train operators take around 2% profit but First group still paid around £500 million to shareholders in Dec 2021 .Th e government are putting £53 billion of taxpayers money into network rail between 2019 & 24
The rail delivery group represents the train operators , probably represents a rather one sided view
What they may get in the not too distant future is Automated Driverless Trains and Tube Trains, they will not longer be able to damage our economy , nor hinder the travelling public who pay their wages by buying expensive tickets, IMO the sooner the better
A big chunk of the ticket price goes back to the government as franchise fee & to share holders
The railways should be renationalised, the same with water companies
These industries are essentially monopolies, without the possibility of alternative suppliers
The public will never get a good deal out of a monopoly
You are blaming the government?!! The railway companies are the employers. The unions would rather the government got involved because this is a political battle.
Incidentally, if you are trying to spread the myth that the customer is simply collateral damage, pray tell me why the unions deliberately target days to strike which have maximum impact on the public.
They are wreckers and Luddites and not fit for purpose in the modern world.
The rail companies are the employers but the government is directly involved in the negotiations.
The government own Network Rail & pay each franchise large amounts of taxpayers money
This not a normal business/union relationship
Of course the public are affected, if your going to strike you want it to have maximum effect
Display MoreHindsight is always 100% accurate Boris and the Government did consider not locking down the Herd Instinct which means the survival of the fittest, that all well and good as good but what about those who do not have a strong active immune system, its Hobson's Choice for them.
Even with lockdown many without a strong immune system were killed by the Virus so were those who had stronger constitutions , seasonal flu kills many evet year , how many died because they listened to Crazy Conspiracy theorists who stated the Vaccines were dangerous, and all the nonsense about microchips.
If we had not locked down and had not vaccinated as many as we did would the death toll been higher or lower ? who knows, no matter what Government we had be it Labour or Tory they had to make decisions of medical advice.
The Virus is still with us , my wife's Immune System is not good badly damaged following a freak accident in late 2020 three major ops and a bone graft later it is still not good and that may be the case for the rest of her life.
Thanks to the Vaccinations she beat Covid in April this year, without that protections it may have been a different story
I think the Lockdowns probably went on a bit too long & certainly the furlough scheme should have ended earlier but I broadly supported the government stance ,I’ve had all the jabs but I’ve had Covid 3 times but without being seriously ill .
Would I have been worse without the jabs ?I don’t know but I’m glad I had them
Abuse it once too often and that power will be taken away.
Who are you or the government to arbitrarily say what constitutes abuse ?
Everyone wants more pay. The railway workers’ argument is with their employer, not the general public.
But the general public are the customer so unfortunately they are the people who will suffer
The government don’t care about the public in many ways the dispute suits their agenda, just like Thatcher & the miners.
The right to strike in a right
I think most people who voted for leave knew full well it would not be all plain sailing and I also suspect that the French would be as awkward as possible , however we will get through this .
Remainers should take a good look at the EU all is not well in the EU many people right across the EU are not happy that they are in the EU run by nameless faceless unelected pencil pushers , others may well follow our lead
Another often used cliche by the leave side , perhaps you like to put a name to these political parties or organisations ?
An organisation like the EU is always going get criticised & probably with justification but leaving Is a completely different matter
Ukraine wants to join
You may choose to believe that but it would be impossible to substantiate that claim. Many elderly people with compromised immune systems have survived Covid or not caught it at all or shaken it off in much the same manner as fu. That is not to downplay that Covid is a nasty bug, it is, but the vaccine was very limited in the benefits is provided, mainly social and access benefits as far as I can tell. The vaccine became politicised as did covid, a weapon of left wing ideology.
You post some nonsense but that last sentence is the most ridiculous ever
Yes Civil Servants do not run the country , it matters not which Government we have in place the Politicians run the country , they decide what is to happen and the Civil Service is supposed to implement their instructions , those that don't carry out those instructions should be sacked IMO
That’s all very well but politicians but those instructions have to be legal & comprehensive.
It’s very easy for politicians to blame civil servants.
People are free to go to work now that the pandemic is over. It will take a bit of time to make up the shortfall in earnings but those prepared to work diligently can achieve this.
But No ---- many misguided people are spoiling this by going on strike instead , making their income and that of the general public even worse.
The government could do more to control the cost of living ,controlling rent for instance but they won’t become the are ideological opposed to the idea.
The railway workers are standing up for their own rights because no one else will
They have the power, you can’t blame them for using it
Even wealthy areas have pockets of poverty. Not everyone appreciates this, and that is the point he was addressing.
I’m not ‘defending’ him, I’m correcting the false impression the media is giving to this ‘story’.
You are defending him , we heard what he said , your entitled to draw your own conclusions but you can’t go round correcting anyone because you don’t know for sure what he meant.
You have just heard his subsequent explanation which could easily be BS
As I understand it, he did this because the allocation of that money to deprived areas ignored the poverty in other areas. He simply wanted to redress that balance to provide help to them as well.
Context is everything.
