{"id":5827,"date":"2015-09-22T15:02:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T14:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5827"},"modified":"2015-09-22T15:02:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T14:02:25","slug":"the-peoples-railway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5827","title":{"rendered":"The People’s railway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite has welcomed Jeremy Corbyn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposed people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s railway describing it as \u00e2\u20ac\u015ban end to business as usual for failed companies in a failed system.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The new Labour leader has indicated he wants to renationalise Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s railways by regaining control of franchises as they expire.<\/p>\n

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Having set up a taskforce to consider the idea Corbyn is expected to fully outline the policy shift at his party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual conference in Brighton next week.<\/p>\n

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Overwhelming support<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Over the weekend he said there was \u00e2\u20ac\u015boverwhelming support for the British people for a people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s railway, better and more efficient services and fairer fares.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unions and campaign groups point out the move would save the public and taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.<\/p>\n

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Tony Murphy, Unite national officer for railway members, said: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPrivatisation promised a better, cheaper service but it has done nothing but rip off the rail user with huge hikes in ticket prices and massive increases in public subsides.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe cost of running the railways has almost doubled in real terms \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to nearly \u00c2\u01415.5bn a year in direct subsidies alone \u00e2\u20ac\u201c since privatisation in 1995, something you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear stressed by the government\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, he added.<\/p>\n

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In the run up to the general \u00c2\u00a0election in May Ed Miliband stopped short of endorsing full re-nationalisation, opting instead for publically owned companies bidding for franchises beside private companies.<\/p>\n

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Murphy said that Miliband\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s successor was right to confront the issue head on.<\/p>\n

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Failed system<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are in complete agreement with Jeremy in proposing an end to business as usual for failed companies in a failed system\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, he said.<\/p>\n

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He added \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpassengers in the UK face the highest fares on some of the oldest rolling stock in Europe and are totally fed up with it.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can do so much better than rail companies who consistently take from the public purse and wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even turn a profit if it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for the excessive government subsidies.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOn top of that no-one who regularly uses our railways will need to be told that ours are more overcrowded and slower than their publically owned counterparts in mainland Europe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

National scandal\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe state of our railways amounts to a national scandal which the Conservatives refuse to acknowledge because they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see beyond their own narrow ideology.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are still using slam door trains that entered service before privatisation. There has not the investment into new trains that was promised, leading to a market that has killed off all but one surviving British train manufacturer in the country that invented passenger rail services.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The incremental policy would see around a third of lines in public hands after the first term of a future Labour government, with an ongoing nationalisation programme thereafter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The policy announcement is not expected to prove difficult to get through Labour conference, which has in the past voted in favour of motions on the subject.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite has welcomed Jeremy Corbyn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposed people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s railway describing it as \u00e2\u20ac\u015ban end to business as usual for failed companies in a failed system.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165   The new Labour leader has indicated he wants to renationalise Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s railways by regaining control of franchises as they expire.   Having set up a taskforce to consider the idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[360,252,74,44],"wps_subtitle":"Jeremy Corbyn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call for fairness","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5827"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5860,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions\/5860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}