... You really can't blame public sector ownership for the axing of the railways. It was private sector thinking under a Tory Government.
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership. They will always screw it up (NHS, social services, armed forces etc) . But that is not an argument against public ownership. It is an argument against Tory governments.
1. Capital for investment in infrastructure can be borrowed at low rates, return much more than the cost of capital and put as an asset on the other side of the balance sheet (like the Government did with student debt).
2. Ask Southern Rail about strikes in the private sector (and customer satisfaction).
3. When Thatcher first mooted privatisation of the utilities, the top management were up in arms against it until it was pointed out to them that their remuneration should match the private sector. Suddenly their opposition vanished and over a couple of years, their remuneration quadrupled.
When one considers the greatest destruction of rail services was carried out when the network was in public hands and came about primarily as a result of a botched 'modernisation' programme and that the whole thing was driven by a minister who had made his fortune building roads, I would suggest your faith in public ownership is seriously misplaced.
It was carried out by Richard Beeching as Chairman of the British Rail Board.
Beeching had been a Director of ICI and subsequently deputy Chairman. He was on a five year secondment from ICI when he axed the railways using private sector logic (an early John Harvey Jones). He was opposed by the Labour opposition and the unions but backed by a Tory Government (Marples).
You really can't blame public sector ownership for the axing of the railways. It was private sector thinking under a Tory Government.
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
1. Capital for investment in infrastructure can be borrowed at low rates, return much more than the cost of capital and put as an asset on the other side of the balance sheet (like the Government did with student debt).
2. Ask Southern Rail about strikes in the private sector (and customer satisfaction).
3. When Thatcher first mooted privatisation of the utilities, the top management were up in arms against it until it was pointed out to them that their remuneration should match the private sector. Suddenly their opposition vanished and over a couple of years, their remuneration quadrupled.
When one considers the greatest destruction of rail services was carried out when the network was in public hands and came about primarily as a result of a botched 'modernisation' programme and that the whole thing was driven by a minister who had made his fortune building roads, I would suggest your faith in public ownership is seriously misplaced.
It was carried out by Richard Beeching as Chairman of the British Rail Board.
Beeching had been a Director of ICI and subsequently deputy Chairman. He was on a five year secondment from ICI when he axed the railways using private sector logic (an early John Harvey Jones). He was opposed by the Labour opposition and the unions but backed by a Tory Government (Marples).
You really can't blame public sector ownership for the axing of the railways. It was private sector thinking under a Tory Government.
LOL. No.
For one thing, the railways had been cutting for decades: lines weer slowly being shorn from the network even in the 1930s. As an example, I once listened to someone haranguing Beeching for destroying the Huntingdon to Kettering line, which closed in 1959 - well before Beeching.
The railways in the 1960s had a whole host of problems. In terms of route mileage, there was much unnecessary duplication, and regions that guarded their own fiefdoms rather than look at the network as a totality. The modernisation plan of 1955 had failed, and the railways were dying.
To make matters worse, railway, national and local politics intervened: hence why both the Oxford to Cambridge and Matlock to Buxton lines, which IIRC were not proposed for closure by Beeching were closed, and the mid-Wales line which was meant to be closed, was not.
Beeching made mistakes - for example, the data the decisions were made on would not pass scrutiny nowadays - but closures were inevitable. In hindsight he didn't do a terrible job as a whole, though there were some lamentable mistakes.
If you want to see something truly amazing, just read the Serpell report ...
1. Capital for investment in infrastructure can be borrowed at low rates, return much more than the cost of capital and put as an asset on the other side of the balance sheet (like the Government did with student debt).
2. Ask Southern Rail about strikes in the private sector (and customer satisfaction).
3. When Thatcher first mooted privatisation of the utilities, the top management were up in arms against it until it was pointed out to them that their remuneration should match the private sector. Suddenly their opposition vanished and over a couple of years, their remuneration quadrupled.
When one considers the greatest destruction of rail services was carried out when the network was in public hands and came about primarily as a result of a botched 'modernisation' programme and that the whole thing was driven by a minister who had made his fortune building roads, I would suggest your faith in public ownership is seriously misplaced.
It was carried out by Richard Beeching as Chairman of the British Rail Board.
Beeching had been a Director of ICI and subsequently deputy Chairman. He was on a five year secondment from ICI when he axed the railways using private sector logic (an early John Harvey Jones). He was opposed by the Labour opposition and the unions but backed by a Tory Government (Marples).
You really can't blame public sector ownership for the axing of the railways. It was private sector thinking under a Tory Government.
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
If it had been in private hands it would have been even easier to execute as it would have been easier to ignore voters.
It wasn't an example of central planning. It was an example of a Tory minister damaging the public sector.
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership.
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
IMV it was more complex than that. The modernisation plan was hamstrung by one thing: the common carrier legislation, which the railways were screaming out to have repealed. It was not, which means that millions were spent on freight works to meet those obligations that were scarcely used.
