Stuart Moir, Filey + ShareEvery privatisation I have seen has failed and has ended up with a more expensive, less efficient, worse service for the people, whilst lining the pockets of a select few.
Stuart Moir, Filey + ShareEvery privatisation I have seen has failed and has ended up with a more expensive, less efficient, worse service for the people, whilst lining the pockets of a select few.
Bring Back British Rail
7 days ago
The Fight for Our Buses! If you're in Manchester this Thursday 18 April, 7pm don't miss the premiere of this great new film by our friends at the Association of British Commuters showing what our mess our country's buses have been left in as a result of privatisation... 🚌🚏🚍 fightforourbusesfilm.eventbrite.com ...
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eventbrite.com
Join Better Buses for Greater Manchester for the premiere of a new documentary by the Association of British Commuters. The fight to bring Greater Manchester’s buses into public control has had incredible support from both passengers and staff. Our petition to Andy Burnham recently hit 10,000 sign...Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google PlusShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Can you do something for the town of Cleckheaton please. We are getting treated like dog dirt by Arriva, West Yorkshire Metro and the Combined Transport Authority. All political parties, MP's and local Councillors, all the press and media as well as us the loathsome Peasants are being ignored. They are causing major social isolation for people. People can't get to work, school, collage, University, appointments, meetings and even the mental health place is cut off. At a meeting in Cleckheaton the Arriva man arrived very late at a meeting organized by Tracy Brabin MP but he refused to answer questions from her let alone us plebs as he sees us. We have a major suicide problem in the area and these over paid under worked transport leaders are laughing in our faces. Please help. Please. We need help desperately. They are above every elected person and our riding roughshod of everybody. They do not reply to letters, emails or any other communication. Please help please.
Transport Act 1985, never quite worked did? The vision was I have 3 bus operators all running a route past my house and I can take the cheapest. REALITY That never last long, now we have monoploy bus operators in each area, with an independent picking up the odd routes that are not viable for the big boys.
Bus privatisation, as every other, was solely about asset stripping, I was there in the industry at the time, and saw a great many poor calibre managers become millionaires overnight from the proceeds of this fraud. This deception presented as representing choice and competition by the very same brand of politicians who sold us brexshit. Stagecoach are without doubt the nastiest form of corporate blackguards but do at least attempt to deliver a semblance of service, unless their accountants screw up totally as in the East Coast mainline franchise. First are not nearly so "professional" however one might interpret that, they really do not give a shit so long as the income is delivered, yet that income continues to massively diminish because they have no interest whatsoever in funding the measures needed to deliver even basic standards of acceptable service, and customer satisfaction means jack shit to them. For First to lose £millions on bus operations in Greater Manchester, where so many routes are conveyor belts of cash, takes a special kind of stupid. 50 minutes gaps on an 8 minute headway service, not isolated but frequently, proves the moral bankruptcy of public services being entrusted to these carpetbaggers. Meanwhile the traffic jams get longer with all the environmental considerations disregarded because your choice to sit in a car being gassed is a "democratic" one, but with such dreadful public services in the hands of corporate rats, few have any other choice, when they have to get to work on time in order to fulfill their zero hours contracts.
Please reply, don't be like these over paid underworked transport people. Please reply, please.
Yes it’s a disaster our bus system times you get bonuses then you get them all together
Looks interesting.
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Bring Back British Rail
2 weeks ago
Stagecoach Bus banned from running rail franchises. Virgin Trains could be gone by November. If this doesn't prove privatisation is broken, we don't know what will. It's time to end the farce of franchising and Bring Back British Rail. Join our campaign: bringbackbritishrail.org ...
Virgin trains will vanish from UK after ban on Stagecoach's bids
theguardian.com
DfT disqualifies partner from west coast, south eastern and east Midlands processes in pensions rowShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google PlusShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Would be great if it wasn't to be handed to a Dutch company instead. Time for public ownership and a joined up service with useable numbers of decent sized trains (not 2 coaches in rush hour) it needs to work well for a reasonable cost to get people out of their cars. But you know this already.
Three cheers, hip hip hooray. Renationise our railways.
Couldn't they get a contract to run the ferries? Failing will award them to anybody
If he is such a good business man, why should this Stagecoach issue be an issue. Just bid for the Franchise 100% without Stagecoach as a partner.
Crap train service from a man who Sues the NHS - good riddance
If he looses the franchise, he will probably sue the government and get a big payout, just like he did when he lost a contract with the NHS. The millions paid out to him could have employed more doctors, nurses, funded operations... but no he needed the money. Greedy man and a greedy company. I Never use or buy anything Virgin, they ripped me off once and that was it, I boycott them.
Can you take Branson with you.
Good riddance.
Wouldn't believe anything from that rag
I expect we will let some company from Germany take on the franchise
Essential services are best run with business methods as opposed to as a business.
Re-nationalisation of public transport and utility companies is the only way forward !!
Anything that takes business away from Richard Branson can only be a good thing.
Are Abellio or that crap Govia any better, what we really need to to see the back of Failing Grayling.
Great. Bring them all back into public hands. We pay these private companies a bloody fortune in subsidies - that's not how the private sector is supposed to operate, is it?
