reverse

i confess i have no idea why i persist in buying the evening standard, but i do. it might have something to do with the fact that i generally read it on the bog, so the spasms of anger it induces mean i have a good solid shit.
it is a right wing paper that has a few left leaning writers such as diane abbott (oh ok she has sent her kid to a private school, so not that left wing) and nick cohen (who seems to come over all lifestyle in the standard unlike his columns in the observer).
for the evening standard all that is ill in the world can be left at the feet of new labour. no more so than transport.

now i will be the first to admit that the transport system in london is not what it could be. the rot started in the thatcher era, while blair did not help with his insistence on stick with many of the tory plans when he came to power and then with his fetishistic love of private public finance.

public transport should be funded publicly, and it should be cheap for people to use. it shouldn’t be organized for profit.

for londoners one of the great advances has been the introduction of the oyster card . now i wasn’t keen on it at first, but i have come to love my oyster card. it makes travel that much easier. you can get an annual one, or you can just top it up and use it as you want. and it lasts and so it is good for the environment.

in the main they have only be usable on tubes and buses.
but the good news is that rail companies who serve london have now given in to consumer demand and are planning to install oyster readers. the various firms have accepted ken livingstone’s, the mayor of london, offer of £20 million to help install the machines. the companies will also spend millions of their own money as well.
mmm that is nice of them.
but lets look at that again.
these are companies that make whooping profits and generally do it not because they provide a good service, but because they hike up the prices to people who have no option but to use their services.
capitalism, according to smith, would through the mechanism of the hidden hand match demand with supply. for this reason it was better than a planned system. it was this sort of thinking that motivated the tories to privatize the rail in the first place.
what the rail companies seem to have been very good at is making a large profit for their shareholders, while dipping into the public purse for subsidies, and just to bang the point home the bosses of these companies will be the same people who complain about rising taxes – but are in fact taking tax payers money.
what they don’t seem to be very good at is making the trains work.
but never mind now with £20 million of londoners money they will begrudgingly bring in the oyster card readers.
naturally enough the standard hail this as a wonderful thing, not once pointing out the money grabbing antics of the rail companies (i am sure they would do though is one of the companies was polish…)

but there is more…

the standard has a
petition which calls for the end of the “cattle-truck” condition that commuters have to endure on their travel to work.
now can you guess where the petition is going?
can you guess what the aim of the petition is?

if you said – it is being delivered to the rail companies you would be wrong.
if you think the aim of it was to make the rail companies use some of their profit to invest in their own companies in order for them to efficiently meet demand (remember they are for profit organizations and this means they are the most efficient – it is the argument that is always used for when a public service falls into private hands, so just once you would like to see this actually work that way. go on admit it you would).

i am sure you guessed what the answers are.
the petition is going to downing street and the prime minister, tony blair. the purpose of it is to put pressure on ministers so that they will “provide more funding for rail operators, allowing them to run longer trains and more frequent services.”
pardon?
even the tory shadow transport secretary chris grayling has gotten involved (you have to wonder if the man has no shame).
quite why they are turning to the government is a mystery – it might be because actually working out who is to blame in the rail operator quagmire is too hard.
now i have to do a double take here as this is the evening standard who are saying that the government and the state should get involved in the running of a for profit organization. surely that would be the return of the mad bad days of old labour?
obviously not, because what the standard and the rail operators are saying is “we want more money as we are shit. bail us out please.”
i must be missing something here.
if we are subsidizing them, but they still make a profit then there is something amiss. given businesses clarion call to be freed of government red tape you would think they would at least have the decency to put their own house in order before asking for more money.
quite why the standard is on their side is beyond me (i am sure it will be something to do with common shareholders).
while everyone is having a pop at mr. reid for the home office debacle perhaps we should cry out that the rail operators are not fit for purpose and do the sensible thing and privatise them again.
if blair needs to do one thing to restore his credibility this is it.
he won’t listen, nor will brown. so the directors of the rail companies will get richer and the service will get poorer and we will continue to have to pay taxes in order to grant them subsidies.