The Green Party of England and Wales has called for rail fares to be frozen on the day the government has announced that regulated fares will increase in January 2024.
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Ramsay said: “This government is moving in completely the wrong direction. Fuel duty has been frozen since 2011, while air passenger duty cuts this year will be a disaster for the climate crisis by encouraging people to fly more. This is despite the fact UK rail passengers are already paying more to travel by train than flying and are faced with some of the most expensive tickets in Europe.
“Emissions from transport are higher than for any other sector of the economy. If the UK is to meet its climate commitments, then we need more people choosing trains over cars and planes, and we need more commuters opting for public transport and active travel to get to work. Making train travel more expensive, while closing rail ticket offices that support travellers to get the best deal, would underscore the government’s contempt for climate action and the travelling public.
Dŵr (Water) is a classic Welsh song by Huw Jones. I think that the backing vocals are Heather Jones.
Among Tory voters, 57% back the Government to run utilities and 29% prefer the private sector.
Even Tory voters think that key utilities such as water, rail and power networks should be nationalised, a new poll has found.
The poll, carried out by Ipsos Mori for the ipaper, found broad public support for nationalisation of key utilities, including among Tory voters.
68% of those asked favoured nationalisation of water, with 65% of respondents also saying that railways should be bought under public ownership. 63% said power networks should be publicly owned; and 60% supported a reversal of the privatisation of Royal Mail.
Among Tory voters, 57% back the Government to run utilities and 29% prefer the private sector.
It comes at a time when food and energy prices have been rising amid a cost of living crisis.
A ship passes wind turbines at RWE’s Gwynt y Mor, the world’s 2nd largest offshore wind farm located eight miles offshore in Liverpool Bay, off the coast of North Wales, July 26, 2022
NATIONALISED energy firms could make a whopping £140 billion for the British economy by 2040, according to a TUC analysis published today.
The union body argued investment in a publicly owned clean power company could generate £3 for every £1 put in, or £5,000 per household.
The strategy would lower record-high gas and electricity bills, make the country richer, create good clean jobs and cut carbon emissions, it said.
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Oslo has raked in more than £300bn from North Sea oil in the last 40 years by investing in publicly owned energy firms, noted the TUC, which slammed Westminster for choosing to privatise oil fields and put “corporate profits over the public purse.”
The union body’s general secretary, Paul Nowak, said: “Publicly owned energy companies work – across Europe they are lowering household bills and delivering good jobs.
Lindsey German on … [Keith Starmer] , the establishment’s friend …
The fate of Thames Water should be the end of the privatisation model pioneered by Thatcher in the 1980s. The major utilities and public companies were sold off at undervalued prices, their shares rapidly snapped up by big corporations and investors, prices for consumers rose rapidly, and profits went to shareholders, not to investment. That’s why today the common refrain about most parts of public life in Britain is that nothing works. And it is epitomised by Thames Water drowning in debt and likely to be taken back into public ownership temporarily.
But any form of nationalisation is going to be resisted to the bitter end, not just by the greedy privatised companies themselves, but by the Tories and the increasingly right-wing Labour Party under Keir Starmer. The cheek of the privatised companies was illustrated when the head of another, Severn Trent, convened a meeting of all the water firms to explicitly discuss ways of resisting nationalisation. And it’s no use going to the supposed regulators for help. As the Observer reported, ‘27 former Ofwat directors, managers and consultants [are] working in the industry they helped to regulate, with about half in senior posts.’ So a number of those regulating the industry have moved over to take lucrative positions in…. the privatised water companies.
While investors take the money and run, working class people are left with dire and expensive services that fail frequently because there is no investment. The water companies are publicly disgraced because of their dumping of sewage in rivers and seas, rather than invest in new treatment plants. But in London (and no doubt elsewhere) there have been several burst water mains, risking lives as they cause disruption sometimes for months, because of lack of investment. In the southeast of England, drinking water supplies have failed ‘because of the hot weather’, in what must be the lamest excuse from a company supposed to provide just that.
The answer from government and industry alike is that future investment will have to be paid for by us, through much higher bills and higher taxes. Already gas and electricity is beyond affordable for millions. But the energy companies will set the benchmark for other industries as profits are protected. No wonder nearly 13 million adults struggle to pay bills.
dizzy: Under Capitalism failing companies would normally go bankrupt so that the companies’ debts would be transferred to it’s creditors. This is not the case with the banks in the banking crisis of 2008, the energy companies failures ofrecent yearsand it looks like failing water companies now. Instead of the companies creditors shouldering the debt as part of the normal process, the poor public is instead burdened with it. This is great for the banks of course because it means that they can borrow without any risk of default, knowing that they will profiteer from the public regardless.
THE boss of water giant Severn Trent was caught colluding with Labour’s increasingly right-wing leadership to stave off calls for nationalisation today.
In a leaked email marked “highly confidential,” Liv Garfield invited other bosses from across England’s privatised system to a “off-the-record roundtable” discussion on how to maintain the “status quo” amid the potential collapse of Thames Water.
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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer committed to state-run utility firms when he ran for the party leadership in 2020, but he has now largely abandoned the pledges, calling for better regulation instead.
Ms Garfield wrote: “While it is clear Labour will not include nationalisation in its next manifesto, they are also not keen on championing the status quo.
“The leadership thinks there is room for improvement and, politically, there is significant pressure to ‘do something’ about utilities.
“Labour is aware we are soft testing various ideas but have asked us to keep it highly confidential so please don’t forward this email.”
