Snap UK General Election

[Ajidica]

For the record, Japanese railways (like most public transit there) have been private since the 80s.

Not in the same was as British Rail.
As I understand it, JR owns all the infrastructure and is a tightly regulated monopoly - unlike the privatized British Rail where the government owns all of the expensive and hard to maintain infrastructure while the companies handle the far more profitable aspect of actually running the trains. JR was also privatized over the course of a decade rather than Major's "fire sale" privatization. Plus, JR is structured by regions, with each company responsible for trains and track in a given region rather than the British model of having private companies bid to provide a service. There is much greater coordination -largely forced by government regulations- between the branches of JR in the provisioning of service, maintaining services, and prices. JR is less private corporations and more parastatal corporations.

 

[Colon]

I'm aware that Japan's rail model differs from UK's. I mentioned it because Japan is hardly known for shoddy rail services.

 

[Ajidica]

Then why bring it up?
Especially given how much it differs from Major's privatization.

 

[Mise]

Because, presumably, the solution to whatever problems the UK rail system has isn't "nationalisation", but "better privatisation". The Japanese example is an argument against nationalisation as a magical solution to problems with trains.

I still marvel at the left's capacity to obsess over trains. Trains! Surely there are more important things to worry about. The Conservatives have slashed funding for the National Health Service, schools, social care, care for the elderly, disability benefit, unemployment benefit, we have huge problems with youth unemployment, increasing homelessness, oh and that whole "leaving the EU" thing. But no let's talk about trains.

 

[W|M]

Pretty sure there's lots of people talking about everything else, the trains thing is just more discussed because it's an issue that's been around for longer, and being able to get around really is an important issue, especially if you're the sort of person that cares about the state of the economy.

 

[Mise]

I agree that lots of people from all political sides have weird pet projects that are unimportant compared with schools, hospitals, and social welfare. If you care about the economy, for example, there are far more important things that will help people economically than trains. Trains are very low down the list of priorities for any government to deal with. Yet here we are. Talking about trains. I mean I like trains as much as the next nerd but FFS.

 

[W|M]

Trains are low priority but they should be high priority, they drive the economy and are far more efficient than cars and lorries, and especially in big cities such as London, which would grind to a halt without trains. Schools, hospitals and social welfare are obviously important, but the bigger problems with them (disregarding the fact that the way kids are schooled is terrible anyway) is that their funding is being slashed, so there's a clear and obvious solution to remove the problems they're undergoing now, and that solution is to actually fund them, while trains are a more complex issue that date back further

 

[Traitorfish]

I always assumed that the trains thing was a sop to middle class commuters. Labour are never going to cut their taxes or subsidise their mortgage, but they can at least knock a few quid of their travel budget. Framing it in terms of nationalisation looks dramatic but saves you having to commit to any big complicated plan.

 

[Ajidica]

I always assumed that the trains thing was a sop to middle class commuters. Labour are never going to cut their taxes or subsidise their mortgage, but they can at least knock a few quid of their travel budget. Framing it in terms of nationalisation looks dramatic but saves you having to commit to any big complicated plan.

I saw it as Labour's last gasp attempt to control the "commanding heights of the economy" to be used for improving the welfare all society. (Which they were so eager to nationalize in 1948.) The British steel and coal industry are dead, shipping is firmly out of their hands, and their foray into nationalized consumer goods with British Leyland was underwhelming at best. Rail nationalization is the one viable industrial area left for Labour to hearken back to the "good old days" of nationalized industries and socialist Britain.
Plus, with any luck it will put the fear of God into the railway companies and they will settle for government profit sharing and removing some perverse government subsidy incentives that make it cheaper for them to offer replacement bus services over running the trains.

 

[dutchfire]

Eurostat unfortunately only has statistics going back to Q1/2004. However between that and Q3/2016 there was following evolution in passengers:
Germany +31%
Spain -14.1%
France +21%
Italy +40.2%
UK 64.4%

And in passenger-kilometers:
Germany +39%
Spain +43.7%
France +30.7%
Italy +18.2%
UK 62.8%

In both measures the UK clearly performed better than the other large EU countries.

The least you can say is privatisation did not preclude strong growth, which it presumably should have if it really had been the kind of failure as it's often made out to be.

Link?
Does this include Transport for London?

 

[Colon]

Eurostat. Shouldn't be hard to find when you google rail and europe and things like that. You'll need to do clicking to get extensive tables and Excel work for percentages. I feel I ought to get likes for going through the motions. (and I maybe should have saved the file)

 

[Mise]

Trains are low priority but they should be high priority, they drive the economy and are far more efficient than cars and lorries, and especially in big cities such as London, which would grind to a halt without trains. Schools, hospitals and social welfare are obviously important, but the bigger problems with them (disregarding the fact that the way kids are schooled is terrible anyway) is that their funding is being slashed, so there's a clear and obvious solution to remove the problems they're undergoing now, and that solution is to actually fund them, while trains are a more complex issue that date back further

I've lived, studied and worked in London for 14 years and taken some form of train to work for most of that time, so I understand how important trains are to London's economy especially. But what you're saying is vastly overblown. Yes, people use trains to get to work. Yes, they're frequently late, overcrowded, and increasingly expensive. But those things don't come close to the kind of impact that underfunding has on the NHS, schools, social care, or welfare. A delayed train is a bit annoying, but a delayed operation means that someone literally dies. Overcrowded trains might get a bit sweaty, but an overcrowded school means that little Johnny can't read and ends up dependent on welfare. Underfunding welfare means adult Johnny ends up on drugs or in prison. I'm sure you know about the "school-to-prison pipeline" in America -- that will happen here, too, if we don't roll back the cuts. These are orders of magnitude more impactful than the marginal difference a train running on time will make to the country.

