And then the lot of you can spend the next four years bitching about Keir Starmer for betraying everything he (probably) didn't campaign on because he's no true socialist.
And then the lot of you can spend the next four years bitching about Keir Starmer for betraying everything he (probably) didn't campaign on because he's no true socialist.
Well, leaving aside socialist promises, even the parts of the media one would expect to be most on his side are alreadyexpressing their disappointment.
Keir Starmer doesn't seem to make any claims to be a socialist. Whereas, many of the current government keep playing the "Conservative values" card as though their views aren't causing Mrs Thatcher to spin in her grave.
Looks like the government is trying to capitalize on their perception that public support for the rail strikes are falling by announcing a closure of most train ticket offices.
They are not even proper Tories. I have worked alongside many Tories in days gone by, including politicians, and they were nothing like this lot. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that many of them were rational human beings with a genuine devotion to public service. Not the least like this bunch of corrupt, walking haemorrhoids.
Although in my nearly 70 years on earth including two spells as a local councillor I don't think I have ever met a Tory who cared about poor people, only about feathering their own nests and those of others like them, and ensuring that the lower orders knew their place. It's no secret that the maintenance of social hierarchies is an article of faith of the Conservative Party.
Mind you, I've met plenty of Labour Party people like that too, especially once they get a whiff of power.
And then the lot of you can spend the next four years bitching about Keir Starmer for betraying everything he (probably) didn't campaign on because he's no true socialist.
I'm not sure that Starmer has left anything in his Labour Party that I could vote for, to be honest. It's a good job I'm in Scotland although whither the SNP these days I shudder to think. There are those, naming no names, with a considerable body of support who would be back to chaining up the children's playgrounds on Sundays given half a chance.
And then the lot of you can spend the next four years bitching about Keir Starmer for betraying everything he (probably) didn't campaign on because he's no true socialist.
I'm not sure that Starmer has left anything in his Labour Party that I could vote for, to be honest. It's a good job I'm in Scotland although whither the SNP these days I shudder to think. There are those, naming no names, with a considerable body of support who would be back to chaining up the children's playgrounds on Sundays given half a chance.
Back to? Still at it Na H-Eileanan Siar, last I heard.
To be better than the current shower of gross incompetents and corrupt charlatans is a very, very low bar. It's almost inconceivable he could be worse. 5% better would still be appalling, and yet still 5% better than what we have.
Starmer is looking pretty safe. He needs the left to think there isn’t a better choice and vote Labour. He needs to make sure that any defectors are made up for by the floating voters. It is looking very bad for the Cons but I wouldn’t count my chickens.
Poor old Wishi Rish! may have yet another byelection to face soon, the appropriately-named Mr Pincher having been weighed in the balance, and found wanting:
I think, if I dare say so on these circles (we are in Hell after all), that public support for the rail strikers was always fairly limited,. Closure of ticket offices, though, I must say, seems likely to increase it.
Starmer is looking pretty safe. He needs the left to think there isn’t a better choice and vote Labour. He needs to make sure that any defectors are made up for by the floating voters. It is looking very bad for the Cons but I wouldn’t count my chickens.
I think it's more complicated than merely placating the left (whatever exactly is meant by 'the left' nowadays). A lot of seats that the Tories are in danger of losing are very unlikely to be won by Labour, and from what I can tell Labour isn't even trying to campaign in most of these places.
I think the establishment of a Yellow Wall along the coastal and semi-rural/market town areas of the South Coast is not unlikely given the deep deep anger over how sewage and water companies have been dealt with. Starmer has spent more time telling schools to not support trans kids than talking about water companies despite the latter being a really easy and really fucking obvious source of potential election wins for Labour.
There are plenty of non-Tories who are not leftists but also don't just want More Competent Tories yet that's what Starmer is going for. I think we're heading for a hung Parliament but nobody seems to be discussing it...?
Resurgent lib dems and weak tories has historically allowed disproportionately large Labour majorities (c.f. 1997, 2001, 2005). Hung parliament requires the tories to recover significantly.
Resurgent lib dems and weak tories has historically allowed disproportionately large Labour majorities (c.f. 1997, 2001, 2005). Hung parliament requires the tories to recover significantly.
As usual, time will tell - and polls are often unreliable indicators...
A significant recovery on the part of the tories seems unlikely, but who knows?
Yes, if Lib Dems are winning unlikely seats, which looks possible, and Labour winning back former seats, the Tories are doomed. I think there is a mood of revulsion against them. I know that this can change, but you have to struggle to think how. Sunak looks as if he has thrown in the towel. I guess they could change leader, (joke).
