Chiltern Railways’ services became the latest to transition into public ownership on Sunday, marking the sixth train operator to be nationalised by the Government.
The UK’s largest train operator, Govia Thameslink Railway, alongside c2c, Greater Anglia, South Western Railway, and West Midlands Trains, have already been brought into public ownership by the Government.
From December, the Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed that 25 additional daily Chiltern Railways services will be introduced to help tackle “overcrowding”, delivering 10,000 extra seats during each weekday. This plan incorporates half-hourly weekday trains running along the Chiltern main line between London and Birmingham, as well as an increase in weekend journeys.
Ah I see. I’m not sure where the line is between “merely wrong” and “mad”.
Like, if you tell me the population of London is 5 million, that’s wrong but plausible. If you tell me it’s twelve people that’s absurd.
So when I look at privatization I can’t see any path where it works out for the majority of people that isn’t entirely wishful thinking. There’s no mechanism where private ownership of public resources and infrastructure works out in the long term. Believing in it seems so egregiously wrong it’s another category. Like someone believing that letting the foxes watch the hens will yield more eggs. There’s no good reasons to believe that, but plenty of Fox written propaganda.
Though I am sort of backed into a corner in that I was sort of firing from the hip. I don’t have the most robust argument for my “maybe written on the toilet” posts. “Mad” might not be the best word. “Foolish and poorly informed” maybe?
I think “foolish and poorly informed” is a lot more sustainable than “mad” for sure. The latter I think is what leads people to believe this cynical stuff that anyone arguing for that kind of stuff is a bad actor.
But I think you can learn a lot by reading the actual opinions of intellectuals - in this case economists - who fervently believe in the effectiveness of free-market capitalism. My own take is that it’s less “foolish and poorly informed” and more “prioritising other evidence/arguments/preconceptions.”