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 […]
Posts Tagged ‘Privatisation’
Tenants excluded as social housing flogged off in billionaire investor bazaars
Oct 17th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.MIPIM is the name of the sales fair to flog off Britain. This is the latest extravaganza of market fundamentalism which is now sweeping Britain. It is being pitched at this moment is a huge hall in London which brings together property developers, billionaire investors from all over the world and, incongruously, local council officials […]
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A trade union agenda for Labour
Sep 14th, 2014 by John McDonnell.It’s no mystery why all the economic indicators point to the economy emerging from the recession and yet wages are continuing to fall behind inflation. The post-recession economy that is being created is based upon reinforcing the distribution of power between capital and labour that has been imposed upon our society since the 1980s. Thatcher’s […]
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Privatised railways have failed passengers and taxpayers
Sep 10th, 2014 by Grahame Morris.This week began with protests at Northern Rail stations, including Seaham, campaigning against the introduction of higher fares, threats to rail services, and job cuts on the rail network. Northern Rail has been pressed by the Department for Transport to raise extra revenues as sixty nine percent of their costs are covered by subsidies they receive […]
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Is this the kind of US healthcare system the UK is headed for?
Aug 19th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.A deep and alarming insight into US healthcare has recently been published by two authoritative figures within the system which holds profoundly worrying lessons for where UK healthcare may be heading under the Tory Health and Social Care Act of 2012. Healthcare in the US is a magnet for thieves. Medicaid hands out $415bn a […]
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Marketisation gives NHS managers £1.6bn redundancy, care workers 25% pay cut
Aug 13th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The market degrades all decent human instincts of fairness and concern for others. Two events in the last few weeks dramatically expose how far this corruption of the values of the health service and social care has now gone. One was the publication of the latest Department of Health accounts which shows payouts to some […]
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Privatised railways: a right royal British rip-off
Aug 9th, 2014 by Mick Whelan.The inflation figure used to calculate increases in regulated rail fares, such as off-peak and anytime day tickets, will be announced on Tuesday 19 August. The new fares will come in at the start of January and we know that, even if they are capped at the level of inflation, they will still be running […]
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Publicly owned railways, not just right but popular
Jul 8th, 2014 by Diane Abbott.As the National Policy Forum in Milton Keynes draws nearer, all eyes are on Labour’s policy formation process. Left Futures has discussed bringing back rail into public ownership before. But it is worth returning to the subject because it illustrates everything that is wrong about the way that our party currently makes policy. We know […]
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Why won’t Ed Balls nationalise the railways?
Jul 7th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.If you were to glance at this headline, you might think Labour is tearing itself apart over rail renationalisation. It isn’t, but that the bulk of members and supporters think the rail should be taken back into public ownership reflects its popularity in the wider population. Pretty consistently, over half of the electorate would like to see this […]
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Why is Labour now fighting shy of nationalisation?
Jul 6th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is bizarre that the Labour Party, or at least Ed Balls, is now tying himself up in such contortions to avoid renationalisation of the railways at any cost when the polls constantly show 70-80% of the electorate, which must include a very large number of Tories, is demanding just that. Is the Labour Party, […]
