<< let another party have a go, because either way the figures do not add up. >>

That is exactly the reason why we should ignore all these empty electioneering promises. It's normal for pledges made in the heat of the moment to slide quickly under the carpet when people use something bigger than an envelope to do the sums.

The saddest thing was the treatment voters gave the LibDems after their coalition, slamming them for not fulfilling their promises - when as the junior partner they clearly couldn't.

Since 2010, under the Coalition then the Tories, the UK's public debt has increased massively, despite the brutal austerity measures which have devastated social care, cut police & nursing staff numbers, and so on.

Labour were also planning austerity measures for ten years too:

Alistair Darling admitted tonight that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

Labour is lying to its potential supporters. It's dog whistle politics of the highest order, pure and simple.

If Labour won the election, slashing rail fares by a third is not as easy as they imply. Many train operators have signed franchise agreements in which certain revenue streams are assumed and predicted in return for premium payments. Others are on management contracts so take 2-3% of turnover, and their take would be lower. There could be other problems too which make the finances of an operator precarious.

If you slash fares, revenue falls and eventually the train operator will be in breach of contract unless the next Government re-negotiates contracts for lower revenue. It would open a can of worms as franchise were tendered for on the basis of future profits.

But if you slash fares, it will inevitably attract more passengers, so how will Labour deal with the increased overcrowding that will obviously occur? Cant use certain trains after December 31 due to changes in mobility regulations, and cant order more as UK and European manufacturers order books full for next 2 years with existing orders, yet the first two LNER Mk 4 carriages to be scrapped are currently sitting a Rotherham breakers yard, part gutted, ready for the gas axe. It's a set of ill-thought out statements from the party.

Let me also add that we are cutting up quality carriages, hundreds of others which are non-compliant are rotting away in Cambridgeshire and Warwickshire and more will follow next year, but we cant get new trains into service quick enough because of software or other faults. Not enough drivers have been trained on them because to do so would mean cancelling other trains to release them for training runs because operators have planned strategy badly and in a penny-pinching manner.

Add in that Network Rail which owns track and signals is a Government dept, and franchises are very tightly specified and managed by the DfT, as Labour has indicated it is unlikely to renationalise the rolling stock lease companies, what is there to re-nationalise. It isn't the panacea Labour claim it to be.

That's how crazy our railway are.

I reckon Johnson does not have much in the way of morals or ideology, but that could work out for the good, as it means he cares for power, and will stay in the middle to please the masses.

That's a desperate way of looking at it.

He obsessively craved the PM job, and he's unabashedly dishonest. That's the last person I want.

You have excluded the East Coast mainline.

GNER was excellent, since then it has failed twice in private hands. Once again it is back in public hands and gives by far the best experience of railways I regularly use.

Northern have never been brilliant, but they are currently an absolute shambles of an organisation - less than 50% of services on time and endless other issues which they simply aren't addressing.

The problem with nationalising anything is that the UK has a sorry record of long term failure of nationalised industries..

Fair comment as far as it goes but It didn't help that we had a habit of nationalising industries because they needed rescuing. BL was a basket case well before the government was involved, the railways were unviable as they were worn out in the war and much of the network was a dead loss, etc etc.

Presumably most of the people running the industries would be the ones who are doing so currently.

In the 1960s and 1970s the UK was known as the sick man of Europe. UK per capita GDP declined relative to the EU fairly consistently from 1945 to the early 1970s.

For those old enough to remember and those younger who have read some modern history this was a time of:

• nationalised industries,
• strikes,
• three day weeks,
• abusive and destructive use of power by unions,
• an arrogant inflexible management culture

Thatcher and membership of the EU changed all this. The UK now ranks comfortably in the top three despite a much enlarged EU.

