Unless Starmer gets a large majority a Labour government wont be able to deliver anything of note. Even with a large majority he will have to be ruthless with party discipline and it will take at least two terms to start to move the dial.
Key point - how many average commuters will be voting Labour if it's going to take 5 years?
Interesting to hear your thoughts, I wasn’t fishing for an argument. Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts.
Not everything in politics should be about winning votes, also given the polls I would imagine far more commuters will be voting Labour than Tory
But that costs money. They can tell everybody they're renationalising something by simply letting the operator contracts expire, its free. Taking over the rolling stock means having to buy it.
One step at a time, the Tory government isn't exactly leaving the country rolling in cash
Saving money in the long run.
Is Network rail, ie the infrastructure government owned already?
Yes, it has been run as a government body since 2014, with any debt accrued being added to the national debt.
So what exactly would be nationalised? The ROSCO's still own the rolling stock and lease them out to operating companies. Will they lease them to the government instead if the government aren't going to buy the rolling stock?
Money now costs more than money spread out over years. Good job they're not getting their corporate finance advice from him! I saw an estimate of £10b to buy all the existing rolling stock off the lessors.
The train operating franchises would be nationalised. The government would be taking over the role of Govia, and leasing the stock from the ROSCO's in commercial deals, to then be used by the new public TOCs.
We have literally just announced spending an extra £75bn on defence over the next six years: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...et-to-increase-defence-spending-to-25-by-2030.
Hmm. So the government are dependent on the ROSCO's and presumably have to employ all the staff currently employed by the operating companies.
You think it's going to be cheap prying the railways from those foreign investors ?
There are mechanisms for taking services back into public ownership in a way there isn't for the other industries
Time
Affordability is the biggest problem, then there is the issue of maintaining the quality of the rolling stock.
Farage goes there every day. The more he shouts , the more people come.
When the boats don't stop his mob will claim we need a massive sea wall. Tory leader 2030 to have "build a wall" written on his podium
Don’t taxpayers basically pay for the infrastructure anyway? My understanding was the private sector mostly just operates the services and takes a profit, with minimal responsibility for the actual infrastructure.
The only way the boats will stop is if they open legal routes. Get a sensible political party going with "Open legal routes" on the podium.
That's too sensible
Tax payers pay for infrastructure, tracks, tunnels, stations, bridges etc because Network rail which owns it was taken back under the control of the Department of transport about ten years ago when it effectively went bust, so tax payers are responsible for any debts and any profits are invested back into the network, so your post is pretty much spot on!
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Why do you constantly bang on about a large majority? Outside of really contentious policy like Brexit and culture war nonsense it's very rare for a government not to get its own motions backed even with a small majority.
No argument from me that procurement needs to be massively improved. That will be one of the challenges that takes time to resolve. I don't believe that public procurement is inherently terrible though. I wouldn't pretend to know the ins and outs of the rolling stock contracts or the feasibility of creating new publically owned stock.
This data confirms the spike in shoplifting, but doesn't indicate how many of the cases the police actually responded to. It's crazy that the police are not giving a shit about this stuff- it all contributes to the place being a shithole.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shoplifting-hits-highest-level-in-at-least-20-years-pvspgzbj3
£10b is still £10b. What they spend on other stuff isn't really relevant. It's a lot of money that would need to be added to the debt pile that any incoming government needs to get control of. £12b (eg) spread over years is a lot more palatable than £10b upfront.
Funnily enough I was walking behind a couple of women who were talking about this the other day and one of them said “see they don’t have any drinking problems in France because they have lots of wine with every meal”.
It's probably a knock on effect from the massive cuts dealt to policing between 2010 and 2020, even with the police uplift, the National Police Chief Council says they're still facing real terms cuts of 3.2 billion and many of the new police officers are doing the job of police staff made redundant over a ten year period rather than actual policing on the streets.
Plus 12 officers being devoted to checking each and every Council Tax and Capital Gains issue of course.
I would suggest that the larger the majority the more quickly a Labour government can move to 'moving the dial' significantly for the majority of people. I suspect a smaller seat majority will mean more disruption internally for the Labour government with individuals wanting their 'pound of flesh' to support certain issues they might otherwise not have agreed with. That's internally, externally lots of 'bear-traps' are set for those with small majorities, not to mention other mishaps that can occur.
