SouthEastern taken over by government.

[phil-b259]

12 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Nothing to do with Marx.

 

 

Wasn't he the one who advocated 'workers owning the means of production' (i.e. Nationalisation) as a necessary part of building a socialist state (a requirement that all RMT members should be working towards according to their own rules / constitution).

 

[Sheffield]

If SE owed £25 million to DaFT, why didn't DaFT notice they had not had it? if this issue is just imcompetence it exists on both sides. Daft like to micromanage the railways so perhaps they should have been more aware of what was happening.

[62613]

39 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Wasn't he the one who advocated 'workers owning the means of production' (i.e. Nationalisation) as a necessary part of building a socialist state (a requirement that all RMT members should be working towards according to their own rules / constitution).

 

Did the workers own any part of any of the nationalised industries? It seems to me that, if anything, Marx was advocating a mutual organisation, or something along the lines of the Mondragon Cooperative in France

 

[Northmoor]

9 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Did the workers own any part of any of the nationalised industries? It seems to me that, if anything, Marx was advocating a mutual organisation, or something along the lines of the Mondragon Cooperative in France

 

And isn't it funny how in the days after WW2 when all the nationalisation took place in the UK, NONE of them were employee-owned?

[roythebus1]

I find it odd that the government are worried about. mere £25m with South Eastern, yet are seemingly unconcerned with the £37bn track and Tracey has cost them, and the £8m ferry company with no ferries, or the PPE stuff not fit for purpose. 

[Dagworth]

3 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

I find it odd that the government are worried about. mere £25m with South Eastern, yet are seemingly unconcerned with the £37bn track and Tracey has cost them, and the £8m ferry company with no ferries, or the PPE stuff not fit for purpose. 

The govt. are probably worried that someone is getting away with financial shenanigans and it's not them! 

[Northmoor]

5 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

I find it odd that the government are worried about. mere £25m with South Eastern, yet are seemingly unconcerned with the £37bn track and Tracey has cost them, and the £8m ferry company with no ferries, or the PPE stuff not fit for purpose. 

Why, would you prefer they continued to make the same mistakes?  

[Oldddudders]

No doubt a percentage of the travelling public gleefully imagine that the irritating booking clerk, conductor or stationman they currently see is about to get the size 9. The number of people who lose their jobs when a franchise is terminated is miniscule, of course, as only the very top team move on. Everyone else stays in post, at least on day 1. 

[fezza]

If a homeless man can go to gaol for nicking £25 worth of groceries from Tesco, what punishment is suitable for a rich company that "mislays" £25 million...?

 

Answer: they get to carry on running Southern, Thameslink and most of London's buses.

[Fat Controller]

15 hours ago, 62613 said:

Did the workers own any part of any of the nationalised industries? It seems to me that, if anything, Marx was advocating a mutual organisation, or something along the lines of the Mondragon Cooperative in France

 

Mondragon is based in the Basque region of Spain; amazingly, it was established in 1956, when the Franco regime was at the height of its powers. It's now the seventh largest company (by turnover) in Spain, with 75 000 employees/ members.

France has quite a few Mutuels; key activities include banking (Credit Agricole) and medical insurance.

[MidlandRed]

13 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

I find it odd that the government are worried about. mere £25m with South Eastern, yet are seemingly unconcerned with the £37bn track and Tracey has cost them, and the £8m ferry company with no ferries, or the PPE stuff not fit for purpose. 

Quite - and even more odd that it apparently didn’t notice it’s contractor had failed to pay this money back when it was due. I guess as more details become known we will find out if this was deliberate or just a cock up (or a cock up on both sides) - I wouldn’t like to bet on which it ends up being!! 

 

I said before and no-one seems to have picked up on the fact that the timing of announcing this (in typical spin management style) may just deflect at least some attention from the unholy cock up of lorry driver shortages which the Government has been standing back from for months - until fuel shortages and panic buying threaten to disrupt severely life for many. The fact the Conservative party conference is next week is also, perhaps a factor in the timing? I suppose the Government baring its teeth in the name of saving public money will go a little way to counter the perception of the other issues being caused by incompetence and mismanagement. 
 

