Like all good lefties, she wants them renationalised.
Given that our privately owned railways aren’t actually privately owned at all, arguably they already are. Network Rail is a not-for-profit business funded by the taxpayer. The franchises let out to the train operating companies are underwritten by the taxpayer. The objection, therefore, is that private companies are making a profit from a public good. Well, that includes, me, then, along with all of those other training and assessment providers. And that’s at the root of the whinge here, that people make a profit. It is, after all, why we go to work. If I didn’t get paid, I wouldn’t do it.
Thing is, Lucas is objecting to commuters paying more for their tickets. Well,why not? The alternative is that the rest of us subsidise even more than we do, those who commute by rail.
Passengers in this country pay the highest fares in Europe to travel on services that all too often are unreliable, understaffed, and overcrowded. After two decades of privatisation, the private sector has not delivered the innovation and investment that were once promised.
This is risible nonsense. We have better, more modern stock coming onto the network, journey times are pretty reliable. I travel a fair bit across the country by rail and I am usually at my destination on time (mind you, some of the ticket prices are eye-watering). When it does go wrong, by golly it goes wrong, but this is not the norm and to suggest that it is, is disingenuous. What the flying fuck does Lucas think all those delays over Christmas were caused by? Oh, yes, major engineering works. Yes, sure, someone fucked up, but you get my point. Has Lucas seen Reading recently? You can barely recognise it. So, yes, there has been investment – masses of it in both infrastructure – new track, signalling systems and rolling stock. Railways are incredibly expensive to build, maintain and run – hence those high ticket prices. The present system may well be flawed, but a return to full nationalisation would simply mean that non-travellers will be subsiding those who do use it even more than they currently do and why should they? And this is quite apart from the inbuilt inefficiency, spendthrift wastefulness and incompetence that is endemic in the public sector.
This is no dewy-eyed throwback to a 1970s British Rail.
That’s precisely what it is.
Caroline Lucas is a pissant of the first water.
Gets herself elected as head of the Green Party so she can get into parliament, then quits and gets herself deliberately arrested. The woman is a fucking joke and has done more to destroy what little credibility the Green Party had in the first place. Put her in the stocks and bombard her with rotten fruit.
So you’re not a fan, then?
She’s an utter oxygen thief.
Thing is, what unions want is that the profits go to their staff via higher wages or jobs being kept, rather than to shareholders. As it happens, about 3% of all income goes on profits. The idea that this makes a big difference between UK and European fares is a joke. The reality is that the likes of SNCF and DB get massive subsidies (see page 4 of http://www.amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/E-08-02-042208.PDF). If you throw money at it, yes, fares are going to be a lot cheaper.
Some of the reasons I now go by rail are the little things. The ticket collectors are more polite than in the days of BR. Same with people at the ticket booths. The trains are reliable, unlike in the old days of BR (a friend of mine who works on trains says that they had a clearout of dead wood some years ago, old union lags who didn’t understand the basics of how engines work).
Beyond that, most prices are about demand. Want to go Swindon to London on a weekday? It’ll cost you £120. But at peak time, some passengers are standing from Didcot. So, seems like the price is about right. Will they carry many more passengers if they reduce the price to £60? Well, no. On the other hand, I’ve done nights out in London because £30 on an advance is a bargain.
Loads of La Lucas’s constituents are currently renewing their annual season tickets for their daily commute into London. This – and only this – is the reason why she has suddenly issued press statements calling for a new magic railway system funded by the government and run by fairies. I’ll bet that MPs across the South East will be rattling out press releases calling for something to be done about rail fares.
Damn, I saw the blogpost title & thought she’d been found tied up on the tracks…
My son is a train driver and said privatisation was the best thing that ever happened. Hugely increased salary and better conditions and anyone who pines for British Rail can’t remember how awful it was.
I was a signaller in the last days of BR. I now work as a freelance trainer and assessor in the industry – mostly working with track workers, but also the TOCs. I wouldn’t want to go back, either. The unions had far too much say in things.
Railways are not a public good, which is defined as a good that is excludable and rivalrous. If you don’t have a ticket you can be excluded from riding; the more people who use the service, the less available for others to the point where no room on board is left, thus rivalrous.
Railways fail the public good test on both counts.
Understanding public good is important because it is said it is difficult for private enterprise in a free market to make a profit from a public good. You cannot charge for something if you cannot exclude those who do not pay. You cannot recover costs and profit from scarcity, if the quantity of the good does not reduce by use, and you cannot charge users proportionately.
Therefore it is argued by the proponents of Government and taxation that public goods can only be provided by Government through taxation and this justifies both Government and taxation.
However: light houses are a public good. You cannot stop anyone from using the light therefrom so it is not an excludable good; the more ships that pass and use the lighthouse does not reduce the amount of light available, therefore it is not a rivalrous good.
Yet most lighthouses around the UK were built and operated by private enterprise for a profit, by the private companies attaching an additional charge to the port charges ships paid to load and unload cargo at British ports.
All of the things Government now operates as public services whether public goods or not, were built and/or run by private enterprise… the railways being one such example.
Apart from defence, street lighting, surface water drainage I cannot think of any other public goods’
Things which might be ‘good’ for the public, for ‘the’ public good is not the same meaning as ‘a’ public good… good in the latter with the same meaning as for example a TV, dish washer, shoes, etc.