Can't even keep his gravy train on the rails.
now if we can get him out of the NHS it will be a victory of such magnitude .........
Our present government is totally committed to state ownership of the railways in Britain - but foreign state ownership.
Where would a company like eurostar stand? 🤔🤔😏
I did a jig when I heard this on the news. Best news all month. Bye, bye greedy Branson.
Abellio running East Midlands Trains will be an utter disaster like they were to Northern Rail
Grea8t get rid of Branson we should get him out of NHS as well Nasty man
They wont take anything away from Branson he is one of theirs
Great! Get rid of that useless hairy faced remoaner tax dodger!!!
How many major companies are left...??? XC, arriva, first...??? Don't include subs of the above...
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Bring Back British Rail
4 weeks ago
The Scottish Government has had the power to have a publicly-owned operator for ScotRail since the 2016 Scotland Act. Why are they persisting with this failing franchise with Abellio, a company owned by the Dutch Government? you.38degrees.org.uk/p/publicrailwayscotland ...
ScotRail won't hit punctuality target until end of 2021
scotsman.com
ScotRail will not now hit its performance target until the end of 2021, the train operator admitted to MSPs today.Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google PlusShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Well, because Labour mostly. And Abelio have a contract.
Nowt wrong with publicity runned rail system. After all, the Government is now taking the troubled G4S runned Birmingham Prison into public hands. Privatisation is a disaster.
Compared with the rest of the rail system, that's not bad. Most companies can't guarantee that there will a train at any given time of the day.
And the rest !!!!
Im sure scotland will want to follow Wales as soon as it can...for the people not for profit!
Follow the money! Check against a list of minister's wives and relatives the ownership of PR companies used by the railway company. Giving a lucrative but less than onerous contract to companies who just happened to be run by minister's relatives is how the tories did it south of the border.
My theory is that the ScotGov gave Abellio the franchise as a sort of consolation prize for not giving them CalMac (which remains nationalised)
Big fat brown ENVERLOPES springs to mind ££££££
Because they offered the most attractive bid in a competitive tender. The franchisor needs to ensure franchisee delivers on this. If not, screw franchisee into the ground with contractual penalties and enjoy Dutch Government reaction. NS will have to come clean in their annual accounts.
The Railways particularly in Scotland are a loss making enterprise outside of the big cities, Scotland is funded via the Barnett Formula, to Nationalise the Railways without the full suite of Levers needed to balance our economy would be Political suicide, and it wouldn't lead to better services, worse we would have to Rob Peter to pay Paul to prop it up! Westminster has always offered enough rope to hang ourselves and no more, wake up!
Bus companies running railways never ends well.
Because the SNP don't have the stones to pursue a genuinely left-wing economic agenda?
On Wednesday I boarded a Scotrail train in Doncaster, travelling south towards Sheffield. My Scottish friends tell they have a shortage of rolling stock. What the hell is going on?
The tender cannot be negotiated until 2021, ScotGov only gained powers to nationalise after the contract had been awarded. Your post is misleading at best.
You also have to factor in tge amount of delay caused by engineering work on the track. That all comes under network rail, a nationalised organisation
I guess the Scottish government will probably give a similar reason that the Labour Party give for not re-nationalising the railways when they were in power.
The targets expected at 2021 have been delayed by a previously late running estimate.
Or maybe the punctuality target will arrive late.
No the Scottish government did not from 2016 as Abellio has the contract and that was from Westminster so suggest you get your facts right
Because it's all about management and big salaries and not enough workers...very much top heavy...
" Why are they persisting with this failing franchise with Abellio, a company owned by the Dutch Government? " because the contract has an exit clause which doesn't come into play until 2020. attempting to end the contract before then would constitute breach of contract, which would result in a lawsuit which the scottish government would not win ( because the way exit clauses work, you're trapped in the contract until the date the exit clause becomes available to use, no matter what ), meaning paying out damages and legal costs, wasting public money that should be being used on the nationalisation itself, on compensating abellio, who don't deserve it. the cost of the likely level of damages and legal costs is higher than the cost of continuing on until the exit clause can actually be used, therefore..... as for the 2016 scotland act, please bear in mind it did *not* come into force immediately, and the current franchise stems from 2015, before the 2016 scotland act was even passed. ( and, y'know " we'll just no have any trains for a couple of years so we don't have an ongoing contract when the power to nationalise actually comes into force " wasn't exactly an option that was ever going to be considered. ) the snp have been quite clear that they do intend to bring rail operations back into public ownership and operation, they're just trying to do so sensibly, rather than " damn the cost to a budget already strained by westminster austerity, do it now ". edit : another benefit of the delay, btw, is that by the time nationalisation is actually an option... the rolling stock will have been renewed ( start date for the renewal is supposed to be july this year ), eliminating a bunch of operational problems relating to aging stock. another thing to consider, is that perhaps, just perhaps, the scottish government is aware that a lot of the problems with regards to scotrail's punctuality and service operation records, stem from network rail and their poor maintenance, and lack of adequate expansion, of the rail infrastructure. infrastructure control is *not* devolved to holyrood, it remains under westminster, and remains privately operated, by network rail. oh, and for the record, before anyone assumes i'm just some snp member defending their party..... i'm not an snp member, they're too pro-capitalist and too pro-religion, and i'm a communist, so....
