That's the lickle old conny Cons for you.https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-gives-up-7bn-windfall-from-european-investment-bank-tq0qskgfc
Conservatives eh. What are they like? We have to tighten our purse strings because of the deficit / debt and yet the Conservatives give up the £7 billion bonus from the European Investment Bank as part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
This sum hasn't been included in the final settlement figure.
Like when Virgin and Stagecoach walked away from the East Coast line and it had to be run as a nationalised company from 2009 to 2015 and only turned in £1 billion profit
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-temporarily-renationalised-virgin-stagecoach
Because they ran it like a private company. Even the man in charge said so.
https://capx.co/the-east-coast-mainline-makes-the-case-for-competition-not-nationalisation/
Rubbish Len. The GWR service from Bristol to London for example is nearly always on time, the rolling stock is new and clean and tidy and the new electric trains are very quiet. The service on board is decent and it's rarely overcrowded, going into London at least.For a more balanced perspective please remove the word 'often'.
Thank you.
People won’t change their habits to any meaningful extent, as they are driven by convenience and/or expediency.
I don’t believe the 7:30 / 7:45 suggestion you advance would offer any meaningful solutions, and as I’ve already suggested, public safety could be imperilled if train operators are permitted to enter into a broadly unfettered free market, thus significantly undermining the efficacy of the model you espouse.
The structural, systemic reasons are manifest, for reasons which I believe I’ve already adequately set out.
I don’t claim to have any particular advanced state of knowledge, other than I’m a frequent train traveller with work combined with my common sense and broader experience of the commercial world, much like yourself. I get the train to London from Birmingham about three times a month, sometimes more. There are three separate providers on three separate routes and whilst the service isn’t appalling, I don’t feel I have adequate choice as a consumer, it’s too expensive, much of the rolling stock is unsatisfactory and the trains finish far too early back from London (as they do from Manchester). I don’t believe opening each of those lines to competition would improve the situation and possibly make it worse, and possibly less safe, and most certainly the present arrangement doesn’t adequately function as I would expect an effective competitive market to operate - with the features of poor service, inadequate supplies and prices being too high all conspicuously featuring. Out of the three, Virgin is the best, but it can be insanely expensive to the extent where it’s sometimes better for me to drive to Luton Airport Parkway and get the train in from there, which is absurd and cannot be in the national interest, which the type of train service we are subject to should always ultimately serve.
You are still in 2015/16 campaign modeBrexit is ripping up the system. It reverses 40 years of economic and industrial policy. To disengage our integrated economy and turn it into a more isolationist model is why someone like Corbyn would ordinary champion Brexit as it allows for a more Socialist model just as for the right it allows for a more ‘Singapore on Thames’ model.
The cost of remodelling our economy over the ten years or so it would take to do this irrespective of which model you choose and the need to trade with the EU is the likeliest barrier to either model. Also the fact you are unlikely to get either party in power for long enough to oversee such an extensive remodelling - both would reverse each other - and years of negotiating with the EU means you are more likely to get a hodgepodge of measures overlying the model we have today. A bit of public ownership here and a few ‘business friendly’ measures there.
You are still in 2015/16 campaign mode
Priti Patel is a sociopath.
The woman has no empathy whatsoever. She sounds almost sarcastic giving the statement on the death of 39 migrants.
I do wonder that if Abbot looked like Claudia Schieffer she wouldn't get half thr abuse she rboth on here and in real life.
She's a underated politician with a very sharp mind. This doesn't come across in the media, because like Gordon Brown shes not comfortable with doing it. Just watch her in the house debating rather than how other people portray her. You might be surprised at what you see.
Nothing to see here.
Our "Privatised" Railways are mostly being run by German, French, Dutch, Italian companies that are state-owned.
https://fullfact.org/economy/who-owns-britains-trains-energy-postal/
Around a dozen of the franchise holders are linked to governments in other countries.
A German company, Deutsche Bahn, runs several UK rail franchises—Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, Grand Central, and Northern. The German government is Deutsche Bahn’s majority shareholder.
Rail travel in France is run by a state-operated rail company, SNCF. SNCF is also the majority shareholder in a French private transport firm called Keolis which in turn jointly runs railway company Govia with the UK Go-Ahead Group. Govia operates UK franchises: Thameslink, Southern, South Eastern, Great Northern, and Gatwick Express.
Greater Anglia, Stansted Express and Scotrail are all operated by Abellio. Abellio is run by Netherlands Rail whose only shareholder is the Dutch government.
Abellio has partnerships with other businesses to run rail franchises. Along with the Japanese companies Mitsui & Co. and East Japan Railway it runs London Northwestern and West Midlands Rail. Abellio also runs Merseyrail with UK-based Serco.
The c2c franchise is operated by Trenitalia. Trenitalia is part of the FS Italiane Groupwhich is owned by the Italian government.
Other franchise holders are UK companies FirstGroup, Stagecoach, and Virgin Trains (which is in part run by the Virgin Group and partly by Stagecoach).
So, any profits from our railway companies go to foreign governments. Farcical. We should be running them for ourselves and putting the profits into our exchequer.
Yep.But But .... we are told by the Conservatives that we cant do this as Eu rules dont allow state ownership of utilities
unless they're lying to us again
Do you just make things up on the spot, or take your time over it? You do have form in this department, it has to be said.But But .... we are told by the Conservatives that we cant do this as Eu rules dont allow state ownership of utilities
unless they're lying to us again
I have no idea how/why you think having one running train run by one company and another run by a different company running another one, would result in safety concerns. I am not talking about a free for all on the timetable, merely different slots like you have with planes departing an airport.
Competition almost invariably improves either customer service or price and often both and I fail to see why that should not happen on the railways. The problem is, there effectively isn't any. Train companies are given the franchise for a decade and then have their customers over a barrel for 10 years. And a impotent regulator let's them put prices up year on year on year. Whereas with competition, they find themselves having to cut fares more often than not.
Do you just make things up on the spot, or take your time over it? You do have form in this department, it has to be said.
Talking of a throne of lies, let me give you "we are told by the Conservatives that ... Eu rules dont allow state ownership of utilities".i think you'll find that EDF energy is owned by the French Government , Eon is owned partly by the German government , Condor (part of Thomas Cook ) was bailed out by the German Government .... but the conservatives couldn't bail out British Steel or Thomas Cook because of the Eu rules
Tories sit on a throne of lies
Talking of a throne of lies, let me give you "we are told by the Conservatives that ... Eu rules dont allow state ownership of utilities".
Did you lie, or was it just a mistake? Hopefully you can remember, you said it less than an hour ago.
<Facepalm>That was the reason given for the 'Governments'.. failure to assist British Steel and Thomas Cook