Don’t Bob Crow over it, let’s get back on track
THE railway is in my blood. Born in a railway house, in Railway Terrace, the son of a railwayman, in a pits-andrailways town known as “the Crewe of the coalfields” I couldn’t be much else.
So I’ve followed the saga of collapsing privatisation of the industry with more than usual interest.
It was bound to happen eventually. The modern railway is a social and business service, not a happy hunting ground for greedy hedge-fund profiteers.
But it took a pandemic to end the Thatcherite nightmare of pretend capitalism on the tracks. With all but emergency travel forbidden, en, the privatised privampanies Train Operating Companies had no passengers and had to be bailed out to the tune of £5billion.
Those emergency subsidies bsidies have expired and the franchising g farce set up by John Major in the mid-1990s d-1990s was scrapped, after billions had d been taken out in dividends and train-leasing leasing payola. In what some see as a halfway fway house to nationalisation, the Government ernment will foot the bill for running the e system until
What’s this for?” as s an inquisitive little boy I would ask my mother. “It’s a wigwam for ducks to peek on,” she would reply, and I was never the wiser. After r looking it up, I am now. But ut not much. “A wimwam [wigwam] for ducks to peek [perch] on to see if their hats are on straight” ” is an old Yorkshire saying. g. That’ll have to do. And let’s t’s not get started with “all my eye and Betty Martin” or we’ll be here all night. at least March 2022. After that date, the Tories talk of paying private companies to run services under management contracts.
If this looks like a pig’s ear, it’s because you can see the twirly tail of ideology wagging the porker. Privatisation is a religion with the Tories. Admitting that it’s a failure is like denying God.
But with so many U-turns since BoJo came to power, it wouldn’t be the greatest shame since Munich to concede that the railway would be better back in the hands of the British people.
We just have to find a fig- leaf word to cover their embarrass embarrassment. Let’s not Bob Crow over it. Communisa Communisation? Deg ray l ing? i Un-majoring?
As a child of the 1950s, I think British Rai Railways, with the classic c lion emb emblem, might do the trick.
Privatisation is a religion with the Tories, to admit it’s failed is to deny God
Next year’s Tokyo Olympics will have to be socially distanced, says sport czar Lord Sebastian Coe. Er, I thought that was the whole point of athletics.