We should not risk renationalising industries - the public sector are not culturally capable of managing and developing a business. The reasons are simple:

• private sector companies have a profit motive which drives them to find better, more efficient, cheaper ways to deliver services.
• the public sector are inherently risk averse. It makes them bureaucratic, slow to respond, and high cost as they put avoiding risk and reputational damage much higher up the priority list than service delivery.

It's easy to find fouled up public sector projects - successful ones are rather more limited - HS2 costs, roll-out of universal benefit, new airport (Heathrow??), cross rail, Brexit contingency planning etc

The public sector has a governance role - create barriers to overexploitation, and inadequate services - etc. The current rule book may well need some revision but renationalisation is not the solution.

"According to Northern’s own data, I haven’t got home once on time since May"

If you want to encourage rail use this isn't a good advert for private companies.

I'm not sure whether this is a failure of the franchise holder or a failure of effective governance - probably both. It is not of itself evidence of a failure of the private sector or an endorsement of the wisdom of state control.

Not of itself, I agree. But in this case the fault was with the incimpetent Major government of the 1990s which, for no obvious reason, set up an authority to run the tracks which was separate from the train operating companies. It still is, and they have been blaming each other ever since when something goes wrong.

They sort of tried letting the train operator run the tracks in BR's sectorisation which saw the old regions (Western, London Midland etc) abolished in favour of Inter City, Regional and Network South East etc.

On the Euston line it meant the fast tracks were 'owned' by Inter City while the slow or relief lines - at least as far as Northampton were NSE. It meant that access for fast commuter services to Milton Keynes and beyond to by pass the stopping services had to be negotiated and was effectively rationed. Fast trains to Northampton went from 58 minutes to 1:12.

Something similar was proposed in the nineties/noughties for the so called Passenger Upgrade 2 for Virgin's Pendolinos to travel at 140mph. Bletchley passengers would have had to double back from MK and other stations would have been left with one hourly service for much of the day as the commuter quart was pressed into the slow line pint pot.

Fortunately sense was seen and we now have good access to fast lines for services to longer distance commuter destinations and with 110mph running they have minimal effect on the 125mph (soon to be ex) Virgin services.

VED increases should be based on the size of the car - i.e. the area they take up on the road, and their fuel economy. Large cars and / or powerful uneconomical cars would pay more.

For EVs, 'economy' should be based on how quickly the battery can be discharged by heavy-footed driving on a test track. Thus your Tesla Model S Plaid would pay far more than a standard single motor model 3.

The extra money raised should go towards:

- Road repairs.

- Road improvements - making existing roads safer rather than building new roads.

- Improving bus services.

- Building tram systems in major cities.

- Selected rail routes where re-opening or upgrading would reduce road traffic.

Why do we need VED and Fuel Duty - the latter is very proportionate in that heavier, less economical vehicles pay more - government just has to apply similar duty to electric for charging.

Money raised by any form of taxation doesn't go towards specific expenditure, just into the general fund.

Indeed - surely cutting out the former and slightly upping the latter, if at all, would increase overall net revenue because there would be less admin required, either reducing staffing costs or freeing up them to do something more productive.

The downside would be less business for Post Offices, which as we know are struggling to keep business. I still get my VED redone there each year to assist.

It also means I have something tangible to prove to Plod that my car is taxed, especially as I have heard, on occasion, the online/phone VED system doesn't always go smoothly, plus you have to wait for the certificate to come in the post, which is not very useful for me, given my car's VED is always due at the end of December, when the post isn't exactly reliable.

It also means I have something tangible to prove to Plod that my car is taxed, especially as I have heard, on occasion, the online/phone VED system doesn't always go smoothly, plus you have to wait for the certificate to come in the post, which is not very useful for me, given my car's VED is always due at the end of December, when the post isn't exactly reliable.

When you tax on line you get an e-mail and a text to confirm that you have paid etc.

Not received a "certificate in the post" in recent times, possibly never.

All we used to get in the post was that factitious "tax in post" that many used to display on the screen.

