Could have travelled on megabus. Apparently, what you do is reserve single journeys on multiple departures way in advance of the day you might travel, all for a pound, and who the hell cares if you only turn up for one out of twenty. Or so the story goes. Never actually tried t myself. Strikes me as somewhat unethical.
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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Meanwhile, while the PLP and coup plotters continue to be tough on membership and tough on the causes of membership...
The down side of nobody going to Owen Smith's events is that, when reports of him saying something ridiculous again come out, you don't have people filming to prove it.
They're making good profits and we still subsidise them.
The guy has had verbal gaffe after gaffe during this campaign, but surely not even he would say that? Not after talking about the importance of improving mental health services and the attitude towards the issue in Facebook Q&As over the last few days. Surely not?
Edit: The event in question appears to have been streamed on Facebook. 41:25-ish in is the remark.
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And on the East Coast route alone Over the 8 year franchise Inter City Railways will pay the government around £3.3 billion to operate the franchise.
...and still make a profit?
You wait and see, it was much better when all those things were in state ownership. I remember!
Can't believe this is headline news on the BBC. Of course Virgin are going to try and defend their train service, judging by the videos and first hand accounts it's pretty clear the train wasn't 'half empty'.And pay a fortune in tax. You make it sound wrong to make a profit.
There is nothing wrong with a privatised transport network. What is loopy is the way in which the UK railways were privatised. Case in point, Southern Trains. Owned by Govia. Govia is a company owned 65% by Go-Ahead, and 35% by Keolis. Keolis is owned 70% by SNCF, and 30% by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. So in this sense, subsidies are being paid to a state-run railway and a public pension fund in Quebec.
It's quite clear too that Corbyn walked past empty seats and unused reserved seats which he obviously could have used. Embarrassing to try and spin it further after being caught out too...saying seats became available as people left is plain daft when the train actually didn't stop anywhere for these people to leave.
On the railways:
Public subsidy per passenger
Rail fatalities per billion passenger-km in European countries
Public subsidy per passenger
Rail fatalities per billion passenger-km in European countries
Rail Passengers in Great Britain from 1829–2014
UK rail subsidy 1982- 2014 in terms of pounds per passenger journey in 2014 prices, showing the initial decline in subsidy after privatisation, followed by a steep rise after the Hatfield rail crash in October 2000 and finally a decrease
Rail's modal share of passenger journeys:
Regarding the railways again, the CMA are looking at ways to further increase competition (Franchises are not great for this, and have led to a few TOCs running the railways)
http://www.railtechnologymagazine.c...ocs-bid-for-train-paths-stagecoach-and-virgin
With Brexit, there may even be scope to prohibit foreign state-owned companies from purchasing and running the UK's railways (although this is far from easy to do).
http://www.railtechnologymagazine.c...ocs-bid-for-train-paths-stagecoach-and-virgin
With Brexit, there may even be scope to prohibit foreign state-owned companies from purchasing and running the UK's railways (although this is far from easy to do).
Apparently Virgin offerred to upgrade him because of who he is. He declined. So they upgraded a family (and "shuffled passengers around") to make sufficient seats available in standard class for him and his party. That was after 45mins, and the footage you see of the empty seats is from that time. Also, the use of CCTV footage seems to have broken the law.
Always seemed very odd to me that German national rail owns British privatised rail stock.
Not just German, but the French, Italian, Korean and Japanese States too.
http://www.rmt.org.uk/news/publicat...ign-state-owned-backed-rail-domination-of-uk/
Also, privatising the railways with ROSCOs (who own the stock) was not the most sensible move in my view: http://www.rail.co.uk/rail-news/2015/who-really-owns-britains-trains/
Who owns the railways is a damning indictment not just of the Major administration, but of successive Labour and Tory governments that have deliberately overtaxed UK manufacturing and eviscerated the manufacturing base we had, moving the economy towards the finance and service sectors.
He did indeed finally sit down after 45 minutes BUT that was after he had already walked past all the same empty seats on his way to make his fake little film.
Would appreciate a link. I spent a while (too long, tbh) looking at the evidence on both sides and somehow missed that.
Edit: will have to follow this up tomorrow as I'm too tired now. By the time I get home tomorrow there will no doubt have been another load of bullsh!t thrown at him in the hope that some of it will stick. Today it was a privatised rail company under threat if Corbyn is elected. Wonder where tomorrows attack will come from.
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This made me smile:
Also from Ian Katz:
Want to start a sweep for the number of gaffes by the end of his campaign. I'll go for 99.
Just a timeline I saw....the video and stills show Corbyn walking past empty seats when first getting on the 11:00 train and then returning to the same seats at 11:45 after making the film around 11:30. There can have been no seats becoming available as the train didn't stop until York which was a couple of hours away.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37167700
Not sure you can blame Virgin for wanting the facts to come out after being attacked in a fake film.
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Maybe not. The limited disclosure of stills and a short clip is lawful processing of the personal data, if it is "fair". In the circumstances—the fact that Corbyn himself made the fact of his travelling on the train non-private, that the images disclosed are in no way sensitive and that he made a very public and (Virgin claim) factually incorrect criticism of Virgin's service, means Virgin could have a case that limited disclosure for the purpose of setting the record straight is "fair".
(Sorry - I cannot help but wade into legal minutiae).
Just don't ask Owen to keep count. Especially not using the tally method, at this rate he'd end up drawing a swastika or something.
I think it says a lot about how interested we all are in Smith, that we've spent this long debating the emptiness of a train Corbyn was on.
He is nothing but 'the alternative' and he's doing an appalling job of being a more credible one.
He is nothing but 'the alternative' and he's doing an appalling job of being a more credible one.
In the last few years ive never managed to get a seat on uk trains, in fact, I'd say the transport system in the uk is the worst i have come across in europe. Over crowded, over priced and always late.
That's your experience Stan...mine is that I don't use trains very often but I tend to book a seat ahead of the journey and get a good price. Where I've not booked I have never had to stand although on the London underground I've rarely sat down.
With rail passenger journeys reaching record highs in 14/15 (1.654 billion...up 67m on 13/14!) I'm sure there a few happy customers.
The fact that commuter trains are horrendously overcrowded is pretty much undisputed. Somehow, Jeremy and his press team couldn't (or didn't want to) find one of these over-crowded trains to make their point on. It probably would have been difficult to make their little documentary video on an actual over-crowded train.
I don't know - this whole episode has made me think more highly of Corbyn though. I actually want him to be more like another politician, to cut deals, to spin, to deal with the media effectively (or try to) - he will have to do these things to win an election and run a government.
EDIT: This piece by Rafael Behr sums up my thoughts on what I want from a government well: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/labour-complains-tories-govern
Only quoting this post because I'm pretty sure it's you who recommended the four part series on Labour's long path from defeat back to victory in 97 and I can't be arsed to go back through the thread to find the specific post. Was a good watch. Potentially a bit flattering of Kinnock. I'm too young to remember it all, so don't have strong opinions, but he seemed to come out of it a bit too well.
Owen has really stepped up on the non-apology apologies today. This 'Somebody else said it earlier' "lunatic" one is an absolute beauty, even better than the one regarding smashing May back on her heels.
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