e-Petition to hand expiring franchises to DOR

[Xenophon PCDGS]

And even when a megathread is created (HS2) it's often ignored and new topics made anyway

Exactly so.

 

[Zoe]

Sorry for being a terrible pinko leftie commie stooge but i think certain items of national importance should be within the control of the government.

But would the government have been bold enough to attempt something like Operation Princess on the Cross Country network? I believe the plan back then was to use Mark 3 stock cascaded from WCML as a result of Intercity 250 project rather than order a completley new fleet of trains for Cross Country.

 

[tbtc]

There are new forum members joining us all the time to whom many of these threads are a current update on matters.

Was the same comment not made on this website in 2011 about the various "Pacer" threads prevailing that year being turned into a single "megathread"?

Exactly - which is why it would make sense to keep the same arguments in the one thread to avoid having to post the same things over and over again. I just can't see the point in repeating the same views time and time again on nationalisation.

Yet at the same time we are told that there are some things that we can't discuss because they've been debated over and over.

If people aren't capable of sticking to a topic then that's an issue for the posters concerned/ moderation.

 

[Monty]

Socialist?

I think people are just ****ed off with the inability of this government to do anything without making a royal **** up of it.

If this indeed the case why are people so eager to give control of the railways back to the very government they are '****ed off' with?

 

[PR1Berske]

I'd like to know where the loony left of this forum would get the money to buy out the franchises :roll:

 

[Zoe]

I'd like to know where the loony left of this forum would get the money to buy out the franchises

I don't think anyone is proposing to buy them out, only to not renew them when they expire. This is what the motion passed at the 2004 Labour conference propoed but Gordon Brown overruled it.

 

[SS4]

I'd like to know where the loony left of this forum would get the money to buy out the franchises :roll:

Re-read the OP.

 

[Lampshade]

I'd like to know where the loony left of this forum would get the money to buy out the franchises :roll:

The EU and foreign aid budget are a good start.

 

[DarloRich]

I'd like to know where the loony left of this forum would get the money to buy out the franchises :roll:

Just wait till they expire and don’t let any more - doesn’t sound to loony to me!

I am not sure where anyone suggested buying them out as that would be financial suicide! It does seem wrong to me that we as tax payers are paying private companies lots of money to boost their shareholder dividends! That doesn’t really seem right to me…………..

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don't think anyone is proposing to buy them out, only to not renew them when they expire. This is what the motion passed at the 2004 Labour conference proposed but Gordon Brown overruled it.

Surely, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would be privy to the exact costs that would have been involved. Gordon Brown's problem was a lack of charisma...not that of fiscal knowledge.

Whenever I read postings upon a thread being suddenly taking on a political tone, I just think back to the days when "Fawlty Towers" had an episode called "The Kipper and the Corpse" where Basil Fawlty was on his high-horse about the car strikes in the British car industry which were rife at that time.....
"If they don't want to build cars, let them do something more useful instead...like writing concertos. Imagine it, the British Leyland concerto in five movements..all of them slow...with a tea-break in between"

Laughter is a good cure for political dogma....of any type....

 

[driver_m]

Oh for goodness sake

Problems within the civil service and incompetence within a Government department should not be an excuse given by the lefty socialist wing of this forum to justify giving the railways to the government!

Nationalisation was a disaster and we can never go back.

John Major's idea was fantastic wasn't it?

I'd sooner have Inter City, NSE and Regional Rail, imagine how good they could have been with proper government funding. Or, maybe not as it may start some old fashioned right wing frothing....

 

[Zoe]

John Major's idea was fantastic wasn't it?

The current system wasn't John Major's idea. He wanted a return to a "Big 4" type system.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The current system wasn't John Major's idea. He wanted a return to a "Big 4" type system.

What poltical party was the first to be enamoured by that proposal ?

 

[Buttsy]

The government goes on about reducing the deficit and austerity measures. Quite simply, quoting from memory of a Christian Wolmar book, we now pay at least twice as much for our railways than we did before privatisation. Accordingly, if the government are serious about us 'all being in it together', then not reletting franchises would make a considerable saving to the treasury over time (£1 billion at Wolmar's estimate in 'On The Wrong Track'). I seem to remember that the purpose of privatisation was to REDUCE the burden on the treasury.

However, I am a realist and know that the current administration don't actually act like we're 'all in it together' and so they'll protect their big buddies at the head of First Group etc and allow them to make profit from tax.

Simplistic view I know, but until someone can show me the figures that prove DOR is more expensive to the exchequer in real terms than the previous encumbents, I will continue to hold the view that a railway run at arm's length from the government is cheaper than what we have.

Finally, the belief is that you have to pay for good people is not entirely true. If someone wants a particular job or vocation, then all they ask for is a fair wage. This can be seen to be borne out at the lower end of the NHS, just ask a nurse. Not everyone is in it for the money.

 

[driver_m]

The current system wasn't John Major's idea. He wanted a return to a "Big 4" type system.

He was the man in charge at the time so why didn't he?

 

[Zoe]

What poltical party was the first to be enamoured by that proposal ?

I'm not sure if any of the main parties officialy supported it. I believe Labour back then were opposed to privatization and the Tories went for the franchise based system. The original grouping was implemented under a coalition government with Liberal party leader David Lloyd George as prime minister.

