Tom Harris blogs that he is taking the train South and gives his trenchant views on the political correctness culture which is now ubiquitous among environmentalists everywhere. Like him, I'll be damned if I will be ordered to use a train if a plane or a car is a more convenient way of getting to my destination. The railways have indeed become a more attractive form of transport in recent years, mainly because of the huge private sector investment in them, which would not have occurred without privatisation. And before you all start, privatisation was absolutely right for the railways, but it was carried out badly. There was far too much regulation, far too little competition and they should never have separated the infrastructure from the rolling stock. Apart from that...
Footnote: I see Tom Harris has been replaced by Paul Clark, the MP for Gillingham and former PPS to John Prescott. He's never exactly been seen as a high flyer and I wonder whether any of our Labour friends might explain what Mr Clark has that Tom Harris doesn't?
26 comments:
a lack of Tory fanboys perhaps?
It's posts like that that make me feel like a Socialist Libertarian. Old Labour gut feeling vs. new found Libertarian instincts. How strange.
There was a very interesting piece on R4 not so long ago.
A full plane flying directly A to B can use less gallons of fuel per passenger mile than a train journey.
A full car can use less gallons of fuel per passenger mile than a half empty train.
And so on.
The simplistic view that planes are bad and trains are good, that the greens would have us have did not hold up when examined in detail.
I'll admit it. I preffered it before the investment. There were less passengers and more table seats on Intercity trains.
"A full car can use less gallons of fuel per passenger mile than a half empty train."
A bit of useless information, because only a tiny percentage of cars are (or will ever be) full.
Anonymous @ 2.26.
I heard the programme too. It also said that shipping produces more CO2 than planes do.
Just watching the first session of the commons by the way. An almost empty chamber, nice to see our MP's eager to get back after 12 weeks off.
A distinct resemblance to Frank Sidebottom?
Let us not forget that rail privatisation had to pass EU regulations.This caused the separation of the track side of the business from the train companies.
The privatised railways collapsed due the vindictiveness of the Labour government and the first Transport Secretary, one John Prescott and the next, the cretinous Steven Byers over safety matters.
Apart from in some of the large urban areas I cannot see the point of railways in this day and age. Whenever we have any sort of an incident then the railways are shut for days. In revenge I see the police are doing the same to road users after accidents on motorways and trunk roads.
Discretion?
Paul Clark is a firm believe in the use of the car. Unlike many of his constituents he doesn't even use the train to get from his home in the constituency to his Westminster office. Wonder if this will change now that he is rail minister. I doubt it somehow.
Check out his record in the Commons. Speaks very little and when he does speak he tries to avoid giving a personal opinion. A perennial bag-carrier suited to the role of PPS but nothing more lofty. In my opinion one of the most underwhelming members of the PLP.
Greg Clark new Tory shadow to Ed Miliband.
Hello Iain,
I really felt I had to post on this.
How can you say that rail privatisation was right for the railways?
It turned a reasonably well-run PUBLIC monopoly into a rationalised shoddily-run PRIVATE monopoly.
As for huge private sector investment,we're now paying TWICE as much in rail subsidy for an inferior service.
According to 'National Rail Trends 2005' by the Office for Rail Regulation, in 1994, the total government support received by BR was £1,627m(£2,168m in 2005 terms, adjusted by RPI), while in 2005, government support from all sources totalled £4,593m.
At least punctuality must have improved from BR? Well you've got me on that one Iain because it has - from 89% of all trains on time under BR to a staggering 90% under privatisation.
And let's not forget Major's brilliant idea of splitting BR into 100 separate companies. Is it any wonder the management of our railways descended into chaos.
Iain, even your party now admits they were wrong to separate the track and the trains.
And you ask anyone crammed like cattle on commuter trains into London during rush hour whether things got better after privatisation? You might be surprised.
Personally, I'd like to see a not-for-profit firm that reunites track and train controlling our railways - picking off each franchise as it lapses.It would take until 2022 but that vast majority of the train operating companies could be taken out of the private sector within ten years.
And finally can I say a few words to the person who chose to have a go at Paul Clark.
I must declare my interest. I know Paul very well. As an MP for a commuter belt constituency he knows all too well the problems faced by drivers and rail passengers.
He also has contacts across Government and is just the man to be in there fighting for transport.
A willingness to do the job unpaid?
Robert - You are quite wrong.
