I wrote this morning about the absurdity of re-privatising the East Coast mainline, and a number of useful comments have been made. Ivan Horrocks of the Open University added this, though, that I thought worth sharing more widely:
Two points worth adding. First, the East Coast mainline service has to be re-privatised because it's an ongoing and deeply embarrassing illustration, for the Treasury, the Department for Transport, and government more generally, of the fact that publicly run services can be highly successful. Furthermore, it demonstrates that rather than running a service for the financial benefit of private shareholders and senior management (or private equity houses), ie. largely for the benefit of the few, profit can be returned direct to the public purse, thus potentially benefiting the many. As these features of the East Coast mainline case are anathema to the neoliberal project they cannot be tolerated under any circumstances and thus a situation must be constructed where their existence is expunged. I've no doubt it would have taken place several years ago if the franchising process had not been thrown into disarray by developments elsewhere.
Second, by pursuing the re-privatisation process despite the success of the current state owned company, it demonstrates beyond any doubt whatsoever that this government, and more fundamentally perhaps, departments of state (the Treasury in particular), are so ideologically compromised that they no longer act in the public interest. Indeed, across government as a whole we now see clearly that the mission of departments of state is to gift public assets and services to private interests at whatever short or longer term cost to the state (and thus to the citizens of this country). The re-privatisation of the East Coast mainline service is simply a particularly egregious example of actions of the form of public administration that a neoliberal state demands.
I think those particularly useful comments because, firstly, East Coast proves private ownership is not needed to make things work. This operation has worked not just very well but very obviously better under state control. Managers do not need to be owners or to have private owners for this to happen. That is, as Ivan says, profoundly antithetical to neoliberal ideology.
And second, I agree, that this proves that this government proves how a civil service can be disempowered to the point of undermining its own purpose by the neoliberal state.
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I have used the example of East Coast many times when debating with privatisation ideologues on the merits of public ownership, citing it as company being well-run and giving the customer what it wants at reasonable costs. It is galling to think that this counts for nothing in the eyes of the government, and gives lie to the line they spin that private ownership is the best way to run a company. Privatisation is nothing but a con-tell Sid next time you see him (in the queue for the food bank).
It is also worth noting that privatisation followed by failure (in social terms) will not embarrass anyone as it (the failure) will be ascribed to the ‘arbiter of truth’-rigged ‘market’ forces.
Quite how anybody can describe East Coast Trains as a success is a mystery. Ticket prices have rocketed, the trains are tired and shabby whilst car park charges have doubled in three years. Profits may have increased but there has been very little investment.
That’s true of most lines
And compared to many East Coast trains are relatively new, I think
I’ve never had a complaint when travelling on them, which I do quite often
Bethany should be aware of the structure of the privatised railways, as they were set up by the Major Government. There was a firm that owned the track, the stations & the signalling, which is now Network Rail, originally Railtrack; it is _that_ that she should complain to about the high parking charges.
Then there were the Train Leasing Companies (TLCs), which owned & leased the trains & rolling stock to the Train Operating Companies (TOCs), which ran them. The shabbiness of the carriages & trains must be a function of what the TOC can afford to lease, & what the TLC has to supply. It is reasonable to suppose that East Coast Mainlines takes as good care as they can of the trains and rolling stock they are supplied with.
As for the ticket prices: East Coast Mainlines, without looking at any figures, I would say, is almost certainly performing better than its private sector comparators. This is because the greed for profit and directorial bonuses is not such a motivating factor. When the ‘loadsamoney’ culture is finally extirpated – as one day it will be – and the idol of Mammon is at last overthrown – we will have production for need not greed; but in the meantime, we can settle for a situation where the pursuit of profit is subordinate to that of provision of a decent service at a reasonable price. The constraint on this at the moment is the failure, by Government, to recognise the need to subsidise less popular routes for public service reasons adequately, and to provide sufficient funds for infrastructure improvement. Once this is done, as it _must_ be, if there is to be less road traffic, & less CO2 & other pollution from cars, vans and lorries, then ticket prices can begin to fall, at least in real terms.
Regarding the stations – East Coast manages 12 stations, for example York, so in those cases the car parking charges are their responsibility.
However, it is planned to transfer responsibility for all these stations to Network Rail.
Privatisation ideology is positively Orwellian. Apparently sky-high fares, a railway infrastructure falling to bits and crying out for investment and chronically poor customer service is quite often looked on as a good thing in some quarters.
Oh…but I’m forgetting – it’s great for shareholders, isn’t it? 🙂
I don’t think you can say the railway infrastructure is falling to bits and crying out for investment if you consider such things Crossrail, the electrification programme, infrastructure replacement on the lines out of Euston, the new Intercity Express trains and new lines in Scotland.
On the other hand it is probably fair to say that the investment is imbalanced, where for example the Northern franchise can’t get any new diesel trains to deal with chronic over-crowding or operate new services over new lines such as the Todmorden curve.
What is worrying though is the possible impact on investment and services if a government feels it necessary to deal with Network Rail’s huge amount of debt, over £30billion.
There is welcome investment
But then there is massive demand
And investment is not matching demand
And the issue of debt is just so arbitrary we have to grow up and deal with it
I would like to see a bit more research into public vs private ownership.
I see too much dogma and ideology between extreme advocates of either camp.
Over many years I have usually seen private enterprise operate more efficiently than public ownership, but not exclusively. Sometimes other factors are more important
than who owns the darn thing e.g if customer demand is not there then it does not matter a fig. Public ownership will always suffer if leadership and other skills are not rewarded, unfortunately those who have both these skills and the requisite public spirit to work in Government or quasi Government organizations are rare.
I think you are wrong on the last point
I think there are many such people – but dogma puts them down