Railways.

I assume the Brexiteers are ecstatic over the Labour manifesto? Taking back control over our railways - out of foreign ownership? Sovereignty at last.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
Loading thread data ...

Can't wait for labour to get in. I want to see who Jeremy "I am not a pacifist" Corbyn is going to war with to prove his manliness.

Reply to
Richard

I gather the Labour manifesto has already been written as a stageply for use in this years pantomime season. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Brian Gaff brought next idea :

:-))

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

[snipped op]

I am looking forward to Harry and Turnip making public confessions on the telescreens before being forced out down the Channel tunnel at bayonet point.

TW

Reply to
TimW

As someone sent me in an email:

" The seven dwarfs always left to go to work in the mine early each morning. As always, Snow White stayed home doing her domestic chores.

As lunchtime approached, she would prepare their lunch and carry it to the mine.

One day as she arrived at the mine with the lunch, she saw that there had been a terrible cave-in.

Tearfully, and fearing the worst, Snow White began calling out, hoping against hope that the dwarfs had somehow survived.

'Hello...Hello !' she shouted. 'Can anyone hear me? Hello !'

For a long while, there was no answer. Losing hope, Snow White again shouted, 'Hello! Is anyone down there?'

Just as she was about to give up all hope, she heard a faint voice from deep within the mine,

"VOTE FOR CORBYN "

Snow White fell to her knees and prayed, 'Oh, thank you, God!

....At least Dopey is still alive !' "

Reply to
John Rumm

what on earth is the connection between wanting to leave being controlled by the EU

and subscribing to the Socialist mantra of spend, spend and spend even more (money that you found under the magic money tree)

tim

Reply to
tim...

I just want to know just when it was that we bombed before talking

ISTR that all of the occasions where we bombed were preceded by month after month of fruitless talking

tim

>
Reply to
tim...

Did I use too big words? Taking back control. Having our railways not owned by EU companies. Or does that not matter? It's a bad thing for 'the EU' to control anything - but a French company owning a UK railway and taking profits out of the UK is just fine?

Really? When the East Coast line was taken into state ownership after failing in private hands, it made a very decent profit. Showing it is perfectly possible.

>
Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

:-))

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

If you want nationalised railways and utilities then vote labour but it has F_all to do with leaving the EU. Its a different vote, the first was to decide if the EU or the UK politicians would screw the UK population, this one is to decide which brand of UK politician will screw us.

Reply to
alan_m

One of the things many people don't realise about nationalised industries is that they had a profits cap. When I worked for an Electricity Board, we had to reduce tariffs at one point, to avoid making more than 2% profit in the year. No private company would want to work at that level of profit. The challenge is to get a nationalised industry working efficiently, which many did not.

Reply to
Nightjar

IIRC there was very little reinvestment in the nationalised industries. Any profit they made, possibly anything above the 2% you mention, got fed into the national coffers to pay for general gov't expenditure, whether it be the NHS, defence, roads, whatever. As a result the railways were in a pretty shambolic state and the only practical solution envisaged was to privatise them.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

Why should they be forced down the Channel tunnel at bayonet point?

Reply to
Richard

That certainly wasn't true of the Electricity Supply Industry when I was in it. They had 20, 40 and 60 year investment plans, to ensure that the infrastructure would be there when needed. Of course, the longer term projections were, necessarily, imprecise, but they did ensure that infrastructure had the capacity to be expanded, even if that only meant owning land that might be needed in future. I had left by the time of privatisation, but AIUI, one of the first things the private companies did was to drop the long term plans.

The 2% profit cap was just that - a cap. They were simply not permitted to make a greater profit, hence the need to reduce tariffs to bring profits down.

Reply to
Nightjar

In article , tim... writes

I'd also like to know which of our leaders had not been cautious about pressing the red button.

Reply to
bert

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

According to the then chairman it made a profit despite being in public ownership not because of it and back in private hands it will make even more profit.

Reply to
bert

In article , Chris Hogg writes

Same with GPO - telephone income was used to fund extravagant postal service. And of course with unions involved any progress, new technology etc. is always resisted.

Reply to
bert

or just spend more doing no more.

Reply to
alan_m

The ethos was that we were there to serve the public. The industry was, undoubtedly, prone to inefficiencies, but never deliberately so. Any extra spending would have had to have been on something with an identifiable benefit.

Reply to
Nightjar

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.