 

[SS4]

The government goes on about reducing the deficit and austerity measures. Quite simply, quoting from memory of a Christian Wolmar book, we now pay at least twice as much for our railways than we did before privatisation. Accordingly, if the government are serious about us 'all being in it together', then not reletting franchises would make a considerable saving to the treasury over time (£1 billion at Wolmar's estimate in 'On The Wrong Track'). I seem to remember that the purpose of privatisation was to REDUCE the burden on the treasury.

However, I am a realist and know that the current administration don't actually act like we're 'all in it together' and so they'll protect their big buddies at the head of First Group etc and allow them to make profit from tax.

Simplistic view I know, but until someone can show me the figures that prove DOR is more expensive to the exchequer in real terms than the previous incumbent al, I will continue to hold the view that a railway run at arm's length from the government is cheaper than what we have.

Finally, the belief is that you have to pay for good people is not entirely true. If someone wants a particular job or vocation, then all they ask for is a fair wage. This can be seen to be borne out at the lower end of the NHS, just ask a nurse. Not everyone is in it for the money.

As proven with benefit cuts for the disabled whilst we continue to reward recklessness at the top end of the pay scale.

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head although Wolmar is basically "rent-a-quote" on any subject but the figures are about right.
What else has happened is that many on the right have managed in ingrain it into the national psyche that public services must turn a profit or pay for themselves, it is not necessary for it to do so, public services generate money in other parts of the economy - look at free bus passes for the elderly and how ridership has increased by bus. Similarly, schools operate at a loss but we gain an educated workforce.

 

[Zoe]

look at free bus passes for the elderly and how ridership has increased by bus.

It's quite a fine line though, it's a good thing that the buses are getting used more but full and standing buses make the journey less pleasant and this does put some people off travelling by bus.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

I'd like to know where the loony left of this forum would get the money to buy out the franchises :roll:

Already been pointed out that the OP wasn't talking about buying out franchises....how many are up for grabs in the next year when they run out?
I don't think that anyone who has an interest in the railways will think that a return to the 1980's is for one minute a serious proposition, a railway 'owned' by the people and managed by the state however is feasible. There are other examples out there already!

 

[ainsworth74]

He was the man in charge at the time so why didn't he?

Treasury didn't like and I believe the civil service didn't like it and with both of those opposed Major would have struggled to get his own way.

 

[DarloRich]

He was the man in charge at the time so why didn't he?

Sir Steve Robson!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/.../4474180/I-was-right-to-sell-the-railway.html

 

[HH]

It's pie in the sky, by and by...

 

[sprinterguy]

Can folk not give the endless E-petitions a rest? :roll: The sheer number of those things that keep on being composed to suit whatever vague, unattainable aspirations that a small number of people have completely devalues their effectiveness in lobbying for attention on actual important matters.

As has already been pointed out quite eloquently earlier on in this thread, transferring all the franchises from private TOC to DOR operation would not make a great deal of difference in terms of the number of costly interfaces between the various TOCs, the ROSCOs and Network Rail if the present franchise map was going to be run as a number of DOR "franchises". I would more likely agree with Directly Operated Railways being allowed to bid for franchises alongside the usual private sector suspects as the franchises became available, for the agreed term of their duration, rather than pie-in-the-sky thinking about handing the entirety of the UK train operating companies back to DOR indefinitely.

 

[driver_m]

Sir Steve Robson!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/.../4474180/I-was-right-to-sell-the-railway.html

I was hoping someone would have mentioned a screechy scouser with a knack for ruining the egg industry!

 

[tbtc]

Can folk not give the endless E-petitions a rest? :roll: The sheer number of those things that keep on being composed to suit whatever vague, unattainable aspirations that a small number of people have completely devalues their effectiveness in lobbying for attention on actual important matters

Sadly the WCML/ First/ Virgin news will only encourage these daft petitions (and the people behind them who can bang on about single issues). Total waste of time.

 

[Geezertronic]

I would more likely agree with Directly Operated Railways being allowed to bid for franchises alongside the usual private sector suspects as the franchises became available, for the agreed term of their duration, rather than pie-in-the-sky thinking about handing the entirety of the UK train operating companies back to DOR indefinitely.

But wouldn't DOR be bidding with Public Money if they were do that, whereas the private sector bidder would bid with their own money?

 

[Railsigns]

E-petition signed, thank you.

It's funny to watch the right-winger on the forum getting all defensive when the failings of the Tories' idiotic rail franchising policy are laid bare for all to see. Hahaha!

Another forty million pounds down the drain, at least. They should send an invoice to John Major!

 

[Zoe]

Another forty million pounds down the drain, at least. They should send an invoice to John Major!

Maybe they should bill the Sun for its contribution to the last minute swing that won Major a majority and so resulted in rail privatization.

 

[Railsigns]

Maybe they should bill the Sun for its contribution to the last minute swing that won Major a majority and so resulted in rail privatization.

You could go a step further and invoice everyone who voted for the Tories at that election. But then, they're already paying for this policy failure. We all are.

 

[Zoe]

You could go a step further and invoice everyone who voted for the Tories at that election. But then, they're already paying for this policy failure. We all are.

Would so many people have really voted Tory though if said newspaper hadn't kept putting out scare stories about having a Labour government? I seem to remember the polls were expecting a Labour win right up until the election. The Tories winning that year also resulted in Labour moving away from the left by 1997 and no nationalization despite opportunities to do just what this thread suggests.