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UK Politics General Discussion

What will be the result of the UK’s General Election?

  • Conservative Majority

    Votes: 3 2.5%

  • Conversative Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • Labour Majority

    Votes: 87 72.5%

  • Labour Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 28 23.3%

  • Other Result (Please specify in your post)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    120
  • Poll closed .
Today, it would seem that Labour’s first rail operator has been renationalised in the form of South Western Railway… and the first service was a rail replacement bus: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy90x5p2gn3o

As there are some evidently politically minded folks here; would someone mind explaining to me what renationalising the trains will actually achieve other than bringing everything under state control? What will it achieve for the consumer?

There’s strong support for the idea, but I also keep hearing about how dreadful British Rail was…
 
Matt N said:
As there are some evidently politically minded folks here; would someone mind explaining to me what renationalising the trains will actually achieve other than bringing everything under state control? What will it achieve for the consumer?
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The privatisation state of affairs works like this:

A TOC (train operating company) bids for a franchise. They pitch to the government the service that they're going to provide, and how much they're willing to pay the government to run the franchise. The TOC will make its money back from selling tickets, running railway stations, renting out concessions and upselling in other areas.

Theoretically, privatisation is supposed to make things cheaper, better and more efficient for the consumer, due to competition.

There is no competition once the franchise has been awarded. In most cases only one TOC has a monopoly over services in an area / on a line for a fixed period of time.

The TOC, being a private entity, has a duty to generate a profit for its shareholders. It has spent an awful lot of money to gain the franchise, it doesn't have much control over how much they can inflate their ticket prices each year (they'll do as much as they can), so the only profits to be made are in "efficiencies". Fewer services, fewer staff, less maintenance, anything which they don't have to offer or deliver (as legally mandated) is scrapped to ensure that a profit can be made.

This is the paradox of the middle man.

Nationalising TOCs strips away a lot of this. There is no expensive franchising bidding war. There is not a requirement to deliver a profitable service over a quality service.

The trade off is a larger government, with ultimate responsibility, no one else to blame and the private sector not getting much of a look in.
Matt N said:
There’s strong support for the idea, but I also keep hearing about how dreadful British Rail was…
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Most likely from, or funded by, sources with private interests in keeping the status quo.

Even Thatcher thought that privatising rail was a privatisation too far, and one which wouldn't work.
 
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The idea is to cut out the middle man who's currently taking a profit. By taking out this profit margain the idea is to use the money for improvements, and less rise in rail faires (and hopefully a reducation, although the gov are staying quiet on this at the moment). This is going to be a long process though as they are waiting for each train operators franchise to run out, then taking it back.
 
JAperson said:
The idea is to cut out the middle man who's currently taking a profit. By taking out this profit margain the idea is to use the money for improvements, and less rise in rail faires (and hopefully a reducation, although the gov are staying quiet on this at the moment). This is going to be a long process though as they are waiting for each train operators franchise to run out, then taking it back.
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7 large TOCs however, are due to be re nationalised in 2027, that is not too far off.
 
I would argue that the ROSCOs (Train Leasing Companies) are also an ugly, and also arguably hidden, symptom of 1990s privatisation which is sadly but understandably not being addressed in this nationalisation plan.

They earn huge dividends each year from leasing out the trains to the operating companies at prices which are much more expensive in the long term compared to buying initially, and these dividends are naturally passed onto shareholders. Take this Guardian Article from last year, which highlights how, while fares were going up and unions were striking, these companies were making huge profits.

(apologies for the web archive link, I just refuse to use a news site where you need to 'reject and pay' for cookies)
http://web.archive.org/web/20240317...-private-train-leasing-firms-treble-in-a-year

The ORR said the rolling stock companies, or ROSCOs, paid dividends of £409.7m in 2022-23, up from £122.3m a year before. Their net profit margins went up from 14.3% to 41.6%.
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41.6% is a huge profit margin to have which must have come from somewhere - i.e the consumer and the ticket prices they are charged (as well as a huge range of other factors).
Train operators’ contracts are now structured for the government to make up the shortfall between revenue and costs, meaning taxpayers are now effectively paying the £3.1bn spent last year on leasing trains, almost a quarter of total industry costs.
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To add even more insult to injury, if there is a shortfall between what was the expected revenue and costs to the TOC of using leased stock, the government contractually must pay this shortfall using taxpayer money. £3.1 billion is quite a lot of money!

