An Evening With... Jeremy Corbyn

mrginge

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

The trains that I go on are fine, I also do not see why they need re-nationalising, nor why doing so will somehow make them better.

The few that I go on are awful.
Practices like cancelling intermediate stops just to hit an arrival time is not the way I want our railways to be run.
In contrast, the European services I've used have been clean, on time, cheap and of course half empty.

Thrugelmir

mrginge wrote: »

Practices like cancelling intermediate stops just to hit an arrival time is not the way I want our railways to be run.

Better than arriving at Victoria station at 10 pm to find that all services have been cancelled due to a wildcat strike. Waiting to catch the night mail train to Gatwick Airport. Then ringing someone to get them out of bed to pick you up. Those were the days. Never will be forgotten. Inconsiderate btards.

seven-day-weekend

mrginge wrote: »

The few that I go on are awful.
Practices like cancelling intermediate stops just to hit an arrival time is not the way I want our railways to be run.
In contrast, the European services I've used have been clean, on time, cheap and of course half empty.

Therefore inefficient and massively subsidisded.

mrginge

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Therefore inefficient and massively subsidisded.

Nail. Head.

Moby

http://heatst.com/world/exclusive-john-mcdonnell-under-investigation-for-hiding-30000-donation/

N1AK

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

The trains that I go on are fine, I also do not see why they need re-nationalising, nor why doing so will somehow make them better.

The subject of transport costs actually came up during a discussion with a couple of older generations the other day. My Nan was going on about how trains were so expensive these days, then mentioned how she'd had to turn down a job when she finished school because the cost of getting to work and back on the train, from outer to inner London, would have been unworkable...

It used to be a major expense for my mum to get the family from Manchester down to the East Midlands to see family.

I'm sat there thinking about how my partner gets unlimited use of the underground all year round (Zones 1-4) for less than an hour of minimum wage per working day, and we can book train transport at eminently affordable rates unless we travel at no notice on peak commuter services.

I've travelled by rail in a lot of other European countries and I think on average transport in Western Mainline europe is higher quality and certainly faster, but I'm not persuaded tickets are cheaper. Factor in that our government subsidy per km travelled is less than 1/3rd of Germany's, and considerably lower than France, Italy, Belgium and some other countries and I do wonder why rail nationalisation is such a popular idea.

cells

It's not meant to be for the publics good its meant to be for the workers good likely at the direct (higher prices worse service) or indirect (higher state subsidies to the nationalised provider) cost to the public.

I recall when British Steel was still a nationilsed entity. It was not uncommon for people to turn up to work and sleep through all their 12 hour shift and then go home. At the site I used to work at there were 30,000 workers and that went down to 3,000 by the time I left even though production was double what it was in its 30k staff days.

Its a wonder how the NHS didn't end up that way. Maybe due to its size and cost there was no choice but to be efficient in the NHS

Malthusian

setmefree2 wrote: »

I have no idea why JC is so obsessed with re nationalizing the railways.

Corbyn wants to nationalise everything. The railways are just a low hanging fruit. People don't like railways - sitting on the train on the way to work is everyone's least favourite part of the day (you're doing something you don't want to and not being paid for it), they leave you feeling out of control, they force you to sit next to strangers. So when you say "we're going to seize the railways" people go "yeeeeaaahhhh" when they'd be less likely to react positively if you suggested nationalising Tesco, or smartphones.

Trains also resonate with fans of the Soviet Union because the development of the railways in Russia is remembered as one of its great successes. Stalin invented the steam train, y'know.

And there is actually a genuine economic argument for having railways publicly owned because of the natural monopoly element. (However, it relies on the public body owning them to be competent and genuinely public-minded. Useless public ownership is generally worse than useless private ownership.)

So it is unsurprising that Corbyn wants to focus on the renationalisation of trains. It's popular with the comrades, it's popular with the media (as all newspapers are made in London and lots of journalists commute via trains, and therefore hate them, for the reasons given above), and it's difficult for even the most ardent fan of economic freedom to defend the nasty stinking things.

Unfortunately it won't win him the election as a) journalists crammed into cattle class are not in fact a majority in this country b) the more likely someone is to have been alive to remember how bad British Rail actually was, the more likely they are to vote in a General Election.

Malthusian

cells wrote: »

Its a wonder how the NHS didn't end up that way.

Almost a coffee / keyboard moment.

Ok, you don't have NHS staff sleeping through a 12 hour shift (although if some of the managers and bureaucrats did spend their entire time sleeping, it would work more efficiently). But the fact that the NHS is the fifth biggest employer in the world (after the US and Chinese militaries, Walmart and McDonalds) suggests that either Britain is the sickliest nation on the planet or it is massively, massively overstaffed.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

N1AK wrote: »

I've travelled by rail in a lot of other European countries and I think on average transport in Western Mainline europe is higher quality and certainly faster, but I'm not persuaded tickets are cheaper. Factor in that our government subsidy per km travelled is less than 1/3rd of Germany's, and considerably lower than France, Italy, Belgium and some other countries and I do wonder why rail nationalisation is such a popular idea.

When I worked in Milan I had an unexpected day off, and decided to go to Florence on a day trip. So I rocked up to Centrale and bought a ticket on the day; can't recall the exact cost but I was fairly poor at the time and wouldn't have been able to go if it were extortionate. I don't think it's possible to do spontaneous trips like that between cities of similar distance in the UK.

I've visited friends in Manchester with tickets for £11 each way; fantastic bargain obviously, but the journey had to be at odd times ie Weds lunchtime, returning Sat lunchtime so involved 3 days of annual leave rather than going at a weekend. I've also had to book next day tickets for two researchers to be at a meeting in Manchester by 09.00 with an open return; this came to ~£350 (EACH).

I don't see the benefit of private operators "competing" for business on the same line. I've been caught out recently by the "wrong ticket" on a train from London to Milton Keynes; ticket was apparently Virgin only and we'd jumped on the first MK train, only to find it was Midland trains so we then had to cough up for another ticket. The actual price difference was about 70p, so not sure why the customer needs this "choice" which really seems designed to ensure extra revenue from people paying twice.

I sometimes wonder if the government is not really interested in an efficient public rail system, as they make so much money from car tax and road tax, and of course people insisting on buying new cars every 3 years.