I suspect there will be a leadership change for the tories after the next General Election, although I wonder who might inherit the crown...
There may perhaps be a split in the party, with the so-called New Conservatives continuing to propagate their racist and hateful ideas under Braverman, but this would leave a remnant of less hateful tories, who would need a leader. Mordaunt? Tugendhat?
I see the three-hour-liquid-lunch crowd's latest crusade is against the four-day working week. Because who knows what the proletariat will get up to if they have an extra day of free time?
O, they'll have more free time in which to organise revolution, go to anti-Chuck & Vanilla protests, rescue illegal brown people from the sea, volunteer at food banks - and that we simply cannot have.
It's simply that the Conservatives are anti-business as well as anti-worker. There have been multiple studies that have shown that for many businesses four day weeks result in increased productivity, as with three days off staff do more work in four than they'd done in five with only two days off - and, that's before consideration of the mental health benefits of better work-life balances with less sick days taken (and, less costs to the health services). Throw in the benefits to leisure services from people using their extra day off to do stuff like visit local attractions or a meal out. They also have had a go at working from home, despite again lots of evidence that for many people and businesses this is a better option than commuting into an office everyday.
A rational government that seeks to support business and people would encourage business owners and their staff (with support from Unions where appropriate) to arrange for patterns of work that are best for both sides - four day weeks, flexible working, home working etc. Instead the government seems set on tightly controlling every aspect of our lives and business without any regard for what people and business need to prosper.
Something I don't understand: few people still alive can have much of a memory of the Big Four pre-war railway companies but there's an atavistic obsession with reviving their names for modern train "companies": LNER, Great Western, London Midland. Apart from a few prestige named trains they subject to unexplained delays and ran up eye-watering operating losses, which was why they had to be nationalised in the interest of post-war reconstruction. Any glamour they had is entirely in the mind.
I do remember steam trains under British Railways, although not the glamorous ones, just the ones that trundled around the north of England up until the mid-60s. They weren't the lovingly scrubbed and polished trains you get on volunteer-run "heritage" railways, they were dirty, they left a distinctive smell on your clothes for days afterwards (not an unpleasant smell actually, and I can see why it might have nostalgic appeal, but a smell all the same), and liable to make unexpected loud, high-pitched noises that terrified little Mavis when having to pass through Liverpool Central on shopping trips (actually paying the Owen Owen's account followed by exotic lunch at the Chanticleer in Tarleton Street trips).
Anyway, what's wrong with reverting to British Railways? What it says on the tin, without trying to appease the Brexit crowd with implications of bygone grandeur.
Plain *British Railways* for a re-nationalised system will do very nicely, thanks.
One of the reasons for nationalisation in 1948 was the poor state of the railways' infrastructure and rolling stock, following their herculean (and often unsung) efforts during WW2.
And, the poor state of infrastructure and rolling stock today (a direct result of tenders going to the lowest bid) is a good reason to bring the railways back into public ownership where they can be run without the constraints of needing to make profits for shareholders.
Something I don't understand: few people still alive can have much of a memory of the Big Four pre-war railway companies but there's an atavistic obsession with reviving their names for modern train "companies": LNER, Great Western, London Midland. Apart from a few prestige named trains they subject to unexplained delays and ran up eye-watering operating losses, which was why they had to be nationalised in the interest of post-war reconstruction. Any glamour they had is entirely in the mind.
In Canada, the Hudson's Bay Company(*) renamed their department stores The Bay in 1965, and then in 2013, reverted partially to the old form by re-branding as Hudson's Bay. Granted, the old HBC is something kids still might learn in about in school, so there could be a bit of proxy nostslgia there.
(*) Yes, that's the better behaved little sister of the East India Company. Interestingly, the anglophiliac re-branding in 2013 took place under American owners.
Something I don't understand: few people still alive can have much of a memory of the Big Four pre-war railway companies but there's an atavistic obsession with reviving their names for modern train "companies": LNER, Great Western, London Midland. Apart from a few prestige named trains they subject to unexplained delays and ran up eye-watering operating losses, which was why they had to be nationalised in the interest of post-war reconstruction. Any glamour they had is entirely in the mind.
I suspect it's because the turnover of franchisees mean that the older names have more brand value.
Plain *British Railways* for a re-nationalised system will do very nicely, thanks.
One of the reasons for nationalisation in 1948 was the poor state of the railways' infrastructure and rolling stock, following their herculean (and often unsung) efforts during WW2.
That's a true description of the condition of the railways at the end of the 2nd World War, but that that isn't the reason why they were nationalised. It was because that was as an essential part of the Labour Party's programme, how to implement Clause IV in its then form in light of their landslide on the 1945 General Election
"to secure for the workers by hand or by brain ... the common ownership of the means of production".
