I dunno. TBF the rail industry has been an absolute basket case for decades now so I guess *something* had to be done? I'll give it a chance.
The problem is they can't afford to pay for it because they're all making no money at present.
If they can't affors it, re-nationalise. Things like woring tax credits or universal benefits or whatever they are called these days is just the taxpayer proping up profits in private industry, feck em all. If you cant run the business properly, pay a decent wage (which should be mandatory), let them go bust, then but them at the firesale.
Happy to renationalise it personally, but the public don't seem to care enough about it to vote for it.
And the profit taken by the same publicly owned body BBG?
I would imagine the train operators would still bag the majority of the tax subsidised profits.
Then I think I will go back to my original position feck emI would imagine the train operators would still bag the majority of the tax subsidised profits.
It will probably be better for a fully integrated transport system if the whole infrastructure is under one roof. Hopefully it will make full renationalisation an easier step in future.
I vaguely remember a Not The Nine Oclock News sketch about the Iran/Iraq conflict in the 80's where Iranian forces had gone so far west and Iraq forces so far east that they just switched the countries names. That could apply to Labour and Tory at the minute - Not meant to spark another Labour have left me homeless, meltdown.
Rail companies have paid out over £1bn in dividends to shareholders since 2013.
Of that I've no doubt but I'd be surprised if they've made much over the last 18 months. Most of the franchises were struggling to make it profitable as it was. I have absolutely no issue with taking away the incentive of profit though, which is obviously their priority.
