The National Policy Forum has made the strange decision to group culture with the environment and energy. Meanwhile, transport is placed, not completely without justification, with local government and housing. However, as transport is a major consumer of energy and a transport policy will be essential to fighting climate change, I decided to address it […]
Posts under ‘Transport’
United we stand? The Southern Rail dispute and the unions
Feb 15th, 2017 by George Waterhouse.117 years ago, my great-great grandad, president of the Amalgamated Society of railway servants (ASRS), sat down in a meeting between the executives of ASRS and the Associated Society of locomotive engineers and firemen (ASLEF) to discuss federation. Had they succeeded in establishing unity between the rail unions back then, I might not be writing […]
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Andy Burnham’s policy on railway ownership is too weak
Aug 5th, 2015 by Ken Livingstone.I like Andy Burnham: he clearly has been on a political journey and he has played a good role on the NHS, but in my view his position on rail policy today not only doesn’t go far enough – it indicates the disconnect between voters and Westminster politics that we must repair. In the National […]
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A third Heathrow runway is a menu without the prices
Jul 2nd, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Business in this age of market fundamentalism is cock-a-hoop with the Davies report decision to recommend Heathrow. They would be, wouldn’t they, since the report has focused largely on the supposed economic benefits while claiming that all the toxic underside of the decision can be ‘managed’. However the feasibility of the latter needs to be […]
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Tories’ pre-election fantasising comes back to haunt them
Jun 27th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Northern powerhouse deflates into Northern power-cut. It was so hurriedly propagated by Osborne before the election as portraying the government as dynamic innovators of English devolution, but none of the details had been properly worked through, including the required transport infrastructure as we now know. So the election gimmick, if not evaporated, has dimmed at […]
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What the SNP says versus what the SNP does
Apr 30th, 2015 by Manuel Cortes.Last week, when I spoke at the STUC Congress against the SNP putting both Scotrail and the Caledonian Sleeper in the hands of privateers, I said that actions speak far louder than words. Let’s face it, the SNP hardly misses an opportunity to argue that the public sector should play a key role in delivering […]
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Labour 6:1 in favour of a public railway, stronger unions and an end to austerity
Jan 30th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.Earlier this week we reported that, following Syriza‘s remarkable victory in Greece on a platform of ending austerity and greater state intervention in the economy, 15 Labour MPs including Michael Meacher had called for a similar change in direction here. They issued a statement calling for an alternative to austerity, for public ownership of the railways and for a […]
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20,000 London bus workers go on strike – with the public on their side
Jan 13th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.Picket lines were in place across London’s 70 bus garages today as over 20,000 bus workers working for 18 bus operators take part in a 24 hour strike to end unfair pay disparities across the capital’s bus network. With very solid support for the strike the bus workers’ union Unite urged TfL and the mayor of London […]
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The great high speed white elephant
Oct 28th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.High Speed Rail 2 is a massive white elephant, a £50bn boondoggle of a project as out of time as it is over priced. Yet, despite this I am a little sore that the bid Stoke-on-Trent put forward for a station got dismissed out of hand. Were it on the basis of a competition in […]
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Save UK Rail
Oct 22nd, 2014 by Grahame Morris.The North East has a long and proud connection to the railways. In 1825, George Stephenson’s engine – locomotion, became the world’s first steam locomotive to carry passengers, and the public railway was born. In the years following thousands of miles of rail track were laid connecting every part of the UK, as the industrial […]