As a commanding height of the economy, and like the coal mines, there was the belief that the railways should be in public ownership, coupled with a widespread assumption that the state was acquiring a conglomerate of assets that might be a bit care worn from the war but would nevertheless be valuable and lucrative .
In fairness, the Big Four railways varied a bit in terms of viability, although 1939-1945 did absolutely nothing to help. The arrears of maintenance must have been huge, although at least no one had trees growing out of viaducts like you see today.
The LNER was essentially a working museum, and if the Government paid more than scrap value for it they were ripped off. The LMS had spent a lot of money upgrading its locos and had far fewer antiques. The GWR looked ancient, but again, had got rid of much of its old junk. The Southern had very considerable electrification and was generally progressive.
Plain *British Railways* for a re-nationalised system will do very nicely, thanks.
One of the reasons for nationalisation in 1948 was the poor state of the railways' infrastructure and rolling stock, following their herculean (and often unsung) efforts during WW2.
That's a true description of the condition of the railways at the end of the 2nd World War, but that that isn't the reason why they were nationalised. It was because that was as an essential part of the Labour Party's programme, how to implement Clause IV in its then form in light of their landslide on the 1945 General Election
"to secure for the workers by hand or by brain ... the common ownership of the means of production".
As a commanding height of the economy, and like the coal mines, there was the belief that the railways should be in public ownership, coupled with a widespread assumption that the state was acquiring a conglomerate of assets that might be a bit care worn from the war but would nevertheless be valuable and lucrative .
Yes, I agree - there were many good reasons for nationalising the railways, and other industries.
The LNER was essentially a working museum, and if the Government paid more than scrap value for it they were ripped off. The LMS had spent a lot of money upgrading its locos and had far fewer antiques.
You do the LNER a disservice. The top link locomotives on those railways (Coronations and A4s) were of virtually identical vintage (mid 30s).
The GWR looked ancient, but again, had got rid of much of its old junk.
The GWR King Class is a decade older than the A4s that you described as being part of “a working museum”.
The Southern had very considerable electrification and was generally progressive.
The electrification was only on the London commuter routes. Outside that area the Southern was just as much a mix and match of new and old as any of the other three railways.
I think I'm right in saying that the Southern Railway was good at getting hold of cheap Government money to finance its electrification schemes (as was the Underground group) although I know that LNER, at least, managed to get some as well.
In a sense things went wrong at the 1923 Grouping when old companies were amalgamated into new ones. This meant that many areas still had too many competing lines serving the same communities. There was also a long-standing problem which went right into BR days, of the railways being "common carriers", obliged to carry any freight at fixed prices. Road transport, especially after WW2, could pick and choose what it carried, and set its own prices. This left the railways with heavy haul minerals and uneconomic pick-up freight.
In the 50s some lines were modernised by introducing diesel trains. These were cheaper to run than steam and more attractive to passengers. However the basic infrastructure of fully-staffed stations and crossings remained. Gerard Fiennes was right to back the "basic railway" concept which upgraded these lines with automatic crossings but also removed excessive tracks and signalling (sometimes with too much enthusiasm) and had conductors on the trains selling tickets. I'm sure that the Unions weren't pleased as jobs were undoubtedly lost - but the lines stayed open.
BTW don't blame Beeching for all the line closures: he was working to a brief. Yes, the statistics he used were far from perfect and were based on erroneous assumptions; he also couldn't foresee massive housing developments decades into the future! But: lines had been closing in the 30s, 50s and early 60s; some lines closed "by Beeching", such as Oxford-Cambridge, were actually ones he said should stay open (and vice-versa); he was also a proponent of modern freight handling on the railway (bulk mineral hall, containers).
A few prestige locomotives does not a railway make.
The LNER ran a few 'fast' expresses down the ECML. They were by no means representative of the system as a whole. (Though they were absolutely brilliant publicity, something the LNER was good at.) As late as the mid-50s, when electrification, dieselisation
and line closure removed them, there were plenty of pre-WW1 coaches carrying passengers in the Manchester area. Indeed, there were any number of pre-WWI locos to go with them. I strongly suspect that (say) East Anglia, the north of Scotland or Lincolnshire would have been no different.
The LNER's main revenue earner was freight. Unluckily for them, the effects of the post-WWI economy devastated the former North Eastern Railway - what had been the 'star of the show' when the company was constituted. The other constituents varied between just-about-managing and basket cases. The way the UK's economy went in the 1920s and 1930s was a disaster for all the railways, but for the LNER, which was all about coal mining, steel, and other heavy industries, it was particularly savage.