It’s also very interesting that fuel prices went up in the summer whilst people were travelling distances to holidays - yet there was apparently no issue with fuel deliveries/lorry driver shortages despite increased demand - when you would expect the price to drop again as there is less demand there’s suddenly a shortage and prices go through the roof - I seem to recall it started when BP closed some garages owing to transport issues…call me a cynic but I can’t see any of this affecting negatively fuel companies (except maybe in PR). 

 

All good news for public transport operators (and the Government in the case of South Eastern?) as more people are apparently using it as a result. Whether they continue to is another matter. 
 

I shall watch with interest how my local South Eastern rail service fares from this matter - I suspect not much difference initially but let’s see. 

Edited September 29, 2021 by MidlandRed

[corneliuslundie]

I get the impression that the main driver for petrol and diesel prices is world prices rather than local issues. So a drop in demand in the UK wouldn't lead to a significant drop in retail prices. I may be wrong but it seems that we do not carry large stocks of oil based products in this country; hence the often short term fluctuation in retail prices. Though competition also has a part - the BP garage here is just opposite Tesco and though its prices are usually a penny or two above those across the road they seems to follow price changes almost in unison. Of course organisations such as airlines may buy on the international spot market if they can collect the fuel conveniently (because they fly to where it is on sale).

Incidentally, I assume that the current hike in oil prices is also affecting the railways. (there, almost back on topic)

Jonathan

[pH]

6 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

… the BP garage here is just opposite Tesco and though its prices are usually a penny or two above those across the road they seems to follow price changes almost in unison. 

Of course they do.

 

One son and several of his friends worked in various gas stations in their teens. They were told to keep an eye on the prices being displayed on other companies’ stations within view and to phone in any changes to a central office. That office would then decide if their company’s prices should change, by how much and over what area.

 

There was one station owned by a small local company within view of a station my son worked in. The stations were on opposite sides of a busy road, so really each only served traffic in one direction. The small company used to play tricks with their sign, changing the prices on one side only - the one facing the station my son worked in - but not on the side facing the traffic they served, which continued to show their real price. The staff in my son’s station knew what was happening, but dutifully reported the changes. That caused their prices, and those of other stations belonging to their company in the close area, to be adjusted in response. Which then caused other companies  to change their prices .. etc. 

[The Lurker]

The BBC news at 6 last night misallocated the captions of the RMT leader and the leader of the Sevenoaks commuters association. If one had not know better, you have seen the union leader praising how well Southeastern had done, particularly over the pandemic and returning service levels safely, and the Commuter Association man advocating full nationalisation as the only solution (because of course, there would never be any corruption in one of those).

[MidlandRed]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

I get the impression that the main driver for petrol and diesel prices is world prices rather than local issues. So a drop in demand in the UK wouldn't lead to a significant drop in retail prices. I may be wrong but it seems that we do not carry large stocks of oil based products in this country; hence the often short term fluctuation in retail prices. Though competition also has a part - the BP garage here is just opposite Tesco and though its prices are usually a penny or two above those across the road they seems to follow price changes almost in unison. Of course organisations such as airlines may buy on the international spot market if they can collect the fuel conveniently (because they fly to where it is on sale).

Incidentally, I assume that the current hike in oil prices is also affecting the railways. (there, almost back on topic)

Jonathan

I agree entirely - definitely in normal times - however we currently have the strange spectacle of a BP garage charging day £1.45 per litre (and having no fuel), and a nearby Morrison’s (with fuel) charging £1.32 (and having fuel available)!! I paid £1.55/litre for 97 octane last Thursday at an Esso (supermarket equivalent circa £1.40) - so there is definitely an element of profiteering going on as well. 
 

Back to South Eastern - I too think South Eastern have generally done Ok - with the exception of their revenue inspections teams descending in large numbers on commuter stations in peak periods causing extremely dangerous and worrying congestion on platforms with trains passing at speed - by reducing platform access/egress so they can check each passenger before they leave. No problem with the principle, just the execution. 

[Pandora]

On 28/09/2021 at 11:31, Michael Hodgson said:

The company has apparently referred itself to the SFO who haven't yet decided whether or not to investigate.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/f72054bd-bcf0-4d93-8083-f498b59979a6

 

If the missing £25m has been repaid as  claimed by the Go-Ahead group, they presumably still had the funds. 

