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Thanks - interesting article; some valid points, some slightly less so.
Should probably disclose that I've worked in the industry for 15 years so can't pretend to be a neutral observer.
There certainly were excessively profitable times for contractors - I remember an informal business meeting in a pub with another contractor (a small family run sub contractor); the proprietor told me about how he'd flown his entire family to New York on Concorde to celebrate his son's 21st Birthday. His message was basically that those times were over and I'd missed the boat. As it turns out, he was largely correct.
There's still plenty to go at in terms of increasing efficiency, however Wolmar rightly observes "beware of warnings that Britain’s railways are far more expensive than their foreign counterparts. Their systems, too, are riven with inefficiencies and poor working practices but their managements are cleverer at disguising them".
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Well he was definitely correct about your missing the boat to fly on Concorde ;)
I can believe that. I'm passing over the mantle to you now as resident expert.
In other news, here's a great reason to vote Corbyn:
http://news.sky.com/story/does-it-matter-if-jeremy-corbyn-doesnt-recognise-ant-and-dec-10540558?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter -
there’s no information about where it gets its money, who its officers are, what its statues are
Typical Blairite behaviour, hiding all the statues away from view.
fight Blairism in alliacne with Corbyn’s supporters
The jibes are getting worse, now even Paul Mason thinks that bad skin is a condition of the left. It must be all that collectivisation.
He might wish to invest in a proofreader or ten.
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Fortunately the Trotskyists outnumber the Schickites.
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I enjoyed that - bit overblown but well worth a read.
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One endorsement he could do without I suspect.
After our earnest discussion over the state of the rail network, it turns out there were apparently seats after all. How odd.
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Clearly, the Tories have thought of everything.
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• #939
Looking forward to seeing analysis of this. If it's really disruptive it could do more harm to the proposals chances than good.
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It must be because of all the non-voting (in general elections) immigrants moving into London wards.
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These boundary plans really sound completely bizarre.
I thought parliamentary constituencies were usually arranged to be within borough boundaries? These proposals are all over the shop.
It must be because of all the non-voting (in general elections) immigrants moving into London wards.
Or rather the switch to Individual Voter Registration causing mass disenfranchisement. Heard this morning Lewisham is about 20% under-registered.That was meant to be a joke. Of course. A reminder about the over-hasty introduction of IVR is always welcome, though.
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In conversation with Jeremy Corbyn | documented by Ken Loach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPC_phLWNK4
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And Ken Loach talking about the media's relationship with Corbyn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRbCSpx9YjQ
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"From his style to his policies Mr Corbyn would, in Norway, be an unremarkably mainstream, run-of-the-mill social-democrat. His policy-platform places him squarely in the Norwegian Labour Party from which the last leader is such a widely respected establishment figure that upon resignation he became the current Secretary-General of NATO". https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/jonas-fossli-gjers/jeremy-corbyn-mainstream-scandinavian-social-democrat#disqus_thread
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• #947
Ha, or perhaps hopeful. Even Corbyn's detractors will often accept that they agree with a lot of his ideas in principle. Maybe if people got over the "loony left" bit that would be one less thing making him "unelectable" and they could start being more of an opposition power to the right.
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It's curious that they so often play the man rather than the ball (whereas I suspect Corbyn's 'rebellions' have mainly been against policy). I'm not sure what the PLP think the endless public criticism will achieve, when perhaps a friendly arm around the shoulders in private and a public commitment to the ideas he represents, would get him out of the way in a less damaging way.
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About
That Corbyn fella...
Posted by
@pdlouche
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25577313
I actually hadn't realised that was two years old so it may have changed.
To be fair it is probably a lot more efficient than it was. After a spate of accidents caused by the denuded state of the infrastructure the New Labour government wisely decided enough was enough and pumped huge amounts of money into sorting it out so nobody else died.
This was, of course, the right thing to do, but it resulted in what became known in the industry as the 'gold plated' railway. Even small, simple engineering jobs ended up costing a fortune. There were contractors cleaning up left, right and centre. Many sub-contracted their work out to cheaper contractors, so all they had to do was sit there and cream their profit off.
As I understand it (I worked in the rail industry for six and a half years from mid-2002 onwards and before that for a year from September 2001) this is now in the past, but it's hard to change the culture of a large organisation and nobody wants to go back to the bad old days. It's great that the network is so safe and if you look at countries like Germany, France or Italy which have excellent, heavily subsided networks they are still having nasty crashes, despite all their spending.
The rail commentator and former mayoral Candidate Christian Wolmar explains it better than I can below, but anecdotally I heard horrendous stories of greedy contractors during my time in the industry:
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2013/06/the-answer-is-a-simpler-railway/