The sham of rail privatisation has just been exposed. As the FT has announced:
The British government has suspended the UK rail franchise system in a move that effectively nationalises any losses by railway companies for the next six months – in the latest sign of how the coronavirus pandemic is blighting the economy.
The Department for Transport announced on Monday morning that it would temporarily end normal franchise agreements and transfer all revenue and cost risk to the government for at least half a year. Operators will continue to run services day-to-day for a small management fee under an “emergency measures agreement”, it said.
So, privatisation was always an upside-only bet.
I think this is one decision that never need be reversed.
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Government has slipped that one in. Didn’t see any mention of it on BBC website.
Now it’s done it doesn’t need to be undone!
The premise (or perhaps I mean pretence) of privatisation was always that the private sector was better at management, and would run our utilities and other social infrastructure better than governments can.
I don’t think we’ve seen much, if any, evidence of this being the case. In the case of rail privatisation government subsidy of rail travel for passengers has simply been turned into corporate and shareholder earnings subsidy. And here we go again, privatised rail is in financial difficulties and needing government to bail it out form the public purse.
“….pretence) of privatisation was always that the private sector was better at management, and would run our utilities and other social infrastructure better than governments can.”
The point of privatisation was not to end up with better services, it was to to demonstrate that government does not need to run public services/does not want to run public services . The tories have been relying on the gradual erosion of memory – hoping that people, gradually will forget all the good things about publicly run services – the closure of libraries is another good example – strip out the “social” fabric – make all monopoly services for-profit – & rely on “regulators”. We are not in the land of “what works” what is good for the country we are in the land of ideology – & Thatcher & her spawn have a great deal to answer for in that respect.
I have zero expectation that the tories & the fatberg will stick with de-facto nationalisation – nah – they will re-privatise as soon as they can – it is in the DNA.
We need to take heed of this.
Once this is all over and Johnson talks of getting Britain back on the rails – you bet they’ll be back to take part in the great railway gravy train. That is why it is under publicised.
And there will be the IFS lying about taxpayers footing the bill.
Don’t assume anything is going to change; we will still need to fight is my view. We need to be ready – as does that crappy organisation known as HM Opposition. But don’t get your hopes up too much on that score.
But but but …. whatabout shareholder dividends and executives’ bonuses?
Just kidding!