The rolling stock that was still in general use when I was a student is now reappearing at heritage railways, making me nostalgic for the days when seats were (just as) uncomfortable, but at least you had a bit more legroom and it was possible to stow your luggage on the rack.
I suggest naming the new nationalised service British Snail. The government is in favour of honesty, right?
As late as the mid-50s, when electrification, dieselisation
and line closure removed them, there were plenty of pre-WW1 coaches carrying passengers in the Manchester area. Indeed, there were any number of pre-WWI locos to go with them.
There's old rolling stock around even now. The HST sets still used (just) by GWR, Scotrail and Cross-country are 45+ years old; admittedly they have been refurbished. The Class 20 diesels are over 60 years old and the 08 shunters older than that. Even the widely-used Sprinters date from the 1980s.
When I first went to live in Lisbon in 1978, some 1906 trams, largely in original condition, were still in use ... and survived until the mid-90s! There were some very old trains too, in the north of the country, but I never saw them. However the Portuguese railways, faced with an acute shortage of carriages, have been buying up redundant Spanish carriages and rehabilitating some Swiss-built ones from the 1940s, both to a very high standard.
Plain *British Railways* for a re-nationalised system will do very nicely, thanks.
One of the reasons for nationalisation in 1948 was the poor state of the railways' infrastructure and rolling stock, following their herculean (and often unsung) efforts during WW2.
That's a true description of the condition of the railways at the end of the 2nd World War, but that that isn't the reason why they were nationalised. It was because that was as an essential part of the Labour Party's programme, how to implement Clause IV in its then form in light of their landslide on the 1945 General Election
"to secure for the workers by hand or by brain ... the common ownership of the means of production".
As a commanding height of the economy, and like the coal mines, there was the belief that the railways should be in public ownership, coupled with a widespread assumption that the state was acquiring a conglomerate of assets that might be a bit care worn from the war but would nevertheless be valuable and lucrative .
Yes, I agree - there were many good reasons for nationalising the railways, and other industries.
Completely agree with Enoch on this one - the Labour Party (and indeed predecessors on the radical end of the Liberals) had spent decades arguing for railway nationalisation on the grounds that 'railway barons' were making vast sums of money out of what should be a state enterprise.
By the end of WW2 it was the classic pig in a poke in that the state had bankrupted the railways through heavy use in WW2 (though worth noting even then that IIRC the GWR paid a dividend right to the end) and while nationalisation undoubtedly came at just the right time to avoid a collapse of the system, it remained *sold* to both the nation and the railway workers (and more to the point many in the Labour movement continued to believe) that it was a commanding height that the state and the public should reap the benefits from the profits of.
It genuinely seems to have come as a shock later on that what they'd actually done was taken over a money pit through an article of faith - basically there had been a campaign for so long that 'the money' should go to the state/people, and nationalisation was the way to do it, that nationalisation was pressed on with even when there was no 'the money'. It was the ultimate ideology driven decision carried out even after the reason for doing it (in the minds of the proponents) had gone.
Railways as a social good in and of themselves were still only half-heartedly being advocated by Barbara Castle as Minister of Transport two decades later. Seriously, the civil service knew it was a busted flush, the railway companies did too - the LNER went to the Labour government *before* Nationalisation asking for the state to buy their part of the network, which the LNER would then operate the trains on as a franchise. IMO part of the reason Nationalisation happened was that so few of the shareholders put up any kind of fight - because the government was buying their shares and they couldn't believe this golden opportunity to cut their losses.
There is a line of thought that the Labour government knew it too, but didn't want to come clean with the public that it was nationalisation or bust - but then if they had genuinely believed that they wouldn't have hobbled the railways (through the British Transport Commission) with a continuing Common Carrier Obligation, which played a great part in bringing the system into further loss making pre-Beeching. You'd only impose Common Carrier if you genuinely think that the post-war trend is going to be back to (pre-lapsarian never mind Pre-war) railways as profit centres.
Nationalisation of the railways was driven by a belief that they were going to make money, and the state should have that money. The Public Benefit of the services themselves were secondary, but ended up having to be made into the reason for doing it after the fact. And even then, remember Harold Wilson came to power on a Reverse Beeching manifesto mandate (with most of the closures still to come), then changed his mind once in office because public good or not, he didn't want to make the money available.
Part of the problem is that railways without bulk freight and/or massive commuter use will always be unprofitable if taken in isolation. The services getting into London (and other big cities) between 7.30 and 9am (and leaving between 4 and 6pm) weekdays will always make money, as will railways which are constantly moving coal or iron ore between mine and foundry. Anything else will cost more to run than can be recovered from fares.