Only time I have been stopped for no tax was back in 2005 on a brand new Micra. Picked it up Sunday morning in Derby and was stopped in Sheffield Sunday afternoon. Car showing as not taxed on their system. Showed him the insurance certificate which you needed to tax the car back then and at that time there was a paper disc on the screen. Plod said he expected the system needed to update Monday. Never heard anything about it.

Proposed road pricing schemes have not been thought through and will be full of holes.###

It is incredible we have had mass EVs around for over 11 years , it has become policy to change form ICEs and yet there is NO workable proposal - let alone plan - of how to tax BEVs to replace lost fuel duty..

But then , see HS2. Also see the move to Net Zero and lack of actions on increasing home electricity production.

## I expect the only workable system is a monthly payment of VED for everyone..

VED provides the DVLA with ownership details and a check on insurance and MOT.

Buying fuel needs no identification, just payment.

Only for honest owners - VED, insurance and MoT are ignored by a significant minority - fuel duty is paid by everyone, including the dishonest minority.

So raise VED to pay privately owned rail companies to keep fares being a little less extortionate.

OK anyone else see issues with giving public money to private companies?

Like maybe our politicians have some financial interest in some of these companies? What is to stop them? It's legal but completely immoral.

Still when has that stopped our leaders?

VED provides the DVLA with ownership details and a check on insurance and MOT.

Buying fuel needs no identification, just payment.

Only for honest owners - VED, insurance and MoT are ignored by a significant minority - fuel duty is paid by everyone, including the dishonest minority.

I am in favour of automatic crushing for cases of no insurance. The vehicle itself should be seized and sold with all proceeds to the state.. irrespective of who owns it.

So what are we crushing? The driver?

Note as well, the DVLA database can be used by private parking companies to issue fines. This is something I don't agree with as your name and address is being supplied to a third party who could employ people who are less than honest and could pass on your details to criminals. Oh there's someone with a BMW 7 class who's been issued a PCN and they happen to live in the best street in town.

A 19th century technology trying to find a useful application in the 21st. Long term even commuting need is increasingly doubtful with WFH and Zoom. Spend the money on the useful, not already over-rewarded train drivers.

I always find it amusing that people often say that trains are an old solution and are not needed now forgetting cars are from the 19th century as well.

The problem the UK has with its trains is the of investment over the decades and the separate private companies running it don't help - they need to be brought together as one unit and some long term investment done.

Cars have improved materially since the Benz took to the road in 1886 travelling at a terrifying 10mph

In 1885 trains from London to Edinburgh were scheduled to take 7hr 30min including stopping for water.. The same today non-stop takes ~4hr 30min.

New fangled things called aeroplanes, not available for London Edinburgh duties until a commercial airport opened in 1947, take ~1hr.

Cars which will take ~7-8 hr for the journey today have the distinct advantage of not needing additional journey legs from stations and airports - time wise they have improved massively compared to trains.

Costs - a single ticket on the train costs £70-100 depending on day and time, benefitting from a share of £bns of subsidies. Coach £30-60. 8 gallons of petrol will cover the 400 miles for ~£50.

Trains are an unambiguously Victorian concept - far quicker than horse and cart or canal barge - the alternatives in the day. They are now hopelessly outclassed - albeit I agree not helps by privatisation complexities and inadequate regulation.

I can only humbly disagree. As a means of transport, I view cars as a last resort forced upon us by our terrible public transport and over-regulated private hire.

When I can eat, sleep, read and work in my car I might change my mind, but the train will still be faster, safer, cleaner and more comfortable.

In 1885 trains from London to Edinburgh were scheduled to take 7hr 30min including stopping for water.. The same today non-stop takes ~4hr 30min.

It only takes that long though due to lack if investment - if it was a more modern service it could be a lot quicker (the speeds of something like Japanese Shinkansen are so much quicker) and passenger costs could be brought down as well. In theory a non stop train could easily do it in a couple of hours - even with stops 3 hours is feasible.