Good article about the sell off of East Coast rail from Owen Jones. It should also be added that by most measures British Rail was one of the most efficient rail operators in Europe before it was flogged off by John Major 20 years ago. An efficient nationalised industry is heretical to the right-wing dogma... No wonder they’re flogging off the publicly owned east coast rail franchise: its very existence is a stubborn rejection of “the market does best” dogma. Public ownership has routinely been caricatured as a wasteful, subsidy-guzzling failure. How infuriating it must be, then, for free-market ideologues that east coast depended on less public subsidies than any of the 15 privately run rail franchises. Indeed, the franchise has proved a lucrative cash cow for the state, bringing in around £1bn to the exchequer since 2009. East coast is an embarrassing success story for public ownership. Instead, it must be run by a tax exile and a Scottish businessman perhaps best known for campaigning against gay equality......
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 12:00:00 +0000
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