But, railways are a clear social good. Private cars are a social disaster, they take up vast amounts of space when mostly unused and are hideously polluting (even my pure electric Zoe), dangerous and are unaffordable by a significant minority of people. Though, a private car is far more flexible than public transport (for short journeys, a bike is a good compromise for those fit enough to be able to ride - and, brave enough to share roads with cars). To get more people onto trains prices need to be low enough to compensate for the reduced flexibility, and they need to run reliably and be comfortable (although the flexibility argument seems to not apply to air travel which is equally inflexible, but many people still fly on routes where a train would be available - and in many cases quicker, especially for city centre to city centre). The problem is that cut fares and the profitability of routes doesn't improve even with more passengers. A similar argument goes for freight, although as most longer distance freight moves from depot to depot a system where the depots are on railways means the question is one of cost rather than convenience - if railfreight depots are built and the lines can carry the containers.
So, how do you run railways when most of your routes are going to be unprofitable taken in isolation? For a private business the answer is clear - you don't unless they're not operated in isolation (eg: profitable routes subsidise the unprofitable) or there's government subsidy to cover losses on socially necessary unprofitable routes. But, once government starts heavily subsidising rail for the social good then people start asking why public money is spent providing dividends to shareholders of rail companies and bonus payments to CEOs. And, heavy subsidy is but a step towards public ownership anyway - if government is dictating to rail companies that they need to operate particular services then where is the line between government and board?
The big problem is that government has been viewing public services as though they operate in isolation, and need to at least break even on that basis (this is generally true, and applies to all public transport as well as utilities, health care etc). If we don't look at rail in isolation, what do we get? Imagine public owned trains providing frequent, reliable and affordable travel (but, operating at a significant loss if we just look at fare income vs operating expenditure), what do we get? First, fairly obviously, you'll get far higher train use because it becomes much cheaper than driving for most journeys (even for family groups) and less private car use - this means less money spent on building and maintaining roads, less pollution and fewer accidents with savings for the health service. You get people going to work and having a chance to relax on the journey, have a coffee or a wee nap, so they're less stressed and more productive at work - good for business and again less stress is less health service expense - and, saving money compared to driving so less financial stresses and more disposable income to spend (or, less demand on wage rises with the inflationary impact of that). Add in bus services that operate properly with trains (none of this "the last bus leaves 10min before the last train gets in idiocy), integrated ticketing etc and there's a whole load of new opportunities for healthier, happier living. Difficult to put a financial value to that, but it's a social good that the government should be supporting as it will be saving the health services and other parts of government.
Part of the problem is that railways without bulk freight and/or massive commuter use will always be unprofitable if taken in isolation. The services getting into London (and other big cities) between 7.30 and 9am (and leaving between 4 and 6pm) weekdays will always make money, as will railways which are constantly moving coal or iron ore between mine and foundry. Anything else will cost more to run than can be recovered from fares.
I can only speak of NSW, but there is virtually no passenger train service outside the Sydney, Newcastle, Lithgow and Wollongong area. 65 years ago, there was a much larger network, with both day and overnight services available throughout the State. They have now all gone, to be replaced by air service or cars. Many freight services have survived but that is it.
My we have moved away from the OP.
Is the government collapsing? With factions having conferences of their own. Sunak regarded as a weak leader. More scandals, will the Cons call an early election to save as much face as possible?
My we have moved away from the OP.
Is the government collapsing? With factions having conferences of their own. Sunak regarded as a weak leader. More scandals, will the Cons call an early election to save as much face as possible?
The evidence of the last few years is that the tories have no sense of shame or embarrassment.
I recently saw a meme in “another place” that said something along the lines of:
Thatcher’s government was cruel and heartless
Major’s government was embroiled in sleaze
Cameron’s government was a bunch of posh boys who had no idea how real people live and made no effort to find out
May’s government was a flailing, incompetent mob.
The current government is all of these.
My objection to the present government, apart from its gross incompetence, is that it has empowered people who, if not actually fascists, give a very good imitation. It's not so much where we are now, but where this might lead.
I recently saw a meme in “another place” that said something along the lines of:
Thatcher’s government was cruel and heartless
Major’s government was embroiled in sleaze
Cameron’s government was a bunch of posh boys who had no idea how real people live and made no effort to find out
May’s government was a flailing, incompetent mob.
The current government is all of these.
Just those things? (Where's the Devil emoji when you need it?)
I recently saw a meme in “another place” that said something along the lines of:
Thatcher’s government was cruel and heartless
Major’s government was embroiled in sleaze
Cameron’s government was a bunch of posh boys who had no idea how real people live and made no effort to find out
May’s government was a flailing, incompetent mob.
