Time for a national, publicly-owned, railway?

[David-G]

... but I'm told that Virgin do actually own their Pendolinios.

It seems that the Pendolinos are owned by Angel Trains. http://www.angeltrains.co.uk/news/release.aspx?Id=705

[heliocentric]

The fact that you like the trains and the shopping opportunities on station concourses doesn't mean privatisation has been cost effective - huge sums of public money continue to subsidise the Bransons et al while they indeed deliver profits, dividends, bonuses. I most certainly do object to contributing my money to a private company paying dividends to its shareholders; I most certainly do object to the inevitable situation where my money has to be used to keep the infrastructure working for the benefit of Branson et al's companies.

This point can't be made strongly enough. Whatever improvements can be seen since privatisation (many of which aren't the result of privatisation since they've occurred in other countries with non-privatised transport systems) the idea that the private sector represents "value for money" while this kind of ripoff is going on is ludicrous, as is the assumption that renationalisation of rail would somehow plunge the entire system back into the 1950s. It isn't a question of going "back to the good old days" but finding a new way out of the present days, where massive public subsidies are poured into the pockets of shareholders instead of into maintaining and improving services (including "unprofitable" ones!), while at the same time fares are regularly increasing, and Branson and his ilk are sipping their cocktails and chuckling at the gullibility of their "customers".

[PhilipT]

It seems "obvious" that private companies work for profit, and therefore should be less cost effective than public service ventures. However this often is not the case, and private companies, if they don't get too greedy, do seem to "deliver the goods" on occasion, and acually provide better value for money. This is counter intuitive!

No, it isn't. It's the discipline of the market. If public employees screw up royally they are, at best, shuffled sideways or allowed to take early retirement. If a private company screws up it may well find itself out of business. In a sense, the private company is more democratic. We (the public) can't vote out of office those civil servants who recently screwed up the West Coast Main Line bidding process, to take the example Flossie was asking for in #36. (I assume it was a rhetorical question, because Flossie isn't usually stupid or ignorant, but I suppose it's possible I was wrong.) On the other hand, if a private company gives bad service we can, in effect, as Sam Walton pointed out. ("There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.")

[scottycelt]

Scotty, the 'private sector' is in it to make money, by providing the least possible service (or product) for the greatest amount of money while paying their staff the least they can get away with. They aren't in the least interested in providing a public service. 'Public servants' - ie government employees - are in the job primarily to provide a service to the public.

I object to money ending in Branson's (or his shareholders) pocket because it's my money that I pay to the government to provide services for me & my fellow citizens; not to pay people like Branson who'd spend it on another Carribean island, or idiotic stunts like balloon flights round the world.

I actually agree with some of your sentiments here, Floss. That is one of the great weaknesses of capitalism imo,,, the constant pressure to keep wages down and therefore prices down in order to compete or even survive at all.

However, having 'served' the Great British Public myself in the private sector one finds oneself in a dilemma. Pay your staff high wages, and therefore sell at high prices, you're immediately accused of 'ripping off' customers when the goods are sold cheaper elsewhere. Consequently you don't sell any goods and the shop shuts and there are no jobs left. Pay your staff low(er) wages, and then give the customers what they want in price, and you are now 'exploiting cheap labour'. I'm sure people like Branson would be perfectly happy to double staff wages if people continued to flood onto his planes and trains ... why wouldn't he? ... he's not stupid and must know a happier and better-paid workforce would make his life even easier. Furthermore, there are some low wages in the public-sector just as much as in the private.

I find Branson's self-advertising a bit wearying as well, but he has an undeniable talent for giving customers what they want as far as is possible. In my view, he provides at least as much a 'service' to the public as any highly-paid chairman of the BBC and, unlike the latter, he is putting quite a bit of his own money at risk though admittedly, if successful, he has even more to gain in the process.

There are simply 'public-sector managers and workers' and 'private-sector managers and workers' ... both provide vital 'services' to the public ... or certainly should!

[John Shelton]

If public employees screw up royally they are, at best, shuffled sideways or allowed to take early retirement. If a private company screws up it may well find itself out of business.

You mean like G4S are now out of business?

You honestly don't think that shuffled sideways or allowed to take early retirement on a massive pension (before taking up some other board appointment, at a safe distance, discretely) doesn't happen repetitively in the private sector?

As for the discipline of the market - the market isn't "free" and it's as disciplined as a room of drunken cats. It's a chaos of shared interests, mutually suspended antagonisms, antagonistic acquisitions, takeovers, mergers, asset strippings, mutually beneficial fixings which when they come to light are of course described as aberrant etc. Most people have had dealings with hopelessly inefficient / deliberately obstructive private sector enterprises. Like banks, for instance. The so-called discipline of the market means zilch because in most cases there's either nowhere else to go or there isn't a scintilla of difference between the pseudo-competitors.