The railway's common carrier requirements were removed in ?1962?, and were the first step to getting a modern railway that could concentrate on the traffic it was best at.
A modernisation plan without the common carrier requirement might have looked very different.
ISTR it was Marples that removed the common carrier requirement, which is at odds with the claims that he wanted to hep road industry - in fact the road industry were annoyed at its removal.
1. Capital for investment in infrastructure can be borrowed at low rates, return much more than the cost of capital and put as an asset on the other side of the balance sheet (like the Government did with student debt).
2. Ask Southern Rail about strikes in the private sector (and customer satisfaction).
3. When Thatcher first mooted privatisation of the utilities, the top management were up in arms against it until it was pointed out to them that their remuneration should match the private sector. Suddenly their opposition vanished and over a couple of years, their remuneration quadrupled.
When one considers the greatest destruction of rail services was carried out when the network was in public hands and came about primarily as a result of a botched 'modernisation' programme and that the whole thing was driven by a minister who had made his fortune building roads, I would suggest your faith in public ownership is seriously misplaced.
It was carried out by Richard Beeching as Chairman of the British Rail Board.
Beeching had been a Director of ICI and subsequently deputy Chairman. He was on a five year secondment from ICI when he axed the railways using private sector logic (an early John Harvey Jones). He was opposed by the Labour opposition and the unions but backed by a Tory Government (Marples).
You really can't blame public sector ownership for the axing of the railways. It was private sector thinking under a Tory Government.
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
If it had been in private hands it would have been even easier to execute as it would have been easier to ignore voters.
It wasn't an example of central planning. It was an example of a Tory minister damaging the public sector.
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership.
ISTR that more miles of lines closed under Labour than did under the Conservatives during the Beeching cuts, despite Labours promises they wouldn't. It would have been easy for them to stop them, but they didn't.
And the reason they didn't? Sadly, most closures were necessary.
It was carried out by Richard Beeching as Chairman of the British Rail Board.
Beeching had been a Director of ICI and subsequently deputy Chairman. He was on a five year secondment from ICI when he axed the railways using private sector logic (an early John Harvey Jones). He was opposed by the Labour opposition and the unions but backed by a Tory Government (Marples).
You really can't blame public sector ownership for the axing of the railways. It was private sector thinking under a Tory Government.
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
If it had been in private hands it would have been even easier to execute as it would have been easier to ignore voters.
It wasn't an example of central planning. It was an example of a Tory minister damaging the public sector.
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership.
ISTR that more miles of lines closed under Labour than did under the Conservatives during the Beeching cuts, despite Labours promises they wouldn't. It would have been easy for them to stop them, but they didn't.
And the reason they didn't? Sadly, most closures were necessary.
OK. So either the cuts were necessary - so don't blame public ownership - or the cuts were unnecessary and driven by a Tory minister with a personal agenda - so don't blame public ownership, blame a Tory minister.
If it had been in private hands it would have been even easier to execute as it would have been easier to ignore voters.
It wasn't an example of central planning. It was an example of a Tory minister damaging the public sector.
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership.
Nope if it had been in private hands then the cuts would have continued as they had done prior to WW2 on the basis of commercial viability not ideology, nor would someone with a vested interest in shutting down as much of the network as possible have been in a position to force through his plans on a national scale.
Public ownership creates false markets which often serve against the interests of both industry and the public at large. That is why the state should have no part in the direct running of industry and other commercial operations.
Oh and in case you missed it Wilson promised to stop the cuts and then did absolutely nothing to prevent them when he came to power in 1964.
The 1955 Modernisation Plan threw massive amounts of money at the nationalised railways. It was almost all wasted. Would one have done the same again in the hope that things would be better? There was little evidence of any contrition from railway staff.
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
IMV it was more complex than that. The modernisation plan was hamstrung by one thing: the common carrier legislation, which the railways were screaming out to have repealed. It was not, which means that millions were spent on freight works to meet those obligations that were scarcely used.
The railway's common carrier requirements were removed in ?1962?, and were the first step to getting a modern railway that could concentrate on the traffic it was best at.
A modernisation plan without the common carrier requirement might have looked very different.
ISTR it was Marples that removed the common carrier requirement, which is at odds with the claims that he wanted to hep road industry - in fact the road industry were annoyed at its removal.
The big changes in the common carrier requirement were in 1953. They removed a lot of the burden of carrying material at a loss.
Not his parliamentary office, and there is considerable evidence to suggest the police lied to gain access to that. This article from before the Telegraph went so far downhill makes for grim reading:
The key point is that even if we assume that parliament is covered by search warrants - which it probably is - one was not obtained, the correct information was not given to the parliamentary authorities and therefore the laptop may have been seized illegally anyway.