I might be inclined to believe it if he’d said it a deprived area but he said it in Tunbridge Wells .
But you will continue to believe their excuses til the day you die
So Sunak has admitted he moved funding from deprived areas .
Proof that levelling up was just more BS
Display MoreI’m not making excuses for anyone. I acknowledge the complaints people make about his attitude and his flippant approach to things that some people get awfully offended by, like cakes, but we are electing people to carry out a manifesto, and that is what is important. Boris was doing quite well until Covid struck, and I certainly give him credit for taking on the remainers and getting us out of the EU.
Of all the political parties, the Conservatives had the manifesto that captured the imagination of the public, and implementing that is what I care about.
You can ignore comments about the predominantly Left-wing Civil Service if you want, but it is a fact. When I first started working in local government, it was drummed into us that staff were expected to be politically neutral, but over time, that principle was slowly but surely worn away to the point where politicians of both sides started to question advice they were being given. Although affecting both sides of the political spectrum, the bias became more prominent on the Left.
My contact with the Civil Service employees in later years showed me that this problem was more extensive and ingrained in the Civil Service - a huge change since the 1960s where I spent five years of my career.
They are doing themselves no favours. If the politicians can no longer trust their Civil Servants, they will be bringing in their own administrations lock, stock and barrel, as the Americans do.
This is why we are seeing the trend towards political advisors in government. It’s not a trend I like to see, but government employees are doing this to themselves.
Trust needs to be a 2 way street, Johnson has spent his time blaming everyone else
Truss is already blaming the Bank of England for not do enough to counter inflation
Criticism should be kept behind closed doors.
Truss is like a small dog barking loudly but she doesn’t have any bite
But the polls say different Mike.
Whether we like her or not, the fishy people have the majority in the Scottish parliament and form the majority of Scottish seats at Westminster.
As you say Like her or loath she is the democratic elected Leader of the Scottish parliament. Truss doesn’t have to like her but she does have to deal with her
I thought Johnson was a disgrace but Truss will be even worse
She is already an International embarrassment
Protests should be focused on the government and authority but not against ordinary members of the public.
I'm surprised that the ordinary public has been as patient as it has to-date.
The protesters rely on law abiding citizens to not harm them when they glue themselves to the road, it would be easy to cross the line and do something silly and then where would we be?.
Who are you to decide how people protest ?
It’s their right
Granted choosing to glue yourself to a tube train may well be counterproductive to your cause but that’s not the point I’m making
Display MoreThat is completely wrong. It’s the rail workers’ unions who are trying to control us, preventing people from going about their business. They want to hold us to ransom in order to get more money than the rest of us.
Protesters also stop us from going about our normal business because they take it too far and won’t let us pass. You have a funny idea of what freedom is.
Protests are not banned by this government. But obstruction and nuisance is.
There is no slippery slope unless you guys get your way and make our lives impossible. I’m sure Liz Truss won’t let that happen.
We have our liberty, although the wokes are trying to take away free speech and generally undermining our way of life. Why can you not see this?
As I said it’s Liberty on their terms .
A protest that doesn’t cause a nuisance isn’t a protest
The rail worker ultimately only have one course of action which is to strike
The union & the rail companies are not allowed to negotiate without interference from government, the matter would probably be settled by now with the interference on Shaps
Liz Truss is a gibbering fool who will be more disastrous than Johnson
Frankly Boyle made a joke about raping & murdering Holly Willoughby
The Anti woke Daily Mail screaming about it
For me it’s a joke in poor taste but nevertheless it a JOKE
More fake Liberty
Communism has never worked - anywhere. Why would anyone want to control people rather than give them their freedom to make something of themselves?
These people should go to somewhere like North Korea and experience it for themselves.
As for this guy's article, I agree with Armitage. It's over-the-top, negative
This government want to control people, they want to stop the rail workers striking
They want to curtail protests
This is a slippery slope.
They talk of Liberty but it’s on their terms
Richard Seymour (born 1977) is a Northern Irish Marxist writer and broadcaster, activist, and owner of the blog Lenin's Tomb. He is the author of books such as The Meaning of David Cameron (2010), Unhitched (2013), Against Austerity (2014) and Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (2016). Seymour was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland to a Protestant family,[1] and currently lives in London. A former member of the Socialist Workers Party,[2] he left the organisation in March 2013. He completed his PhD in sociology at the London School of Economics under the supervision of Paul Gilroy.[3] His thesis, dated 2016, was titled Cold War anticommunism and the defence of white supremacy in the southern United States.[4] In the past he has written for publications such as The Guardian and Jacobin.
Should you feel like taking a look at the whole wikipedia page for this gentleman it is below
None of the above means he’s wrong about the state of the UK today
In broad terms his statement is accurate
Yes, absolutely correct, Armitage.
Whatever happened to political neutrality in the Civil Service?
Johnson was lazy a liar & a crook
It is very easy to blame the civil service for your failings
All you old buggers do is make excuses for the failures of your beloved Tory party
Quite frankly it’s pathetic
