Wednesday 9 December 2009

Rail Against The Air

A train between Manchester Piccadily and London Euston takes two hours. There are no bag searches or what not. You just get on the train, and get off the train. Assuming, that is, that you can afford it. If you can't, you can always fly. Fly! Between Machester and London!

We need to renationalise the railways, uniquely without compensation in view of the manner of their privatisation, as the basis for a national network of public transport free at the point of use, including the reversal of bus route and (where possible) rail line closures going back to the 1950s.

Only public ownership can deliver this. Public ownership is of course British ownership, and thus a safeguard of national sovereignty. It is also a safeguard of the Union in that it creates communities of interest across the several parts of the United Kingdom. Publicly owned concerns often even had, and could have again, the word "British" in their names.

National sovereignty and the Union are among the myriad economic, social, cultural and political goods that this would serve. But it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with global warming.

4 comments:

  1. Premise: It's two hours by train between Manchester and London.

    Conclusion: We need to nationalise the railways.


    Could you please explain to me how this argument works? Its logical force so far escapes me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Holocene can't have the common people moving about in this country or abroad.

    ReplyDelete