"nzuri" wrote in message

I only visit London occasionally, but seems to me from the odd
glimpse of the Underground I get every couple of months that it's
going downhill fast. Am I just seeing the bad bits, or is this
generally true? Took a Circle train a couple of weeks ago and it was
a complete pig-sty - covered in graffiti, knee-deep in fast food
wrappers (not to mention the actual fast food) etc., and this was at
12.30pm.

I'm deeply cynical about the whole privatisation thing, so this
obviously colours my views. It no doubt looks like a wonderful idea
on paper to the Treasury economists with their theoretical models of
how the world works. Doesn't work in practice because people are
greedy, inefficient and generally behave in ways that no model can,
er, model. (Just like that other brilliant piece of economist's
thinking: Marxism). I'd be fascinated to know, for example, how many
people are now involved in running the tube, including all the
private sector companies, lawyers, accountants, public relations
types etc.. I'd be prepared to bet that the number of those on 6
figure 'packages' (including directors, non-execs (pro-rated), etc
etc.) has gone through the roof compared with the previous
arrangements.

Summary: it wasn't broke before, it was lunacy to try to 'fix' it
like this. Quote: for every economist, there's an equal and opposite
economist.

It's too early to say how it will work out long-term, but as an occasional
user, it seems to me that the Tube has become slightly less reliable
day-to-day since the PFI scheme came in. However, as it had been running in
shadow form for some time before then, the current poor performance is
probably the result of problems that pre-date the actual switchover.

Overall, I think it's almost inevitable that fracturing the organisation in
this way will increase costs, just as it did with BR (if only to pay for the
extra legal agreements that manage the inter-company interfaces). It
certainly isn't likely to help safety, though I suspect the two recent
derailments are almost certainly due to standards that have been falling for
some time and not as a result of PFI.

But, of course, every cloud has a silver lining -- the previously
loss-making WS Atkins is now doing rather well, thanks to the PFI deal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/s...098527,00.html
Good news for Atkins shareholders, bad news for Londoners and British
taxpayers, I guess. I wonder, are Atkins Labour party donors?

Was it "broken" before and did it need fixing? Probably yes, because the
Tube had been suffering from low investment and bad management for a long,
long time.

But was this the right solution? I don't think so, and I imagine that most
people outside the Treasury and the PFI contractors doubt it as well.