Japan wouldn't stand for this tardiness. We need to be more like Japan!
Because the SNP are neoliberal with a bit of socialist window dressing
That would be because they didn't have that power in 2016, but don't let facts get in the way...
late reaching target? So normal service then
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Bring Back British Rail shared a post.
1 month ago
We agree, rail franchising is broken and public ownership is the answer! Today Bring Back British Rail and We Own It met Keith Williams, head of the Williams Rail Review in London. Please take time to #TellKeith your views before the deadline on 31 May 2019
📝 gov.uk/government/consultations/williams-rail-review
We Own It
This morning we spoke to the man in charge of the biggest review of the railway since privatisation. ...
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Please take time to #TellKeith your views before the deadline on 31 May 2019 📝 gov.uk/government/consultations/williams-rail-review
Yes bring back Public ownership
The big point with the current shambles is that it is expensive, bureaucratic, inefficient and dis-jointed. BR may not have been perfect, but was starved of investment, and became the second most efficient rail network in Europe.
If you want public transport back in public ownership DO NOT VOTE TORY.
The Railway infrastructure is already in public hands and the DFT pretty much dictates what the TOC's can and can't do. As fond as I was over BR I can't help wonder how keeping things in politicians hands are actually going to help.
All public services need to be returned to public ownership
British Rail wasn’t exactly a resounding success ....... a third of the network and hundreds of towns and villages deprived of their stations.
Slightly concerning to hear Williams state two weeks ago that "the current rail model is no longer fit for purpose", when it's been obvious from the outset that it never was fit for purpose. I hope this latest review doesn't become another whitewash.
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Bring Back British Rail shared a post.
1 month ago
All our public transport should be publicly-owned!
Please support our friends at Better Buses for Greater Manchester who are lobbying Mayor Andy Burnham to use his new powers to regulate the profiteering bus companies across the city. Sign up here: betterbusesgm.org.uk
We Own It
Thatcher gave our buses to the fatcats - join the fightback. ...
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BETTER BUSES FOR BRITAIN.
Burnham is a nice fellow but he's not the brightest tool. He's certainly not dynamic and hasn't got the balls to do something as radical as this.
I worked on the buses during the 1985 "deregulation" ..... With all it's faults the old style council/corporation bus service was the best ever.
Good for passengers bad for drivers, London Bus drivers pay rates are 50% below market value, with drivers having to wait to complete 5 years service to receive the top rate of pay- this is reflected in every bus company in London being many hundreds of drivers short of full capacity and many senior drivers losing their jobs through draconian company policies. Companies compete for the most profitable routes constantly with a continuous merry go round of contracts being awarded to those who claim to meet unrealistic service targets and by undercutting their rivals bids (a race to the bottom). It will look great for the local mayors who pedal that fares have been held down and services have been increased, but spare a thought for those who physically provide the service being forced to work more than WTD hours and often on 9 day shifts, starting earlier and finishing later on shift on mostly empty buses outside of peak hours. Just for political point scoring with the voting public. Just remember the next time you pay an below market fare for your journey- the human cost involved!
fairs are set via local govt, same as times and routes back where i live in the north east we have 2 busses per hour to the closest city, simple fact is were are the town furthest away from the city, those towns closer have a better system, less people use them simply on account of time a car is cheaper and faster. you say about london, yes fairs are cheaper as more people use the busses
Bring back “GM BUSES” 🤞
London buses do not work as the services are millions in debt and services are being cut FAKE NEWS
Who wants to ride on these things. People voted with their right foot.
Gbemi Babalola
Wish this, like everything could be regulated nationwide. Its good with a lot of Burnham is trying to do with regards to transport, but things need to happen nationwide. I hope the Tories die out in my lifetime, but i wont count on it happening.
Why give the services to private bus companies? Re-nationalise them!
Maggie Thatcher was the worst thing to hit Britain since, well, Maggie Thatcher. A tedious schoolmistress fatally attracted to "crumbs from the rich man's table" economics. One of the great moments of my life was seeing her downfall. Mind you, all we got then was Maggie Minor.
Not only transport but everything else the tories sold off that was once ours now we’re paying extortionate for.well vote Tory and that’s to be expected.
Ellen Clare Sue Thompson Sue Hulme Wah Leather
unless money is put into public transport, like trains and buses, the roads will always be blocked up somewhere, but some areas the last bus is before 10pm, and even before that, and if the free bus pass for those who qualify is taken away, then there will be even fewer buses,
Stagecoach are one of the worst.
Thatcher's successor John Major, privatised London's buses in '94 & this current tory shower are shuttering down routes where ordinary workers rely upon them...
More than ever the potential is enormous
Too bloody right.
Doing well in Edinburgh
Jordan Ashall
Bring back BRS
Labour were in power for 13 years yet not one thing nationalised
would it work though ???. i used to tink it would, but ive learnt so much over the last few years that suggests otherwise....to be honest, we're fucked either way
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