The current government is all of these.
Just those things? (Where's the Devil emoji when you need it?)
Comments
Well, leaving aside socialist promises, even the parts of the media one would expect to be most on his side are already expressing their disappointment.
He did when it was politically convenient for him. He's a Groucho Marxist.
Although in my nearly 70 years on earth including two spells as a local councillor I don't think I have ever met a Tory who cared about poor people, only about feathering their own nests and those of others like them, and ensuring that the lower orders knew their place. It's no secret that the maintenance of social hierarchies is an article of faith of the Conservative Party.
Mind you, I've met plenty of Labour Party people like that too, especially once they get a whiff of power.
I'm not sure that Starmer has left anything in his Labour Party that I could vote for, to be honest. It's a good job I'm in Scotland although whither the SNP these days I shudder to think. There are those, naming no names, with a considerable body of support who would be back to chaining up the children's playgrounds on Sundays given half a chance.
Back to? Still at it Na H-Eileanan Siar, last I heard.
And presumably don't put the play areas back on Monday...
To be better than the current shower of gross incompetents and corrupt charlatans is a very, very low bar. It's almost inconceivable he could be worse. 5% better would still be appalling, and yet still 5% better than what we have.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/06/tories-brace-for-tamworth-byelection-after-report-into-chris-pincher-groping-allegations
He has not yet resigned as an MP, though...
I think it's more complicated than merely placating the left (whatever exactly is meant by 'the left' nowadays). A lot of seats that the Tories are in danger of losing are very unlikely to be won by Labour, and from what I can tell Labour isn't even trying to campaign in most of these places.
I think the establishment of a Yellow Wall along the coastal and semi-rural/market town areas of the South Coast is not unlikely given the deep deep anger over how sewage and water companies have been dealt with. Starmer has spent more time telling schools to not support trans kids than talking about water companies despite the latter being a really easy and really fucking obvious source of potential election wins for Labour.
There are plenty of non-Tories who are not leftists but also don't just want More Competent Tories yet that's what Starmer is going for. I think we're heading for a hung Parliament but nobody seems to be discussing it...?
As usual, time will tell - and polls are often unreliable indicators...
A significant recovery on the part of the tories seems unlikely, but who knows?
There may perhaps be a split in the party, with the so-called New Conservatives continuing to propagate their racist and hateful ideas under Braverman, but this would leave a remnant of less hateful tories, who would need a leader. Mordaunt? Tugendhat?
A rational government that seeks to support business and people would encourage business owners and their staff (with support from Unions where appropriate) to arrange for patterns of work that are best for both sides - four day weeks, flexible working, home working etc. Instead the government seems set on tightly controlling every aspect of our lives and business without any regard for what people and business need to prosper.
Seriously, though...if only...
A government would do right now. Never mind a rational one
Quite.
Something I don't understand: few people still alive can have much of a memory of the Big Four pre-war railway companies but there's an atavistic obsession with reviving their names for modern train "companies": LNER, Great Western, London Midland. Apart from a few prestige named trains they subject to unexplained delays and ran up eye-watering operating losses, which was why they had to be nationalised in the interest of post-war reconstruction. Any glamour they had is entirely in the mind.
I do remember steam trains under British Railways, although not the glamorous ones, just the ones that trundled around the north of England up until the mid-60s. They weren't the lovingly scrubbed and polished trains you get on volunteer-run "heritage" railways, they were dirty, they left a distinctive smell on your clothes for days afterwards (not an unpleasant smell actually, and I can see why it might have nostalgic appeal, but a smell all the same), and liable to make unexpected loud, high-pitched noises that terrified little Mavis when having to pass through Liverpool Central on shopping trips (actually paying the Owen Owen's account followed by exotic lunch at the Chanticleer in Tarleton Street trips).
Anyway, what's wrong with reverting to British Railways? What it says on the tin, without trying to appease the Brexit crowd with implications of bygone grandeur.
One of the reasons for nationalisation in 1948 was the poor state of the railways' infrastructure and rolling stock, following their herculean (and often unsung) efforts during WW2.
In Canada, the Hudson's Bay Company(*) renamed their department stores The Bay in 1965, and then in 2013, reverted partially to the old form by re-branding as Hudson's Bay. Granted, the old HBC is something kids still might learn in about in school, so there could be a bit of proxy nostslgia there.
(*) Yes, that's the better behaved little sister of the East India Company. Interestingly, the anglophiliac re-branding in 2013 took place under American owners.
I suspect it's because the turnover of franchisees mean that the older names have more brand value.