So perhaps it's more a case of accounting oversight or incompetence rather than fraud as is being suggested by some.

Mismanagement rather than malfeasance?

I understand Southeastern discovered the error and self-reported the error to the Authorities for investigation including to the SFO.

While not condoning SE, £25 million is money down the back of the sofa to the scale of the SE operation.   We were not too fussy about funding the EU,  an organisation which leaked like  a colander and whose  Accounts were rejected by Auditors

[lmsforever]

Whos next in line to be taken over any ideas seems a back door method of nationalisation mark you the ones run by last resort companies are doing well.

[Northmoor]

22 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Whos next in line to be taken over any ideas seems a back door method of nationalisation mark you the ones run by last resort companies are doing well.

The Labour Party's policy before the last election was to re-nationalise simply by not renewing all the existing franchises when they lapsed.  They never stated how they were going to buy all the rolling stock though; a very effective way of spending a few billion without actually building a single new vehicle (effectively just changing the name on the ownership document).

As for who is next?  Well, the TOCs dominated by London commuter traffic aren't doing well at the moment.......

[corneliuslundie]

They could end the franchises, have the railway all run by a state owned company but still lease the stock - and then say the system had been nationalised.

Jonathan

[phil-b259]

This is worth a read - https://www.londonreconnections.com/category/featured/

 

One of the things not mentioned is that the previous management contract with the DfT* was going to expire at the end of October anyway!

 

That plus the fact that this shortfall has been known about for ages makes the suggestion that the Government made a big song and dance about it now for political reasons only (distract attention from the fuel supply issues and to look as though they are doing something positive on the eve of the Conservative conference) very plausible.

 

* It was on about the 3rd or 4th one of those thanks to repeated delays in issuing a new franchise before that system got abandoned in the face of Covid

Edited October 3, 2021 by phil-b259

[roythebus1]

On 02/10/2021 at 10:19, Pandora said:

I understand Southeastern discovered the error and self-reported the error to the Authorities for investigation including to the SFO.

While not condoning SE, £25 million is money down the back of the sofa to the scale of the SE operation.   We were not too fussy about funding the EU,  an organisation which leaked like  a colander and whose  Accounts were rejected by Auditors

The alleged problems with the EU's finances and colanders have already been  proved inaccurate both by the EU's own auditors and fact checking websites. Their accounts have been audited correctly and signed off for the first time in 2016, there having been inaccuracies in all years up till then. Have a look at fuulfact.org. They have this to say at the end of their report: 

 

https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

 

 "While the EU is ultimately responsible for its own budget, the majority of the spending is implemented by member countries. Both the EU and member states make similar amounts of error.

In the UK’s case, the Public Accounts Committee has criticised the government for designing programmes which add to the complexity of EU spending, and showing a “distinct lack of urgency” in tackling that complexity and reducing the penalties the UK needs to pay back to the EU.

It can take the EU several years to make corrections to the money paid out in error. It estimates that between 2009 and 2015 it recovered just over 2% of the average payments."

 

It also says that errors are down to individuals, I suggest the former UKIP MEPs were among the major proponents of that issue.

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by roythebus1

[roythebus1]

I rarely rely on the British press for "the news", usually online Irish Post and other EU sources, and fact check most things that are claimed as the fault of the EU.

[Bittern]

On 02/10/2021 at 23:50, Northmoor said:

They never stated how they were going to buy all the rolling stock though; a very effective way of spending a few billion without actually building a single new vehicle (effectively just changing the name on the ownership document).

AIUI the plan was that new stock would be bought by BR/DfT directly (after all, doing all government borrowing as part of the national debt rather than commercial loans by assorted contractors was a key part of McDonnell's platform, and probably the least controversial) and that given those lower financing costs the ROSCOs and existing SPVs would need to reconsider their pricing (as happened with the 707s).

 

I think some people wanted a new BREL/AEC, which might have made sense if the other policies about  catching up to the rest of Europe on improved urban transport had been firm policies instead of vague ambitions (since it would need a huge amount of production of trams and metro carriages relative to the existing European market, to make up for buying hardly any for decades), but that wasn't part of the party platform. Instead I gather the expectation was that they'd be buying loads of 745s and 755s, or failing that 80x and 70x units, at least at first.