I was a civil servant involved in the privatisation plan. The decision to separate was a UK political one and had nothing to do with EU regulations.
Anon @ 1519 hrs seems to have Paul Clark fairly well sussed out, I think. Although I don't know as much a bout him as I do about my own MPs past and present (boundary change...) I can confirm much of that assessment.
His chances of keeping his seat at the next election have been slim since before the change of PM, so I don't suppose he'll be able to do much (or not do!) in the intervening eighteen months or so anyway.
I think it's just a reward for being a good little boy who has always known whose hand feeds him.
Dalesman - how dare you? I'll have you know i'm getting on with the job of getting on with the job. Now if you don't mind - I best go and get on with the job.
It's like after the school holidays - find out what all your chums have been up to. Work? I should cocoa - not for a week or two - those expenses won't spend themselves.
Iain, I might be wrong, but I heard from a friend of a friend that Andrew Adonis, rather than Paul Clark, has picked up the rail portfolio.
I think it was more what the outgoing Minister had than what he didn't have:
He had a blog.
Without having read this man's particular blog, one can confidently say that the problem about a blog if you are an active politician is that people no longer wonder why you do not share your profound and deep insights with your admiring public. Instead they know that you have few such insights and are very well aware of your ignorance or blind spots on certain topics that they would otherwise assume did not exist.
You have been warned - but please carry on, just so long as you realise you are an insider commentator rather than a politician who's not yet realised that he has a damaging addiction.
Comments about Clark are off the mark. First of all he does use the trains - I've seen him on them fairly often and travelled in the same carriage a few times! He's also on the rail freight group in Parliament.
He's been an assistant whip, a PPS to the Deputy PM, and a PPS to Balls (effectively the Deputy PM). That's more qualifications than Tom Harris had for the job.
Not a national figure, granted, but certainly known locally as a decent guy and very active in the constituency. Not sure how that'll change with this.
I think Iain your views on Tom Harris are perhaps a little blighted in the sense that 'because he did a blog he's a good minister' perspective keeps creeping in. Credit to Harris for opening things up a little but I never personally found his blog that fascinating.
Anyway, Clark's website isn't half bad!
Oh and although Clark hasn't picked up the full rail portfolio that Harris had - Adonis takes over much of it - it looks as though he will be answering for rail questions in the Commons
I know as much about transport as Paul Clark, which is next to nothing! We are in Geoff Hoon's tent
blind leading the blind!
Robert said: "Whenever we have any sort of an incident then the railways are shut for days. In revenge I see the police are doing the same to road users after accidents on motorways and trunk roads."
Hardly revenge on the part of the police. Procedures for investigating fatal road accidents have changed in the last few years, partly as a result of a number of prosecutions collapsing because the evidence was inadequate.
The police are now required to treat any fatal accidents as 'unlawful killings'. They must treat the location as a crime scene and carry out a thorough investigation of the site. Often this can only be done safely by closing the road.
Hang on a minute! Just a minute! You can't be serious about Tom Harris! He was posting in a Tory supporter website. Should Gordon have promoted him to the cabinet rank for talking with a Tory?
I can hear what you are saying about me and Osborne. Oh! I am getting this damn head ache! Where is Lord Darzi?
Actually on the railways I am in total agreement. I felt when I was becoming politically aware in my early teens that rail should be privatised, and am glad it has, apart from the separation of rolling stock. The old Victorian companies had everything at their disposal.
jcb said...
"The police are now required to treat any fatal accidents as 'unlawful killings'."
Required by whom? Why does that mean they are entitled to disrupt the lives of everyone else for hours while they stand around laughing at the immobile traffic?
The police are useless, expensive and completely out of control. Except in London where they are now the armed wing of the Tory party.
Iain you are a very confused chap.
Whatever the mistakes made during privatisation, the separation of trains and track was done specifically to ENABLE competition.
Except for the relatively few cases where Dr Beeching left parallel routes on place, if the company which runs the trains owns and controls the track how can anyone offer a competitive service?
It was the obsession with providing competition at all levels and in all areas of the business which led to such a fagmented, disjointed and disfunctional system, which now costs the taxpayer more in subsidy than the nationalized railway ever did.
There was a pre-existing and perfectly good model of a (semi) privatised railway in Sweden where a national track authority owns the infrastructure, the remaining part of the national railway was privatised and runs some of the trains with other private companies running the rest.
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