This is a very good point

Given the current state of the labour market the idea that you could dilute employees T&Cs is a complete no runner. The idea that the Tories are going to dilute working conditions is a red herring from the left.

The unions would be useful organisations if they were able to concentrate on the job in hand working to improve workers opportunities. Unfortunately they see pushing the political ambitions as their prime objective. There is also an element of self interest for the union employees - look at Unite T&Cs for union employees. They also have a problem of a collective positioning i.e. they cannot deal with an individual issue without considering the impact on completely unrelated businesses. If a decision on one business would be ideal but set a negative precedence elsewhere the union will not support it.

I see the government did not want to make fire and rehire illegal preferring to allow the companies to carry on unchecked. I guess you are correct that they have no intentions to dilute worker’s rights.

There are 1.25m vacancies - I would suggest if firms want to retain decent staff the opposite will happen - increases in rates of pay Amazon starting is £11.50/hour - better benefits. The market will determine the level not the unions.

Most markets are shaped by regulations, to a large degree and for better or worse.

The Conservative Party has changed. It isn’t yet clear how permanently or exactly into what, but my instinct always to assume the worst of them. I mean, becoming UKIP has worked for them to this point but post-Brexit and without any clear plan vision or plan for what comes next, the capitalism red in tooth and claw wing of the party could emerge triumphant. Johnson is an intermission in political direction - the wonky shopping trolley described by Craig Oliver and Dominic Cummings.

The basic principle of supply and demand works in most markets - even the public sector - you want to attract more nurses pay them more, burserys etc.

I think Johnson will survive as long as Labour have weak leadership - once Johnson goes the Tories will revert back to type Sunak-type.

That'll be the same "market" thats responsible for our chaotic railways and raw sewerage being discharged into our rivers.

Are you suggesting the railways and the water supply were better when they were in public ownership?

A big issue with both are the legacy issues inherited from public ownership?

On the news this morning it was suggested in would cost between £150-600bn to put the water/sewage supply back to where it should be.

I am all for public ownership of key services - I am old enough to remember when it was all in public ownership and I would say be careful what you wish for

But this is such a spurious, apples to oranges comparison.

How much money - from government and from fares - did we invest in the railways when they were in public ownership? They were starved for decades, we now pour billion upon billion into them with significantly higher fares and huge amounts are creamed off as profit for private enterprises. If we'd put the same amount into the privately-owned BR it would have made an amazing difference.

Look at DB, look at SNCF, look at FS and you'll see what properly-invested in, publicly-owned railway look like in terms of fares and network and reliability. The straw man of a desperately underfunded BR is almost irrelevant at this point.

So you have confirmed my analysis thank you - as I said be careful what you wish for when you are all clamouring for a return to public ownership.

I have no idea what you think you've proved but I travel thousands of miles a year on French and Italian railways and they are miles ahead of the railway services in the UK.

There's nothing shabby about being the third best railway in the world.

Quote ="chissitt"There's nothing shabby about being the third best railway in the world.'" Very safe but with comparatively poor service according to this 2017 report. https://www.consultancy.uk/news/13535/e ... ce-quality

Quote ="chissitt"There's nothing shabby about being the third best railway in the world.'" Very safe but with comparatively poor service according to this 2017 report. https://www.consultancy.uk/news/13535/e ... ce-quality

Having used the railways in countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Holland, Germany, France and Scandinavia, I can honestly say the UK railways, and service is are light years behind these countries.

So given that you agree with Nod, that makes us the 12th best railway in the world, not to mention that it must make you 5 times as knowledgeable about railways as him

The safety record in the UK is excellent but, service and "quality" of trains is second class.

It doesn't help that projects like HS2 take forever to sort our and then costs spiral out of control.
We are certainly behind the main EU countries.

Given the travel restrictions I doubt you will have travelled on any of these trains recently - comments like this need to be put in context. I can't remember the last time I caught a train and it was late - I catch a train on an average three times a month. Nothing wrong with the longer distance trains or the trains that do Leeds Ilkley etc. Leeds to Manchester - they are a disgrace.

The issue with the trans pennine trains is that there isn't enough capacity to match the demand. Or that was the case before the pandemic.

My experience of rail travel has generally been pretty positive. Given that I’ve travelled a fair bit, I’m surprised how rarely I’ve used trains abroad now that I think about it.

That is true - 50% of the time I had to stand the whole journey from Manchester to Leeds

How many of the train franchises have been taken back into public ownership because they failed.

The majority fail because they cant make sufficient return - that leads to reduction in investment in staff and trains - downward spiral. How many have had a go at the East Coast Mainline

The East Coast Main Line is a classic example of the foolishness of the privatised railways. GNER were gifted upon privatisation the Uk's most modern railway with a fleet of largely brand new, very high quality trains. And operating on a very lucrative route they made a lot of money. Now Jim Sherwood was a canny businessman and had already made hundreds of millions off the UK state by buying assets dirt cheap and selling them on for vast profits. But GNER didn't even need that side of it, they were gifted a brand new railway and enjoyed the rewards of what our tax money had built throughout the first franchise period. And, thanks mostly to the quality of the infrastructure they'd inherited and the nature of the route GNER became a supposed example of how privatisation was working.

Come the second franchise period and it was obvious there was going to be competition from other bidders who'd seen how much money GNER had made. And thus began the same scenario over and over - bidder wins franchise based on utterly implausible growth forecasts, signed off by idiot transport minister who sees the millions in franchise payments they're going to receive down the line. After a few years the franchise holder realises it can't make as much money as they've promised to pay and "hands the franchise back".

Now SeaCon went bust of their own volition but the others just walked away scot free. This isn't how a market should work. You overestimate your forecasts and enter into a contract that you can't pay for and you go bust. But the government simply can't allow the ECML to stop operating whilst that's sorted out because it would lead to chaos. So it always has to be there to step in.

As with so many of these idiotic schemes it's been a case of privatising the profit and the state keeping the risk. It's a grotesque parody of the free market and needed stopping long before Covid did for it.

That's exactly how the free market works - your liabilities are limited to the money you invest - if trading doesn't pan out how you had forecast you run out money you go bust. Everyone goes in with their eyes open - if the government hadn't done their due diligence correctly who is to blame? If creditors lend too much money who is at fault?

The government know they have to keep the line running then surely they need to select a franchise that is going to deliver on that basic premise. If no franchise can make a suitable return based on that scenario the government have a problem - they take it back into public ownership costs rise and we all have to pay.

We come back to public ownership - everybody has to pay to keep public services going even if they never use it - yes I get it for education but not for buses and trains.

I don't think you understand. The private operators didn't suffer any consequences at all for getting their sums wrong. Because that's not how privatisation works. We as taxpayers lost out, the other side just walked away from the mess they'd created.

The reality is the East Coast line is one of the huge cash cows of the network. It should be one which cross-subsidises the rest of the network. Quite why you think costs would rise if controlled nationally rather than us keeping all the profits for ourselves/the government is a mystery.

And your belief that the transport network isn't a core part of the national infrastructure which should be looked after by government is a niche one it has to be said. I'm sure you think the same applies to the road network of course.