Bob Crow wants the underground, railways and buses back in public
ownership.
I couldn't agree more, because I'm a Eurosceptic, but does Bob Crow
realise that if we nationalise our transport system we will be in
breach of the EU policy of economic liberalisation (as they put it).
That is foriegn companies won't be able to buy into our economy -
further integrating our own economy into the EU and effectively
exporting our own services to us!

Or does Bob Crow believe the EU will eventually nationalise some
services and industries when it feels it has sufficient control? It
could happen, after all, everything changes.

Europhiles are fond of telling us all to accept change, but what
happens if the EU achieves its goals?
Why it changes some more - only this time just a few individuals will
be telling a a population of nearly 400 million people what's gonna
change!

Better get yourself some jackboots!

Jim Gemineye wrote:
Bob Crow wants the underground, railways and buses back in public
ownership.
I couldn't agree more, because I'm a Eurosceptic,

You don't need to be a Eurosceptic to agree with that.

but does Bob Crow
realise that if we nationalise our transport system we will be in
breach of the EU policy of economic liberalisation (as they put it).

In Paris, the Metro and buses are nationalised (or perhaps
"regionalised"; not privatised anyway). French railways have split the
infrastructure organisation (RFF) from the trains (SNCF) to meet EU
accounting rules, but both are still nationalised. Why couldn't we do
the same?

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On 6 Sep, 01:30, "Richard J." wrote:
Jim Gemineye wrote:
BobCrowwants the underground, railways and buses back in public
ownership.
I couldn't agree more, because I'm a Eurosceptic,

You don't need to be a Eurosceptic to agree with that.

but doesBobCrow
realise that if we nationalise our transport system we will be in
breach of the EU policy of economic liberalisation (as they put it).

In Paris, the Metro and buses are nationalised (or perhaps
"regionalised"; not privatised anyway). French railways have split the
infrastructure organisation (RFF) from the trains (SNCF) to meet EU
accounting rules, but both are still nationalised. Why couldn't we do
the same?

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Market liberalisation is an on going process and does not take place
uniformally - France is particularly sensitive to privatisation as a
quick Google shows: http://cnbceb.com/2006/01/01/francerevolution/

There was some attempt to prepare for privatisation of French Railways
a few years back, but government backed down after strong protest -
but they will try again. That's the way the EU works, by degrees,
slowly, slowly catchee monkey - as they say!

On 5 Sep, 23:28, Jim Gemineye wrote:
Bob Crow wants the underground, railways and buses back in public
ownership.
I couldn't agree more, because I'm a Eurosceptic, but does Bob Crow
realise that if we nationalise our transport system we will be in
breach of the EU policy of economic liberalisation (as they put it).
That is foriegn companies won't be able to buy into our economy -
further integrating our own economy into the EU and effectively
exporting our own services to us!

That is utter rubbish. There is no EU obligation or compulsion for
public transport to be in private ownership (slowly slowly or
otherwise).

The only thing I can think of which is even vaguely relevant is the
obligation for national rail operators to account for track and train
operations separately (note: not the same thing as operating them
separately), in order to allow fair pricing for international rail
flows.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:06:02 -0700, John B wrote:

On 5 Sep, 23:28, Jim Gemineye wrote:
Bob Crow wants the underground, railways and buses back in public
ownership.
I couldn't agree more, because I'm a Eurosceptic, but does Bob Crow
realise that if we nationalise our transport system we will be in
breach of the EU policy of economic liberalisation (as they put it).
That is foriegn companies won't be able to buy into our economy -
further integrating our own economy into the EU and effectively
exporting our own services to us!

That is utter rubbish. There is no EU obligation or compulsion for
public transport to be in private ownership (slowly slowly or
otherwise).

The only thing I can think of which is even vaguely relevant is the
obligation for national rail operators to account for track and train
operations separately (note: not the same thing as operating them
separately), in order to allow fair pricing for international rail
flows.

There are long standing but not yet agreed proposals (AFAIK) to require
competitive tendering of all public transport operations. TfL and RATP
have strongly objected to this - particularly in the context of their
metro / tube operations. TfL obviously tender out their bus operations
on a route contract basis and not every bus route in the Greater Paris
area is publicly operated (AIUI).

