Cannot the operating company and the infrastructure nonetheless be
state-owned?

Indeed but IMU the work performed on it has to be publicly advertised
to the rest of the EU and then awarded to the most suitable (not
necessarily the cheapest) candidate not just to e.g. Mr Millipede's
chosen recipient. Renationalising the infrastructure is probably the
easy part but not the trains using it.

Yep, it’s in the Lisbon treaty, once the competition genie has been
let out of the bottle, whether it be competitive tendering for NHS,
education or railways it can’t go back in.

Under EU rules, the only way the UK government can regain control is
by bidding in the competitive market so created, just like anyone else
and, that’s not the end of it either, they would have to re-bid
periodically as well.

Now remind us again who it was that signed us up to the Lisbon treaty
(whether we like it or not) oh that was Miliband’s ‘can’t win a vote
outside of Kirkcaldy’ best mate Gordon.

Ed Miliband is setting himself up for a great big fall the way he
keeps trying to walk away from the last Labour government, pretending
it had all never happened.

He’s been at it today again, over the Libor banking scandal, which
news reports over the weekend have now implicated the BoE and that’s
perilously close to government err… the one he was in the Treasury
with at the time.

A proper democratic party would have cleansed itself of their
disastrous previous thirteen years in office but then Labour isn’t a
proper democratic party.

allantracy wrote:
Ed Miliband is setting himself up for a great big fall the way he
keeps trying to walk away from the last Labour government, pretending
it had all never happened.


.... just like David Cameron who pretends he had nothing to do with the
last Tory government, in spite of his role as Special Adviser to the
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont. Pictures from Black
Wednesday (16.9.92) when the pound was forced out of the Exchange Rate
Mechanism show Lamont and Cameron strutting together.

So on the basis of your argument, David Cameron must also be setting
himself (and the country) up for a great big fall. ;-)

On Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:38:45 +0100, Bruce wrote:

So on the basis of your argument, David Cameron must also be setting
himself (and the country) up for a great big fall. ;-)

Isn't he?

--
Alex

Friedmanite dogma is a good example of Einstein's statement that
insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a
different result.


Err... wasn't it Friedmanite insanity that built our railway network,
in the first place, and wasn't it Stalinist insanity, as applied to
the burgeoning road network, that did so much to undermine the
finances of some otherwise very sound private railway operations?

Yes, it is just as believable as Harold Wilson & co. saying they will
halt the Beeching closures. But as for the EU - sooner or later, we will
get a UK government that will tell EU precisely what to do with their
policies. A lot of people are getting fed up with EU meddling in what
they consider to be matters for our own government.


Possibly, as early as the next election if news reports today are to
be believed.

However, even if we came out, it’s still highly likely that we would
remain members of the single market, a basic condition of membership
being that we could not engage in the protectionism of closing off any
of our markets, such as railway franchises, to other members of the
single market.

So on the basis of your argument, David Cameron must also be setting
himself (and the country) up for a great big fall. * ;-)

Isn't he?


Possibly, though quite how you fall out of a hole, you're clearly
already in, remains to be seen.

I’ve always believed that, provided David can keep his hands off the
nukes, he won’t have to deliver a great deal to be considered a
considerable improvement on what had come before.

Labour backs plans to return railway network to public control


Labour has, by now, a long record of opposing Tory reforms, in
opposition, around the public sector and then failing to do a single
thing about them when, or if, returned to office.

Thanks to their union ties, the Labour party is the real conservative
party nowadays in this country, having failed to produce any real
radical changes of any consequence for years.

Apart from completely f**king up the nation’s finances the only thing
I can think of the last lot did that you can now, with hindsight,
never see being undone was civil partnerships.

I would have added to that list the commendable decision to create an
independent BoE but as that particular piece of dysfunctional wazzock
brain implementation continues to unravel by the day, to the point of
needing a complete rebuild, the credit counter rather diminishes.

On 02/07/2012 16:19, allantracy wrote:

Friedmanite dogma is a good example of Einstein's statement that
insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a
different result.


Err... wasn't it Friedmanite insanity that built our railway network,
in the first place, and wasn't it Stalinist insanity, as applied to
the burgeoning road network, that did so much to undermine the
finances of some otherwise very sound private railway operations?

There is something to what you say. The railways were saved first by
compulsory amalgamation in 1925, then by nationalization in 1947, by
which time three of the four companies were going out of business. Even
Margaret Thatcher stopped short of privatization, being a somewhat
cannier Friedmanite than her epigones (I'll give her that much).

--
Myth, after all, is what we believe naturally. History is what we must
painfully learn and struggle to remember. -Albert Goldman

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:05:25 +0100, Bruce
wrote:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/ju...rk-state-contr
ol

Labour backs plans to return railway network to public control

Sweeping reform would begin with renationalisation of key routes and
end franchising of services

There was a short discussion about this on monday's Daily Politics
featuring Maria Eagle. She was as unconvincing as ever - she really
does not appear interested in her shadow brief. Will Hutton raised
some interesting points.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...cs_02_07_2012/

Starts 24 mins in and lasts about 4 mins.

Indeed. It is distressing how few politicians in any party show they have
the first idea how to run a transport system. And many of them have been or
are Transport Ministers or Shadow Ministers. I wouldn't single out Maria
Eagle in that concern.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Jul 3, 8:41*am, Martin Edwards wrote:
On 02/07/2012 16:19, allantracy wrote:



Friedmanite dogma is a good example of Einstein's statement that
insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a
different result.

Err... wasn't it Friedmanite insanity that built our railway network,
in the first place, and wasn't it Stalinist insanity, as applied to
the burgeoning road network, that did so much to undermine the
finances of some otherwise very sound private railway operations?

There is something to what you say. *The railways were saved first by
compulsory amalgamation in 1925, then by nationalization in 1947, by
which time three of the four companies were going out of business. *Even
Margaret Thatcher stopped short of privatization, being a somewhat
cannier Friedmanite than her epigones (I'll give her that much).

A major part of the financial problems the railways faced in the 1930s
and later was that they were subject to government regulation of
passenger fares and freight tarrifs, and subject to common carrier
obligations, that were created when the railways were effectively
regional monopolies, but that were no longer appropriate when
motorised road traffic provided effective competition. Railways could
not turn away freight that was expensive to transport (common carrier)
and could not price it off (freight rates were controlled by
government), nor could they increase rates on what should have been
profitable traffic. That's before the lack of payment for wartime
traffic loads are considered.

Robin