The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[Woodsey]

It's gonna be Boris surely?

Reckon so and hope so.

[MintTrav]

Still years away. No end of opportunities for any of them to have a serious screw-up before then. I wouldn't be surprised if someone from the 2010 intake, who we haven't heard of so far, emerged from nowhere and took it. No baggage can be a big advantage.

[TightEnd]

funny stuff, and from a labour website too

http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/10/11/the-a-z-of-corbsplaining

[RickBFA]

Appears to be a lot of unhappy Labour MP's over change of "tactics" from McDonnell on spending vote.

Not going to build general public's trust in them to run the economy when there is no unity over Labour policy in the one area where they are viewed as weak and incompetent.

[TightEnd]

but only comparatively few voters notice or care about parliamentary rucks

corbyn is all about a mandate from labour members. to this extent any disgruntled labour mps have no power whatsoever and just have to lump it, or jump ship and they probably risk deselection too.


putting diane abbott up on today to defend the u-turn was hilarious though. quite the worst political interview i have heard in a while

[RickBFA]

but only comparatively few voters notice or care about parliamentary rucks

corbyn is all about a mandate from labour members. to this extent any disgruntled labour mps have no power whatsoever and just have to lump it, or jump ship and they probably risk deselection too.


putting diane abbott up on today to defend the u-turn was hilarious though. quite the worst political interview i have heard in a while

All true but Labour members aren't going to get Labour re-elected. In the meantime it still makes the headlines in the news bulletins which joe public watch and will influence public opinion though

[DaveShoelace]

What does everyone think about re-Nationalising the railways? It's not something I've ever thought about really, but has been the subject of several debates with my mates this last few weeks.

[TightEnd]

What does everyone think about re-Nationalising the railways? It's not something I've ever thought about really, but has been the subject of several debates with my mates this last few weeks.

not an expert, but it appears to me that there is a philosophical desire to renationalise (anti privatised assets) from the left

the infrastructure is already in government hands

the rolling stock is owned by a number of franchises, and a plan may be to take them all back when the franchise terms expire

but a number renew 2017-20 so if labour get in in 2020 you'd need to buy back the rolling stock, compensate the companeis who tendered successfully etc. costing hundreds of millions

since privatisation number of passenger journeys has doubled. big investments in rolling stock. fare prices can only rise by less than inflation whereas previously they went up by more than inflation

where more competition has been introduced on the flagship routes eg east coast main line, customer satisfaction is up

across the network safety is at record levels too. wasnt previously with under-invested stock

the competition commission wants to see more routes with more competition. this is beginning out of euston on the west coast main line in 2017 too

not sure how taking the lot back into a monopoly state provider would satisfy the competition authorities either

as long as private investment returns are regulated, which they are, then i would have thought the record and results since the end of british rail would suggest taking it further not leaving it to the state to do a (probably) worse job at cost to the taxpayer

[The Camel]

Click to see full-size image.

[DaveShoelace]

Click to see full-size image.

Makes me like him more. As long as it's funny, he can do no wrong.

Obv my view might change if he becomes PM and start's harvesting old people for their nutrients, but until then....

[bobAlike]

What's not to like about Boris? I'd vote for him.

[Skippy]

What does everyone think about re-Nationalising the railways? It's not something I've ever thought about really, but has been the subject of several debates with my mates this last few weeks.

not an expert, but it appears to me that there is a philosophical desire to renationalise (anti privatised assets) from the left

the infrastructure is already in government hands

the rolling stock is owned by a number of franchises, and a plan may be to take them all back when the franchise terms expire

but a number renew 2017-20 so if labour get in in 2020 you'd need to buy back the rolling stock, compensate the companeis who tendered successfully etc. costing hundreds of millions

since privatisation number of passenger journeys has doubled. big investments in rolling stock. fare prices can only rise by less than inflation whereas previously they went up by more than inflation

where more competition has been introduced on the flagship routes eg east coast main line, customer satisfaction is up

across the network safety is at record levels too. wasnt previously with under-invested stock

the competition commission wants to see more routes with more competition. this is beginning out of euston on the west coast main line in 2017 too

not sure how taking the lot back into a monopoly state provider would satisfy the competition authorities either

as long as private investment returns are regulated, which they are, then i would have thought the record and results since the end of british rail would suggest taking it further not leaving it to the state to do a (probably) worse job at cost to the taxpayer

Aren't the rolling stock owned by a bunch of companies that rent it to the franchise holders? That's how the franchises switch over- the franchise that won the new contract rents the stock off the same company the old franchise was using. There's nothing stopping the government renting the rolling stock off the same company.

If anybody wanted to renationalise the railways they would just wait until the franchise ran out then start public companies to run them instead.

I guess the argument would be that : Network Rail > Railtrack, since TFL have taken over the North London Line things have got a lot better, a public company ran the East Coast Main line for a bit when one of the previous franchise holders went bust and people liked it.

[Jon MW]

Since privatisation their has been 100's of millions of pounds worth of investment in the trains - there's approximately 0% chance we'd have got that if it had stayed in state hands.

If the massive increase in passenger numbers was down to that investment then privatisation has done a good job in increasing public transport usage - if it wasn't down to them their's still little evidence that a state run organisation would have been able to handle it quite so well. A public company or an organisation like TfL is definitely not the same as the state running the whole thing again.

I think if Labour were serious about re-nationalising the railway they should create a public body to bid for the franchise's as they expire. If they offer the best bid in terms of investment and management then they should run it. But this is never going to happen as they would never commit so much public money in advance to it and I'm pretty sure they'd know that in the end it'd get run down by the economics of less efficient management and the politics of having to show their idea was a success. First thing I'd expect to happen if re-nationalisation was on the cards, for example, would be massive demands from all the unions - if the government agreed you'd start off with a much less efficient railway; if they disagreed you'd have a massive increase in strikes - I don't see anyway from any angle that a full re-nationalisation would be in the public interest.

[AndrewT]

Aren't some of the franchises are already in state hands - foreign states? The German and Dutch governments have controlling stakes in some of the franchise companies.

[TightEnd]

this is clever

Cameron's priorities as a mindmap

http://weareicg.com/media/2015/10/ICG-Mind-Map-2015-2020.pdf