The LNER was essentially a working museum, and if the Government paid more than scrap value for it they were ripped off. The LMS had spent a lot of money upgrading its locos and had far fewer antiques. The GWR looked ancient, but again, had got rid of much of its old junk. The Southern had very considerable electrification and was generally progressive.
Yes, I agree - there were many good reasons for nationalising the railways, and other industries.
You do the LNER a disservice. The top link locomotives on those railways (Coronations and A4s) were of virtually identical vintage (mid 30s).
The GWR King Class is a decade older than the A4s that you described as being part of “a working museum”.
The electrification was only on the London commuter routes. Outside that area the Southern was just as much a mix and match of new and old as any of the other three railways.
In a sense things went wrong at the 1923 Grouping when old companies were amalgamated into new ones. This meant that many areas still had too many competing lines serving the same communities. There was also a long-standing problem which went right into BR days, of the railways being "common carriers", obliged to carry any freight at fixed prices. Road transport, especially after WW2, could pick and choose what it carried, and set its own prices. This left the railways with heavy haul minerals and uneconomic pick-up freight.
In the 50s some lines were modernised by introducing diesel trains. These were cheaper to run than steam and more attractive to passengers. However the basic infrastructure of fully-staffed stations and crossings remained. Gerard Fiennes was right to back the "basic railway" concept which upgraded these lines with automatic crossings but also removed excessive tracks and signalling (sometimes with too much enthusiasm) and had conductors on the trains selling tickets. I'm sure that the Unions weren't pleased as jobs were undoubtedly lost - but the lines stayed open.
BTW don't blame Beeching for all the line closures: he was working to a brief. Yes, the statistics he used were far from perfect and were based on erroneous assumptions; he also couldn't foresee massive housing developments decades into the future! But: lines had been closing in the 30s, 50s and early 60s; some lines closed "by Beeching", such as Oxford-Cambridge, were actually ones he said should stay open (and vice-versa); he was also a proponent of modern freight handling on the railway (bulk mineral hall, containers).
The LNER ran a few 'fast' expresses down the ECML. They were by no means representative of the system as a whole. (Though they were absolutely brilliant publicity, something the LNER was good at.) As late as the mid-50s, when electrification, dieselisation
and line closure removed them, there were plenty of pre-WW1 coaches carrying passengers in the Manchester area. Indeed, there were any number of pre-WWI locos to go with them. I strongly suspect that (say) East Anglia, the north of Scotland or Lincolnshire would have been no different.
The LNER's main revenue earner was freight. Unluckily for them, the effects of the post-WWI economy devastated the former North Eastern Railway - what had been the 'star of the show' when the company was constituted. The other constituents varied between just-about-managing and basket cases. The way the UK's economy went in the 1920s and 1930s was a disaster for all the railways, but for the LNER, which was all about coal mining, steel, and other heavy industries, it was particularly savage.
I suggest naming the new nationalised service British Snail. The government is in favour of honesty, right?
There's old rolling stock around even now. The HST sets still used (just) by GWR, Scotrail and Cross-country are 45+ years old; admittedly they have been refurbished. The Class 20 diesels are over 60 years old and the 08 shunters older than that. Even the widely-used Sprinters date from the 1980s.
When I first went to live in Lisbon in 1978, some 1906 trams, largely in original condition, were still in use ... and survived until the mid-90s! There were some very old trains too, in the north of the country, but I never saw them. However the Portuguese railways, faced with an acute shortage of carriages, have been buying up redundant Spanish carriages and rehabilitating some Swiss-built ones from the 1940s, both to a very high standard.
Completely agree with Enoch on this one - the Labour Party (and indeed predecessors on the radical end of the Liberals) had spent decades arguing for railway nationalisation on the grounds that 'railway barons' were making vast sums of money out of what should be a state enterprise.
By the end of WW2 it was the classic pig in a poke in that the state had bankrupted the railways through heavy use in WW2 (though worth noting even then that IIRC the GWR paid a dividend right to the end) and while nationalisation undoubtedly came at just the right time to avoid a collapse of the system, it remained *sold* to both the nation and the railway workers (and more to the point many in the Labour movement continued to believe) that it was a commanding height that the state and the public should reap the benefits from the profits of.
It genuinely seems to have come as a shock later on that what they'd actually done was taken over a money pit through an article of faith - basically there had been a campaign for so long that 'the money' should go to the state/people, and nationalisation was the way to do it, that nationalisation was pressed on with even when there was no 'the money'. It was the ultimate ideology driven decision carried out even after the reason for doing it (in the minds of the proponents) had gone.
