Has the Conservative Party lost all sense of competence

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/01/theresa-may-reshuffling-cabinet-boris-hunt-prime-minister

This would nearly make me feel sorry for May - if it wasn't for the fact that she brought it on herself.

Well done, Manchester.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/02/manchester-stop-start-go-hostel-offers-working-homeless-roof-over-their-heads

Perhaps May will get on with her help for the homeless that she promised on the steps on no.10, more than once.

For anyone who thinks that Boris should keep his job -

www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/03/toby-young-is-ideal-man-for-university-watchdog-says-boris-johnson

How about Boris for the back benches?

Ironically, the state run European companies that run some of our franchises have a nice little earner in the UK taxpayers' money which is subsidising their profits. It probably helps them to keep their fares at a reasonable level...

Amazing really that in Europe they seem to have cheap, efficient trains that you don't need to book months in advance.
You can actually roll up to the station and buy a ticket for the next train without having to take out a mortgage for it!

You mean the couple of billion he had from the NHS isn't enough, and being let off the 2 billion for the Eastcoast mainline fiasco is not a big enough bribe?
He did well out of the East coast mainline. I think he only put 10% in but had all the advertising.

We go to a cafe in Durham occasionally so we can watch the trains while eating lunch. My grandson gets really excited when a Virgin train goes over the viaduct; I grit my teeth.

Well he might agree to a colour change if he was paid enough extra to do it dj!

Has Branson agreed to the change of ticket colour, mostlyharmless?

Oh I loved that mostlyharmless
But what really made it was
Most of the revenue generated by Britain’s railways now goes to Germany and Holland, where train travel is cheap, clear and comfortable – mainly due to being subsidised by the profits they make from British travellers.
There's one for the Brexiteers!

What! Even Virgin ones?

News Thump:
Theresa May to appease grumpy commuters by turning rail tickets blue

newsthump.com/2018/01/03/theresa-may-to-appease-grumpy-commuters-by-turning-rail-tickets-blue/

Indeed Trisher- with the NHS, they've gone just that little bit further - 'offering' a cheap taste of private facilities to the common people - to create the comparison and envy...

A typical marketing technique for new products - almost give them away at very low price, hook your customers, then take other options away and put up prices.

OMG That's what they are now doing to the NHS. Time to stop them!!!!

"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

Noam Chomsky

It is brilliant, so simple and it works... every time.

Chomsky's description of how to privatise a public service is as accurate as ever.

Interesting discussion here from rail enthusiasts in 2011:

www.railforums.co.uk/threads/was-british-rail-that-bad.46148/

The consensus seems to be that BR wasn't bad and that it would have been better if it had had the same amount of state investment as the privatised railways have had...

This myth that the service was rotten is just that.

Add to which Trisher, it is not as if, had they remained nationalised - as so many countries railway system are - they would still be as they were on the date they were denationalised. With all the money that has been ploughed in to provide profit for the franchises they could well be a very excellent service indeed.

Some people just live in the past I'm afraid.

The railways in the fifties were brilliant. We used to catch a train at a station in walking distance to go to the Yorkshire coast, Bridlington, Scarborough, Hornsea, Withernsea.
That was our holiday, catching trains.

Then Beeching cut all the trains, the railway lines were turned into cycle tracks, but no more railtrips to Hornsea or Withernsea for poor people living in Hull.

Railways shouldn’t be making private profits anyway, they should be run for the benefit of the public. We are pouring taxpayers money into them hand over fist at the moment and our railways are the most expensive and less efficient than publicly run railways in Europe.

As far as nationalisation in 1948 is concerned the railways had been heavily damaged during the war. They were the target of bombing. Yet the service provided after nationalisation was quickly brought back to normal thanks to British Rail. This myth that the service was rotten is just that.

He's unprincipled and will bend anyway that he thinks will gain him power.
Thanks Wally your comment has given me the biggest laugh yet, in view of the fact that the rest of us were discussing the Tory government and their pals. It could be applied to all of them including our dear Theresa. Whereas Corbyn has always stuck to his beliefs they are desperately clinging to power andwill do anything to stay there even bribe people!

he railways were nationalised I think in 1948 because they were flat broke

I don't think you are able to understand the complete lack of logic you show in that sentence. The railways were completely run down in 1948 because we'd just come out of 6 years of war during which time there had been no investment in anything but the war effort. They were privately owned until they were nationalised and the fact that they were completely run down under private ownership should tell you something; private owners couldn't make the railways pay. British Rail was not the disaster that people make it out to be, You have just lapped up the Thatcherite myth that private ownership is better than state ownership; a myth that depended on painting the railways as poorly run, expensive and inefficient. you seem unable to comprehend the truth of the current situation which is that the railways are still costing the public purse billions; I don't suppose for one minute that you bothered to read the report I posted the link to.

The scandal of the current situation is that the billions the state is pouring into the railways now are going into the hands of private owners with minimal return on the state 'investment'. When the East coast line was run (very efficiently and to the satisfaction of its users, of which I was one) it returned £1 billion to the treasury. I have no doubt that the £1 billion did not cover the cost of the state subsidy but at least it went some way towards recouping some of the cost. Which is more than the private companies are achieving as public money goes into the pockets of their shareholders and is no doubt largely squirrelled off into tax havens so we don't even get any of it back in tax.

It is doubtful that the railways can ever be truly run at a profit but their benefit to the public far outweighs the costs. Just as does the NHS.

On a personal note I would add that I have been travelling by rail since the 1950s. I can't say that privatisation has made any difference at all to the standard of service. some of the rolling stock has been updated but apart from that trains run for A to B, just as they always have, long distance trains provide food (not always particularly nice food) just as they always have and some of them are disgustingly crowded, just as they've always been. The only difference I can see is the appalling complexity of ticketing which makes planning anything other than a straight A to B service a bit of a nightmare. And even a simple journey isn't a breeze.

Please could you quote where Corbyn says he will "go back to the union laws of Red Robbo". Isn't that just your opinion of what he has said - not fact Wally?

Being old is neither a good or a bad thing. If you were wise and knowledgeable when you were young you would probably be that now. If not then not. I would also imagine that there are as many who remember to railways in a good light as those, who like you, only see some state ownership as a bad thing.

Democratic socialism is a fairer form of capitalism. It certainly works well elsewhere, why shouldn't it work well here?

Wally, why did you feel the need to say you haven't a racist bone in your body?

You're not commenting on what I said the railways were nationalised for a very long time and overall could not generate a profit they just drained our country of money. Corbyn has stated he will go back to the union laws of Red Robbo what on earth do you suppose that will do for the railways. I'm obviously older than you because I can remember the inefficiency that occurred with nationalisation, it is because of human nature that it cannot thrive. Be very careful what you wish for. What we should be striving for is a fairer form of capitalism which you won't get from Corbyn.