General UK politics

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I'm trying to think of things that would be more unlikely than a Tory government renationalising the railways..... declaring war on the USA? Boris Johnson doing an 8 hour shift? Rees-Mogg not coming across as a ******
 
Budget has just been delayed

https://www.lgcplus.com/finance/breaking-budget-delayed-23-09-2020/

edit - "Rishi Sunak has scrapped his plan for an autumn budget and will announce fresh measures to halt job losses and business failures on Thursday amid government fears that a second wave of Covid-19 threatens Britain with a double-dip recession.

The chancellor has decided that the long-term decisions that would have featured in the annual set piece event must be shelved in order for the Treasury to be able to focus on avoiding a short-term economic crisis.

With signs that the summer spurt in growth has proved short lived, Sunak will use his statement to MPs to announce an extension of business loan schemes and a package of employment support to replace the government’s furlough scheme, which is due to end next month.

Setting the stage for a set piece Commons update, the chancellor said he would announce the details of a “winter economy plan” that would “continue protecting jobs” as Britain enters a new phase of the pandemic."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...-to-halt-job-losses/ar-BB19lNbF?ocid=msedgdhp
 
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theprestige said:
Anyway, the whole UK rail privatization thing sounds very badly botched, coming and going.
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It depends on what its purpose was. If it was about providing an efficient train service, then it failed. If it was about handing over public subsidies to the private sector, then maybe it wasn’t so badly botched. And remember, the people who set it up rarely travelled by train.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
The Liberal Democrats have resorted to offering free money and they still won't get anyone to vote for them. It'll be sexual favours and ice-cream next.
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There's support for UBI in both Labour and the Convervatives, too, and in the latest YouGov poll on the subject this year 51% of respondents were in favour vs. 24% against.

So your over-dismissive oversimplification is stupid on more than just one level.
 
Darat said:
The private sector unless it is a not for profit is always going to be more inefficient than a equivalent non-profit system as it has to add in those extra percentage points that represent the profit.

Now of course a nationalised system can be inefficient, badly run and so on...
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See, for example, the NHS Internal Market, brought to you by the same people as the privatisation of BR.

I also remember someone arguing, when British Gas was being privatised, that it was necessary because government policy was to reduce gas prices, and this couldn’t be done while it was in public ownership because the Treasury wouldn’t allow it.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
There's support for UBI in both Labour and the Convervatives, too, and in the latest YouGov poll on the subject this year 51% of respondents were in favour vs. 24% against.
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A major problem in UK politics is that a party can regularly come up with policies that the majority of the electorate agree with and still not have people vote for them because they are perceived as having no chance of winning.

A vote for what you actually want is “a wasted vote”, AKA first past the post.
 
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theprestige said:
Were the franchises intended to be run for profit? I.e., the private operator was supposed to charge the riders somewhat above cost and pocket the difference? (I'd imagine the other side of this ideal coin would be the franchise operator reducing costs while maintaining quality of service.)
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Yes they were for profit. The Franchisee put in a bid to buy the franchise.
A lot of them put in too much and had to gauge the profit by ticket price rises and under investing on rolling stock etc.
They also got a big subsidy from the govt.

Railways cost the govt a lot more to run in real terms than they ever did when it was British Rail.
 
Mojo said:
A major problem in UK politics is that a party can regularly come up with policies that the majority of the electorate agree with and still not have people vote for them because they are perceived as having no chance of winning.

A vote for what you actually want is “a wasted vote”, AKA first past the post.
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Sure. And, ironically enough, that's also something the correction of which the Lib Dems have as policy.

The point is that UBI is gradually becoming more mainstream. 170 MPs campaigned for it this year, although the current government refused to even contemplate it.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
There's support for UBI in both Labour and the Convervatives, too, and in the latest YouGov poll on the subject this year 51% of respondents were in favour vs. 24% against.

So your over-dismissive oversimplification is stupid on more than just one level.
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I wasn't being over-dismissive or stupid about UBI, I was being over-dismissive and stupid about the Lib Dems. They could adopt 'free bus tickets to Mars' as a policy and wouldn't matter one jot.
 
theprestige said:
It kinda sounds like the government was hiring private contractors to operate the lines, rather than funding a government department and government employees for that purpose.

Rather than selling the entire operation, lock, stock, and barrel, to a private firm that wanted to make a go of it.

I wonder how much of the rising costs were simply the usual costs of things rising over time. "Cheaper than it would be if you were running it today." Is one thing. But was "cheaper than it was when you ran it ten years ago" ever actually on offer?
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British Rail was carved up in to parts

One company had a monopoly on all the infrastructure of track and signalling etc.
Rolling Stock was given to a set of leasing companies and the franchise to run services were sold to a third set of companies.

Each franchise had to 'bid' for slots on the rails. When I was living in London 4 different franchises ran in to London Bridge station a 'bottleneck' on the lines in to charring Cross, cannon Street and the through lines of Thameslink.
At rush hours there were more trains than platform slots and the representatives of the different franchises were in the control room of the signal box arguing about which train should have priority and which should be left at the signals.
Some mornings we would arrive at Charring Cross on time then the next day we could be 15 minutes late, stuck outside London Bridge waiting for a platform slot.

As for the leasing companies, they were created with the single purpose of syphoning money out of the system to shareholders.
 
lionking said:
With quite a lot of experience in the public service, I would argue that public sector inefficiency trumps what you refer to as profit inefficiency. Didn’t you guys invent the term “jobsworth” to illustrate this public service inefficiency?
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The 'jobsworth" attitude is a result of bureaucracy.

If you think there is no bureaucracy in the private sector then you've been in public service too long.
 
Darat said:
What flavour ice cream, asking for a friend?
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Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Depends what kind of sexual favours you receive. It isn't an either/or proposition it's a package deal.
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Not sure I'd want to try that ice cream, just in case...

On 21 January 2006, Oaten resigned from the Liberal Democrat front bench[7] when it was revealed by the News of the World that he had hired a 23-year-old male prostitute between the summer of 2004 and February 2005. The newspaper also alleged that Oaten had engaged in 'three-in-a-bed' sex sessions with two male prostitutes.[8] Further allegations surfaced in the media over the following days, including an accusation that he had asked one of the prostitutes to engage in an act of coprophilia.
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