That is irrelevant to the question of whether it is appropriate to have porn on a workplace computer. It isn't. Still less is it germane into the other allegations of misconduct which are rightly being investigated. But the police behaviour could easily end with criminal prosecutions here.
I think it is more that he is seen as effective organiser of campaigns, and also that Cable has poor judgement in these matters.
Possible. I mean, how plausible is it that he could have a stash of dirt to dish on such upstanding members of society as Liberals/Liberal Democrats? Given there are so few of them, they do seem to attract a surprising numbers of sleaze balls, perverts, pederasts and convicts....
Not as many as the Tories, of course. But they are better at covering things up.
Well, of course, the LibDems in the 70s & 80s had a Parliamentary party of about 10, including two acknowledged paedophiles (Cyril Smith & Clement Freud), a convicted fraudster (Bessell) and a bunny-lover and dog killer (Thorpe). I am not a huge fan of the Labour or Tory parties either, but the percentage of wrong'uns in the LibDems does seem anomalously large. Small number statistics, perhaps.
You did say "Liberal Democrats", didn`t you? When did they come into existence?
It was both instigated, guided and encouraged by Ernest Marples. It was he who appointed Beeching and set out the terms of the enquiry and subsequent report. He coincidently owned one of the companies that was being given public money to build motorways.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
IMV it was more complex than that. The modernisation plan was hamstrung by one thing: the common carrier legislation, which the railways were screaming out to have repealed. It was not, which means that millions were spent on freight works to meet those obligations that were scarcely used.
The railway's common carrier requirements were removed in ?1962?, and were the first step to getting a modern railway that could concentrate on the traffic it was best at.
A modernisation plan without the common carrier requirement might have looked very different.
ISTR it was Marples that removed the common carrier requirement, which is at odds with the claims that he wanted to hep road industry - in fact the road industry were annoyed at its removal.
The big changes in the common carrier requirement were in 1953. They removed a lot of the burden of carrying material at a loss.
Sorry about the delay in replying, was out.
Do you have more info for your 1953 date? The 1953 Transport Act didn't do much for the CC obligation AIUI.
Comments
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership. They will always screw it up (NHS, social services, armed forces etc) . But that is not an argument against public ownership. It is an argument against Tory governments.
And you can very much blame public sector ownership given that if it had been in private hands he would not have been able to carry out the cuts. The disastrous modernisation plan of the 1950s was a classic example of central planning leading to the ruination of a once great network.
For one thing, the railways had been cutting for decades: lines weer slowly being shorn from the network even in the 1930s. As an example, I once listened to someone haranguing Beeching for destroying the Huntingdon to Kettering line, which closed in 1959 - well before Beeching.
The railways in the 1960s had a whole host of problems. In terms of route mileage, there was much unnecessary duplication, and regions that guarded their own fiefdoms rather than look at the network as a totality. The modernisation plan of 1955 had failed, and the railways were dying.
To make matters worse, railway, national and local politics intervened: hence why both the Oxford to Cambridge and Matlock to Buxton lines, which IIRC were not proposed for closure by Beeching were closed, and the mid-Wales line which was meant to be closed, was not.
Beeching made mistakes - for example, the data the decisions were made on would not pass scrutiny nowadays - but closures were inevitable. In hindsight he didn't do a terrible job as a whole, though there were some lamentable mistakes.
If you want to see something truly amazing, just read the Serpell report ...
It wasn't an example of central planning. It was an example of a Tory minister damaging the public sector.
The moral is: don't let a Tory government anywhere near public ownership.
The railway's common carrier requirements were removed in ?1962?, and were the first step to getting a modern railway that could concentrate on the traffic it was best at.
A modernisation plan without the common carrier requirement might have looked very different.
ISTR it was Marples that removed the common carrier requirement, which is at odds with the claims that he wanted to hep road industry - in fact the road industry were annoyed at its removal.
And the reason they didn't? Sadly, most closures were necessary.
Public ownership creates false markets which often serve against the interests of both industry and the public at large. That is why the state should have no part in the direct running of industry and other commercial operations.
Oh and in case you missed it Wilson promised to stop the cuts and then did absolutely nothing to prevent them when he came to power in 1964.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/01/for-pittas-sake-eu-parliament-threatens-to-make-doner-kebab-a-goner
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/5165813/Damian-Green-scandal-How-a-ministers-frustration-led-to-the-arrest.html
The key point is that even if we assume that parliament is covered by search warrants - which it probably is - one was not obtained, the correct information was not given to the parliamentary authorities and therefore the laptop may have been seized illegally anyway.
That is irrelevant to the question of whether it is appropriate to have porn on a workplace computer. It isn't. Still less is it germane into the other allegations of misconduct which are rightly being investigated. But the police behaviour could easily end with criminal prosecutions here.
NEW THREAD
Do you have more info for your 1953 date? The 1953 Transport Act didn't do much for the CC obligation AIUI.