[PhilipT]

You mean like G4S are now out of business?

Two G4S directors have resigned in the wake of the Olympics fiasco. Zero civil servants have resigned in the wake of the WCML fiasco.

Frankly, I think you are making my point for me, rather well.

[John Shelton]

If someone here can refute the substantive points in Caroline Lucas's letter in today's issue of The Guardian, then I'll be very interested to read the refutation (yes I know it's in The Guardian which is a vaguely left of centre newspaper. And I know the Greens propose renationalising the railways, indeed she says so in the letter) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oc...?newsfeed=true

Since privatisation in the 1990s, the cost of train travel in the UK has risen by 17% in real terms – compared with a 7% drop in the cost of motoring. Fares are now some of the highest in Europe and the government's plan for a further 6.2% increase from January 2013 ....

Thanks to higher interest payments to keep debts off the government balance sheet, and costs arising from fragmentation and the complex network of subcontractors, the cost to the public purse of running the railways has risen by 2 to 3 times since privatisation.

[John Shelton]

Two G4S directors have resigned in the wake of the Olympics fiasco. Zero civil servants have resigned in the wake of the WCML fiasco.

Frankly, I think you are making my point for me, rather well.

Do you? Then frankly you must have a very low standard for point making if you think the resignation of two directors demonstrates the "democratic" accountability of the private sector.

Of course it's vaguely possible that (a) the degradation of standards in the Civil Service through the introduction of an entrepreneurial 'culture' to the organisation and the enforcement of a rigid pro-privatisation / outsourcing orthodoxy could have something to do with the fiasco (b) that the policy and the desires of private sector fetishist Government ministers might have played a part, too? (c) That the policy is rubbish? And that the entire fiasco wouldn't have happened in the first place without the obsession with enriching private sector interests with public money?

[scottycelt]

(And perhaps you could explain how being paid to do work for someone else is making a profit - since most theories of profit, left or right, would tend to accept that work is done to make profit for the employers / investors / shareholders? A profit on what exactly? On being broke?)

I'm rather surprised you consider it requires much explanation, tbh ...

If I wasn't going to profit from going to work in the private sector I simply wouldn't bother getting out of bed in the first place, and I suspect that applies just as much to those in 'public service'

We all profit (however low) from our labours in paid employment ... and ultimately any company pensions are paid out of profits which have been invested in stocks, etc! Also there can be annual staff bonuses paid directly from company profits.

[amateur51]

Two G4S directors have resigned in the wake of the Olympics fiasco. Zero civil servants have resigned in the wake of the WCML fiasco.

Frankly, I think you are making my point for me, rather well.

Any idea how far up the food chain at G4S they are, PhilipT?

[John Shelton]

I'm rather surprised you consider it requires much explanation, tbh ...

You are better off because you get paid for working, but that's not the same as making a profit on something.

OED: noun

a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something: record pre-tax profits.

As a verb it has (among others) a looser financial meaning

obtain a financial advantage or benefit

but not if you are going to refer to an enterprise making a profit and then say we all make profits when we go to work (which you did). The two meanings aren't the same.

[french frank]

If I wasn't going to profit from going to work in the private sector I simply wouldn't bother getting out of bed in the first place

'Profit' suggests that what you get out of the deal is worth more than you're putting into it = you're overpaid. Lucky you! Others put in more than they get out of it, and still get up in the morning to go to work ...

[amateur51]

'Profit' suggests that what you get out of the deal is worth more than you're putting into it = you're overpaid. Lucky you! Others put in more than they get out of it, and still get up in the morning to go to work ...

[scottycelt]

You are better off because you get paid for working, but that's not the same as making a profit on something.

OED: noun

a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something: record pre-tax profits.

As a verb it has (among others) a looser financial meaning

obtain a financial advantage or benefit

but not if you are going to refer to an enterprise making a profit and then say we all make profits when we go to work (which you did). The two meanings aren't the same.

It is true the word like many others can have varying degrees of strength and. yes. even meaning, but if I emerge from any activity with something of value (that I didn't possess before) then that, to me at least, is most definitely 'a profit' !

[scottycelt]

'Profit' suggests that what you get out of the deal is worth more than you're putting into it = you're overpaid. Lucky you! Others put in more than they get out of it, and still get up in the morning to go to work ...

Yes, know the feeling, as I once considered myself to be well ensconced in the latter group as well.

But I still went to work ... for the benefit of society and my wonderful colleagues? ... well, er, I'd love to say it was and I did make the occasional sacrifice on their behalf, that's for sure ... and I'm equally sure my wonderful colleagues did as well.

No, sadly, I dragged myself out of that bed because the sober, stark alternative was that there would be absolutely no 'profit' for scottycelt at all, even in his language!