The Lady's not for turning !!!

[expat]

Remember the population is significantly higher now than when rail was first privitised. Its also a whole heck of a lot more expensive! A lot of people use it just out of necessity rather than want. I don't think the rail network is currently a success in England at all. Would it be worse under government control? Probably as the profits would not be re-invested.

You need a bit more history to understand Thatcher and the railways. On one occasion she was going from London to Birmingham on official business, and went by train (after all, it's good enough for Her Majesty the Queen, which may well have been Maggie's standard). The train was stopped between stations because of some breakdown, and stayed there for over 3 hours with no word of explanation or apology from BR. Fuming, she never took a train again, and privatised the railways soon after. She wasn't intending to free it, she was punishing it.

That was not untypical of Thatcher: she abolished a whole tier of government not because it was bad for the country or democracy but because it persistently opposed her.

If you start from the other end, i.e. not "what are my politics? so what does that mean for the railways?", but rather, "do we want a railway network that works? how can that be done?" then we might do something very un-British and look at how it is done in other countries. If we did that, we'd find that all good railway networks are run nationally, with sufficient investment. Investment, I said: for that is what it is if you deliberately put in money because you want to get out of it what that wil achieve; if you call it subsidy, a word never used for road-building, then you have doomed it already.

[sasguru]

If you start from the other end, i.e. not "what are my politics? so what does that mean for the railways?", but rather, "do we want a railway network that works? how can that be done?" then we might do something very un-British and look at how it is done in other countries. If we did that, we'd find that all good railway networks are run nationally, with sufficient investment. Investment, I said: for that is what it is if you deliberately put in money because you want to get out of it what that wil achieve; if you call it subsidy, a word never used for road-building, then you have doomed it already.

Interesting and valid point. And similarly for the health service if we look abroad we find the opposite - far more public/private partnership.
The point being that we should do what works - with the railways what's needed is more "socialism" and with the health service more "capitalism".

[expat]

Obviously Gordo having a Garage sale of Gold, Buildings, Pensions and our future PFI bills is far more competent.

A load of illogical one-liners of the sort that Dodgy rightly condemns, when it suits him.

Gold: he sold at the bottom of the market. He wasn't alone there. If you can time the market, why are you working for a living?

Buildings: individual cases may be good or bad for the economy, but the idea of Facilities Management is not unknown elsewhere in the economy. Unless you are an out-and-out central-government statisy, which I'm guessing you're not, then there is nothing wrong in principle with the idea that the Revenue (say) is not in the business of managing property.

Pensions: Brown said that pension funds would have to pay tax on their investment income. Call it what you want (I call it a disaster for future pensioners) but it is not a "Garage Sale", it is a policy for taxing income. This is not unknown as a fiscal policy. Pensions had had a present from the taxman, then he dclined to keep giving it. Bad? I think so. Criminal? I think not.

PFI: isn't that what we call renting? I've done that when it made sense. Do individual cases make sense or not? Don't know. Is it a garage sale? Don't think so.

Slogans, that's all.

[TimberWolf]

Forget the railways, we're in an information age not the steam age. Travelling is a stupid waste of time and money. Socialise the superhighway and its 21st century technology and services, that's the future.

[sasguru]

Forget the railways, we're in an information age not the steam age. Travelling is a stupid waste of time and money. Socialise the superhighway and its 21st century technology and services, that's the future.

I think reports of steam's demise are much exagerrated.

[lilelvis2000]

Interesting and valid point. And similarly for the health service if we look abroad we find the opposite - far more public/private partnership.
The point being that we should do what works - with the railways what's needed is more "socialism" and with the health service more "capitalism".

What the railway needs is a re-think on the model. The franchises are not long enough. Too often we hear of companies which do not invest in trains and stations because they could not payback the investment before the franchise ends - and they may not win it back. If you look at other countries, France, USA, Canada, Japan the railways are a private arm of the government and thus don't have this short-term thinking. Who thought this whole thing up...it seemed to have been done overnight.

On the hospital issue - here the hospital used the PPF (?) to fund the expansion of the hospital. We got a great hospital now - except that the elevators keep breaking. But the debt level is very high and over the course of the lifetime of the agreement - its something like £1B paid to the private company. Very good profit indeed. Needs a re-think I believe. Much like the housing strategy.

[lilelvis2000]

Forget the railways, we're in an information age not the steam age. Travelling is a stupid waste of time and money. Socialise the superhighway and its 21st century technology and services, that's the future.

I use the internet to acquire work and do the work. But I still often need to attend the client site. Quite often I find myself on the train..with hundreds of others..far more convenient than losing my bags at Heathrow.

[Bagpuss]

when was the last time a party got more than50% of the votes?

I don't know but Maggie never did.

1979 43.9%
1983 42.4%
1987 42.2%

The Tories foolishly entered the ERM

I thought we were talking about Thatcher?

Anyway...
The issue with the ERM is not joining, it's joining at too high a rate. George Soros et al knew that when they created a run on the pound resulting in black Wednesday.

[BrilloPad]

I don't know but Maggie never did.

1979 43.9%
1983 42.4%
1987 42.2%

I am amazed about 1987 - there was a huge seat majority in parliament?

[Bagpuss]

I am amazed about 1987 - there was a huge seat majority in parliament?

I think 1983 was the biggest seat majority.
In 1979 the liberals were a party in decline with less than 14% of the vote. At the next election as the SDP their share of the vote had almost doubled. By 1987 it fell back again but not as low as 79