I always assumed that the trains thing was a sop to middle class commuters. Labour are never going to cut their taxes or subsidise their mortgage, but they can at least knock a few quid of their travel budget. Framing it in terms of nationalisation looks dramatic but saves you having to commit to any big complicated plan.

This is partly what I don't understand about the Tories -- you'd think they'd be all over subsidising rail travel for the Tory-voting commuter class. Easy vote winner in London and the South East.

Labour's membership historically (and more recently a lot of their leadership as well) is largely drawn from unions or people sympathetic to unions. The rail unions probably drive a lot of this stuff among the Labour party itself, so I understand the Labour Party being pro-trains. But it's the typical young university-educated left winger that I find more weird. Students and young adult workers, especially those in the South East, surely use trains a lot, but is that the only reason? They use them a lot so they want them to be better? And, being a young, university educated lefty, they see nationalisation (rather than "better privatisation") as the solution?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

So apparently Corbyn didn't take part either? Funny how that doesn't seem as worthy of comment. But my opinion of that would be entirely consistent.

 

[Arakhor]

He was stupid not to, I think, but I don't watch the debates anyway.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Just finished reading the red and blue manifestos. Labour's one is a fantasy wish list from a party that doesn't expect to win power anytime soon, and so can promise all kinds of stuff they have no idea how to actually achieve. The Tories' one, by contrast, offers a brutally realistic (by manifesto standards) assessment of what needs to happen if they're going to continue their state-shrinking mission.

Taken together, what bothers me most is the low status given to environmental concerns. With the Greens and LDs being shunted further to the fringes by the zero sum mood of this election, issues that ought to be front and centre are moving yet further down our country's list of priorities.

Both are good politics, though. I'm dubious as to whether Labour can carry the unity and clarity of purpose through into the next parliament, but for once they've managed to look like an actual opposition. The Tories, meanwhile, have got some extremely tough years of government coming up, in which they'll be glad not to have a stack of manifesto commitments guaranteeing either tied hands or sore backsides (that immigration target could turn out to be a real stinger, though).

 

[Arakhor]

I'm guessing that the Tories are so convinced of success that they feel that they can write all sorts of electoral suicide into their manifesto and still get away with it.

 

[Takhisis]

Taken together, what bothers me most is the low status given to environmental concerns.

!!!!!

I agree. We are losing focus there.

 

[Takhisis]

Some excerpts from a new article on the Conservatives' maniesto for lack of Internet neutrality or privacy:

"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree."

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.
The plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", the manifesto claims.

(…)
The manifesto also proposes that internet companies will have to pay a levy, like the one currently paid by gambling firms. Just like with gambling, that money will be used to pay for advertising schemes to tell people about the dangers of the internet, in particular being used to "support awareness and preventative activity to counter internet harms", according to the manifesto.

The Conservatives will also seek to regulate the kind of news that is posted online and how companies are paid for it. If elected, Theresa May will "take steps to protect the reliability and objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy" – and crack down on Facebook and Google to ensure that news companies get enough advertising money.​

I cannot but agree with the reader who says that the Conservatives are so confident of winning the election that they're showing their worst desires now in order to claim a mandate afterwards.

 

[Mise]

He was stupid not to, I think, but I don't watch the debates anyway.

For a "man of principle", it was deeply disappointing that he didn't show up to debates.

But politically, it was the right move. When Miliband debated without Cameron last time, they spent 2 hours attacking Labour. But without Corbyn to attack this time, they spent 2 hours attacking the Conservatives instead. I think it was the right move for the Labour party not to send Corbyn to the debate.

 

[Kyriakos]

Some excerpts from a new article on the Conservatives' maniesto for lack of Internet neutrality or privacy:

"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree."

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.
The plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", the manifesto claims.

(…)
The manifesto also proposes that internet companies will have to pay a levy, like the one currently paid by gambling firms. Just like with gambling, that money will be used to pay for advertising schemes to tell people about the dangers of the internet, in particular being used to "support awareness and preventative activity to counter internet harms", according to the manifesto.

The Conservatives will also seek to regulate the kind of news that is posted online and how companies are paid for it. If elected, Theresa May will "take steps to protect the reliability and objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy" – and crack down on Facebook and Google to ensure that news companies get enough advertising money.​

I cannot but agree with the reader who says that the Conservatives are so confident of winning the election that they're showing their worst desires now in order to claim a mandate afterwards.

Appalling. Did anything come out of Cameron's similar project of regulating the web?