotic platitudes whatever the question, and who has managed to con a majority into believing that their problems are all the fault of immigrants and foreigners, may be one of the most shameful, corrupt and content-free in terms of policy, since the late eighteenth century.

Corbyn's policies deserve more of a fair hearing but between his image problems south of the border, divisions in his party (Welsh Labour have already come out and said that they do not recognise the UK party manifesto) and the dominance of the SNP in Scotland, Labour is royally fucked. Even if the party were in better shape with a more popular leader, they'd be royally fucked. It's that last sentence which si the most troubling aspect of this whole rubber-stamp exercise.

[renton]

I see the LIb Dems are running on a platform including the wholesale legalisation of cannabis.