The hated Southeastern rail franchise has finally been cancelled after the private operators were caught stealing £25 million in public funds since 2014.
Despite a long track record of delays, cancelled services, appalling working conditions, strikes, and lamentable customer service, this woeful franchise had been repeatedly extended by the Tory government since 2014, but the axe has finally fallen to the relief of passengers across the south east.
It turns out the private profiteers were running the services so inefficiently that the only way they could even spin a profit was to embezzle public cash!
And similar to the failure of all the other private rail franchises over the years, the public sector is going to have to step in at the last minute to take over operations.
The most absurd example being the way private operators have abandoned the flagship north east mainline franchise three times, with the public sector taking over at the last minute each time, running the service better, and gradually returning profits to the public finances, only for the Tories to hand it over to another bunch of profiteers who cut and run again, as soon as it becomes unprofitable to them.
This endless cycle of private operators extracting the profits, and public cash being used to clear up their mess is entirely consistent with the Tory ideology of "privatise the profits, nationalise the losses".
As a result of this spectacularly failed rail privatisation agenda, not only does the rail network cost more in subsidies to private franchises than it did to run the entire rail network when it was privatised in 1994, the government has built up a secret £50 billion+ black hole of rail debt from renting the track out to these profiteers at miles below the actual cost of maintaining them.
An overwhelming majority of the public want to see the rail network renationalised, and run as an integrated not-for-profit public service.
Yet the Tories persist with this shambolic mess of private profiteers extracting profits, then offloading operations onto the public whenever the profitability dries up.
Labour should be absolutely hammering the Tories over this, not just on the principle that rail privatisation has proven to be an absolute disaster, but for the sheer incompetence of allowing a private rail operator to steal £25 million from under their noses.
But unfortunately Keir Starmer is too busy waging internal factional war against his own party to care about establishing a critical narrative, and his shadow finance minister Rachel Reeves has only just been pledging her undying loyalty to the interests of capitalist profiteers, by swearing she'll ignore economic common sense, and the will of the British people, when it comes to the need to renationalise vital national infrastructure.
Despite a long track record of delays, cancelled services, appalling working conditions, strikes, and lamentable customer service, this woeful franchise had been repeatedly extended by the Tory government since 2014, but the axe has finally fallen to the relief of passengers across the south east.
It turns out the private profiteers were running the services so inefficiently that the only way they could even spin a profit was to embezzle public cash!
And similar to the failure of all the other private rail franchises over the years, the public sector is going to have to step in at the last minute to take over operations.
The most absurd example being the way private operators have abandoned the flagship north east mainline franchise three times, with the public sector taking over at the last minute each time, running the service better, and gradually returning profits to the public finances, only for the Tories to hand it over to another bunch of profiteers who cut and run again, as soon as it becomes unprofitable to them.
This endless cycle of private operators extracting the profits, and public cash being used to clear up their mess is entirely consistent with the Tory ideology of "privatise the profits, nationalise the losses".
As a result of this spectacularly failed rail privatisation agenda, not only does the rail network cost more in subsidies to private franchises than it did to run the entire rail network when it was privatised in 1994, the government has built up a secret £50 billion+ black hole of rail debt from renting the track out to these profiteers at miles below the actual cost of maintaining them.
Yet the Tories persist with this shambolic mess of private profiteers extracting profits, then offloading operations onto the public whenever the profitability dries up.
Labour should be absolutely hammering the Tories over this, not just on the principle that rail privatisation has proven to be an absolute disaster, but for the sheer incompetence of allowing a private rail operator to steal £25 million from under their noses.
But unfortunately Keir Starmer is too busy waging internal factional war against his own party to care about establishing a critical narrative, and his shadow finance minister Rachel Reeves has only just been pledging her undying loyalty to the interests of capitalist profiteers, by swearing she'll ignore economic common sense, and the will of the British people, when it comes to the need to renationalise vital national infrastructure.
And to make matters worse the Tory Transport minister
It's never going to get better when both main Westminster establishment parties adhere to the warped and treasonous ideology that essential British infrastructure and services are better run by a mix of corporate profiteers and foreign governments, than by the British government on behalf of the British people.
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6 comments:
So what's new
You're turning into a politician, because this:
"...with the public sector taking over at the last minute each time, running the service better, and gradually RETURNING PROFITS TO THE PUBLIC FINANCES..."
Contradicts this:
"An overwhelming majority of the public want to see the rail network renationalised, and RUN AS AN INTEGRATED NOT-FOR-PROFIT PUBLIC SERVICE." [my emphasis]
So if the British government runs the railways it's as a not-for-profit public service? But if foreign governments run the railways they just care about making profits? That makes a lot of sense!
Like you, I'm also pissed off by this relatively new hybrid between state & private capitalism. This is where infrastructure & industry are owned by the state, but run by private businesses for tax-payers money (e.g. academy schools; Royal Mail; parts of the NHS).
I'm not surprised Keir Kinnock (as I like to call him) is much more interested in purging the Labour Party of the leftists than beating the Tories. This is because the Labour-right; the Conservatives; and the Liberal Democrats are almost exactly the same. However, the Left & Right aren't fundamentally different, because they only disagree on the best way to run this unsustainable system that robs us of the wealth we create (i.e. capitalism).
@ Mr Magoo
"Not for profit" does not necessarily mean "at break-even rates". Many not for profit enterprises generate a surplus. It simply means that that surplus either goes back into the purposes for which the organisation is run, or, in the case of a public not for profit service, into public coffers. The distinction is simply that it does not go to directors and shareholders in grossly offensive remuneration packagages and wealth extraction.
@MrMagoo and the other socialists.
Guys, honestly; watching a bunch of socialists tear themselves apart over what constitutes a socialist warms the cockles of this ol Chunk of Coal.
Like captured partisans digging their own mass graves.
@Ultraviolet
All surplus-value comes from paying workers less than the wealth they create. I don't mind charities that are totally run by volunteers calling themselves not-for-profit organisations; unlike the charities where the directors make between 40 and 200 thousand pounds per year!
While I'm sure the railways would be better run if state owned (due to them being a natural monopoly), the workers would still have to unionise and go on strike for better wages and conditions. To repeat myself, the railway workers would have the wealth they create taken from them and paid a small fraction of it back in the form of wages. They would still be robbed (like the rest of us), just by the State instead of by a corporation.
"The distinction is simply that it does not go to directors and shareholders in grossly offensive remuneration packages and wealth extraction". - Are you saying the amount of money politicians and senior civil servants are paid isn't grossly offensive?
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