(Admittedly this data is now approaching two years old already, however this is in no shape or form a new phenomenon and has existed right from the start of privatisation).

While, yes, their existence does remove the liability to the TOC of maintenance and mishaps (see the TPE Mk5 Coach fiasco), and without their existence some may argue that we wouldn't have the large plethora of stock introduced since BR privatisation (there is no real incentive for a short term franchisee to introduce stock), this in no way outweighs the immense profits taken from the rail industry into the private sector.


Nevertheless, they are unfortunately not going nowhere anytime soon, simply because of the huge cost & compensation it would require to acquire all assets of the ROSCOs (many of which ironically used to be government owned under British Rail), and the government just can't afford to do that politically or financially at the moment.
The only realistic way I see of them going is a slow process where new stock is bought outright and owned publicly rather than leased from a ROSCO; we've already seen a few examples of this such as the Merseyrail 777s being leased from 'Merseytravel' (regional public operator), and the TfL class 345s (which didn't last very long as they were very quickly sold and leased back to free up cash!)

If anyone is interested here is a report from the ORR in 2015 about the costs associated with ROSCOs.
https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/om/understanding-the-rolling-stock-costs-of-uk-tocs.pdf
 
I use SWT and we have Rail Replacement today from my local station. Assume it is engineering works on the track.

The issue with the franchises is that the Govt couldn't negotiate or structure them due to incompetence (all parties in Govt). How will running the trains be any easier??? 😕
 
Nice to see Reform smashing the British political system by coming third in a by election and losing their chairman on the same day on an issue of race.

Top notch stuff.

The nasty racists in business suits continue to entertain.

Edit...early morning Reform stalking...didn't know 'mingo were donors.

Those right wing park owners, eh.
 
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rob666 said:
Nice to see Reform smashing the British political system by coming third in a by election and losing their chairman on the same day on an issue of race.

Top notch stuff.

The nasty racists in business suits continue to entertain.

Edit...early morning Reform stalking...didn't know 'mingo were donors.

Those right wing park owners, eh.
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This is the thing with populists fantasists. Whilst people get all excited pretending that Reform UK Ltd are the next big thing, fuelled by quite absurdly disproportionate media coverage and political commentary, it doesn't take long for reality to set in. Surprise surprise, Reform are pretty much UKIP 2.0. Who would have seen this coming!

Yes, their rise has been eye watering. Yes, the failure of established political movements to modernise are fundamental ingredients to this. But Reforms highly exaggerated success has foundations made of paper. It's core vote is made up of knuckle draggers, racists, ignorant hooligans, and a handful of wealthy individuals pulling strings to protect their riches. The rest, and the key to recent successes and opinion poll highs, is made up of protest voters, many of which will openly admit that the party is crazy and they're only being chosen to send messages.

Beyond flat taxes and extreme neo-liberalism, there is no core ideology or value set. It's a company set up to protect the rich. It's unsustainably reliant on Farage's personal brand vanity, shape shifts policies to draw people in with no ideological substance behind any of them, and even the foreigner bashing is just a fishing hook.

Although there may be some endurance throughout this parliament, the speed in which the inevitable reality seems to be unraveling has surpassed my expectations recently.

As with UKIP, it's not taking long for the underbelly to start revealing itself, leading to the chairman buggering off in protest after an MP makes a rediclous and pointless burkha ban comment. This is hot on the heels of one of their few MP's being suspended following a fallout with Farage only a few months after being elected. Also slowly unravelling just weeks after gaining council power is the truth that local councils can't do anything about migration, and that cutting diversity programmes and rainbow lanyards doesn't provide enough cash to stop council tax from rising. A Reform councillor has declared that children in care are "not just naughty, but downright evil". Tories are starting to flood the party, so much for all those economically left lies last week then? In a parliamentary test, it turns out that 2 unpopular parties, one running the UK government, the other the Scottish government, can kick Reform into third place.

Sit back and enjoy the fireworks. As with anything Farage attaches his ego to, the implosion is going to be great to watch as it unfolds.
 
Do you think the Tories will let the nice ex Reform chairman back in, now he has quit the old job?
He didn't actually choose to leave the Tory party, they kicked him out when the Guardian pointed out he was still a Tory party member!
 
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