I think the proposals were for relatively short contract terms such as 5
years or so which would make life very difficult indeed for urban rail
operations / planning / investment - as we know to our cost with our NR
network.

I really have no idea at all what BC's view of Europe is - he just wants
public ownership for political and power base reasons.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:06:02 -0700, John B wrote:



The only thing I can think of which is even vaguely relevant is the
obligation for national rail operators to account for track and train
operations separately (note: not the same thing as operating them
separately), in order to allow fair pricing for international rail
flows.

The other thing is that open access operators have to be allowed
access to domestic networks. EWS, for example, have an arm of their
company operating domestic freight services in France (despite the
best efforts of the French to make it as difficult as possible,
surprise, surprise).

The OP is talking rubbish.

Bob Crow is nothing but a cynical opportunist. Notice that despite him
always mouthing off about safety he's not said a lot about the Virgin
crash at Grayrigg... Wonder why that might be.

On Sep 6, 9:23 pm, Cheeky wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:06:02 -0700, John B wrote:

The only thing I can think of which is even vaguely relevant is the
obligation for national rail operators to account for track and train
operations separately (note: not the same thing as operating them
separately), in order to allow fair pricing for international rail
flows.

The other thing is that open access operators have to be allowed
access to domestic networks. EWS, for example, have an arm of their
company operating domestic freight services in France (despite the
best efforts of the French to make it as difficult as possible,
surprise, surprise).

The OP is talking rubbish.

Bob Crow is nothing but a cynical opportunist. Notice that despite him
always mouthing off about safety he's not said a lot about the Virgin
crash at Grayrigg... Wonder why that might be.


Wasn't there a thread slagging him off for what he did say?

In fact there are threads slagging him off for what he actually says,
for what he is alleged to say but doesn't and for not saying anything,
whether he does or not.

Basically, a lot of people want to claim that he is an evil monster
and repeatedly do so in a series of gratuitous, abusive non-sequiturs.

Why should we not be able to treat Crow with the same risible contempt
that he shows for Londoners everytime he decides to give his
supporters a few more days' holiday at Londoners' expense?

Or does Crow have a monopoly on senseless "gratuitous, abusive non-
sequiturs"?

Marc.

"Cheeky" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:06:02 -0700, John B wrote:

The other thing is that open access operators have to be allowed
access to domestic networks. EWS, for example, have an arm of their
company operating domestic freight services in France (despite the
best efforts of the French to make it as difficult as possible,
surprise, surprise).

The OP is talking rubbish.

Bob Crow is nothing but a cynical opportunist. Notice that despite him
always mouthing off about safety he's not said a lot about the Virgin
crash at Grayrigg... Wonder why that might be.

I thought he was pretty vocal at the time of Grayrigg, I'm sure his knee
jerk reaction will be on the internet somewhere...

Paul

On 6 Sep, 21:49, MIG wrote:
Bob Crow is nothing but a cynical opportunist. Notice that despite him
always mouthing off about safety he's not said a lot about the Virgin
crash at Grayrigg... Wonder why that might be.

Wasn't there a thread slagging him off for what he did say?

In fact there are threads slagging him off for what he actually says,
for what he is alleged to say but doesn't and for not saying anything,
whether he does or not.

Basically, a lot of people want to claim that he is an evil monster
and repeatedly do so in a series of gratuitous, abusive non-sequiturs.-

How about we stick to what Crow actually said, then?

For instance:
"You don't see bolts falling off planes and space ships. What Network
Rail should be doing is bringing all work into the public ownership"

I thought the safety statistics showed the railways have got safer
since privatisation. Crow knows better, though; state-owned bolts
never fail, unlike those evil profit-motivated bolts!

And:
"Management have to take the rap when it goes wrong. We will not allow
our staff to be scapegoats."

And:
"If points failure is the cause there must be a robust investigation
into the management system's failings that led to it and there must be
no attempt simply to scapegoat staff."

Obviously it was all Management's fault. Didn't the union hold up the
RAIB investigation for a few days with silly demands? That's no
problem; because if you already know that Management are to blame, who
needs an investigation into the actual technical failure and the
surrounding maintenance work...?