Railways as a social good in and of themselves were still only half-heartedly being advocated by Barbara Castle as Minister of Transport two decades later. Seriously, the civil service knew it was a busted flush, the railway companies did too - the LNER went to the Labour government *before* Nationalisation asking for the state to buy their part of the network, which the LNER would then operate the trains on as a franchise. IMO part of the reason Nationalisation happened was that so few of the shareholders put up any kind of fight - because the government was buying their shares and they couldn't believe this golden opportunity to cut their losses.
There is a line of thought that the Labour government knew it too, but didn't want to come clean with the public that it was nationalisation or bust - but then if they had genuinely believed that they wouldn't have hobbled the railways (through the British Transport Commission) with a continuing Common Carrier Obligation, which played a great part in bringing the system into further loss making pre-Beeching. You'd only impose Common Carrier if you genuinely think that the post-war trend is going to be back to (pre-lapsarian never mind Pre-war) railways as profit centres.
Nationalisation of the railways was driven by a belief that they were going to make money, and the state should have that money. The Public Benefit of the services themselves were secondary, but ended up having to be made into the reason for doing it after the fact. And even then, remember Harold Wilson came to power on a Reverse Beeching manifesto mandate (with most of the closures still to come), then changed his mind once in office because public good or not, he didn't want to make the money available.
But, railways are a clear social good. Private cars are a social disaster, they take up vast amounts of space when mostly unused and are hideously polluting (even my pure electric Zoe), dangerous and are unaffordable by a significant minority of people. Though, a private car is far more flexible than public transport (for short journeys, a bike is a good compromise for those fit enough to be able to ride - and, brave enough to share roads with cars). To get more people onto trains prices need to be low enough to compensate for the reduced flexibility, and they need to run reliably and be comfortable (although the flexibility argument seems to not apply to air travel which is equally inflexible, but many people still fly on routes where a train would be available - and in many cases quicker, especially for city centre to city centre). The problem is that cut fares and the profitability of routes doesn't improve even with more passengers. A similar argument goes for freight, although as most longer distance freight moves from depot to depot a system where the depots are on railways means the question is one of cost rather than convenience - if railfreight depots are built and the lines can carry the containers.
So, how do you run railways when most of your routes are going to be unprofitable taken in isolation? For a private business the answer is clear - you don't unless they're not operated in isolation (eg: profitable routes subsidise the unprofitable) or there's government subsidy to cover losses on socially necessary unprofitable routes. But, once government starts heavily subsidising rail for the social good then people start asking why public money is spent providing dividends to shareholders of rail companies and bonus payments to CEOs. And, heavy subsidy is but a step towards public ownership anyway - if government is dictating to rail companies that they need to operate particular services then where is the line between government and board?
The big problem is that government has been viewing public services as though they operate in isolation, and need to at least break even on that basis (this is generally true, and applies to all public transport as well as utilities, health care etc). If we don't look at rail in isolation, what do we get? Imagine public owned trains providing frequent, reliable and affordable travel (but, operating at a significant loss if we just look at fare income vs operating expenditure), what do we get? First, fairly obviously, you'll get far higher train use because it becomes much cheaper than driving for most journeys (even for family groups) and less private car use - this means less money spent on building and maintaining roads, less pollution and fewer accidents with savings for the health service. You get people going to work and having a chance to relax on the journey, have a coffee or a wee nap, so they're less stressed and more productive at work - good for business and again less stress is less health service expense - and, saving money compared to driving so less financial stresses and more disposable income to spend (or, less demand on wage rises with the inflationary impact of that). Add in bus services that operate properly with trains (none of this "the last bus leaves 10min before the last train gets in idiocy), integrated ticketing etc and there's a whole load of new opportunities for healthier, happier living. Difficult to put a financial value to that, but it's a social good that the government should be supporting as it will be saving the health services and other parts of government.
I can only speak of NSW, but there is virtually no passenger train service outside the Sydney, Newcastle, Lithgow and Wollongong area. 65 years ago, there was a much larger network, with both day and overnight services available throughout the State. They have now all gone, to be replaced by air service or cars. Many freight services have survived but that is it.
Is the government collapsing? With factions having conferences of their own. Sunak regarded as a weak leader. More scandals, will the Cons call an early election to save as much face as possible?
The evidence of the last few years is that the tories have no sense of shame or embarrassment.
Thatcher’s government was cruel and heartless
Major’s government was embroiled in sleaze
Cameron’s government was a bunch of posh boys who had no idea how real people live and made no effort to find out
May’s government was a flailing, incompetent mob.
The current government is all of these.
Just those things? (Where's the Devil emoji when you need it?)