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Grant Morrison predicts the future... again!

Started by Wood, 21 May, 2002, 04:02:20 PM

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Wood

Grant Morrison's "Animal Man", thirteen years ago: a corrupt bespectacled scientist is defeated with his own science. They literally make a monkey out of him. His name is Byers.

Tony Blair's government this week: Byers is hoist on his own petard. He makes a monkey out of himself.

Coincidence?

I think not.

:D

paulvonscott

I don't know, I have some sympathy for the man, it must be the worst job in politics and it is an unholy mess.

Personally I blame John Majors government for selling it off at a bargain price in the first place.  I would personally have John Major and those associated with the plan shot as traitors to the country (VoTE PVS fOr A SENsiBLe FUtURE!)

I enjoy the train service so much I've given them up and go by car, something I don't really enjoy doing.  Now I'm just another polluting idiot.

red_lichtie

It is the worst job in politics. The railways have been starved of investment since the end of WWI (yes WW One) with the failure to reinvest heavily after WWII effectively destroying the network. Apparently we were all going to be going by helicopter! Since WWII no govenrment has invested enough in the rail network. By the 1980's, the railways were simply left to decay.

Privatisation as advocated by the head of British Rail was for the network to be broken up into intergrated sectors - effectively a return to the days of the pre-nationalisation railways. Instead the track was diverged from the trains and we got Railtrack with the multiple layers of management. No other continental railway has been privatised apart from Belgium and they gave up halfway.

Combine that with the fact that the job of transport minister is the Whitehall equivalent of the poison chalice, the railways had no hope whatsoever. No Transport minister has ever held on to his post in a reshuffle. This means the Transport civil servants have to train another novice in the post.

So railways have had sod all investment and crap political leadership. Rant over.

RL




paulvonscott

No, I'm with you there brother Lichtie!

At least railtrack has been bought back, which hopefully means that the government will still be held responsible for its failures even if they pretend its and independant body.

red_lichtie

It hasn't been bought back - its in administration which means that the accountants run it (and that costs money) and that the employees who actually do the work on the rail network are more demoralised than they were before. Demoralised employees means more mistakes and that leads to accidents.

As for any government taking responsiblity, with a "new" Railtrack, hell will freeze over first! As for the argument that Railtrack never spent enough money on safety, it took 30 years for the rail network to install the most basic form of train control system and the main reason was the Harrow and Wealdstone Disaster.

RL

RL

Link: http://danger-ahead.railfan.net/gallery/harrow.htm" target="_blank">Harrow Crash


paulvonscott

Well, now our railways are well cocked up it's nice to see that they've started on the airways too.

At least they are thorough.

red_lichtie

They are very thorough. They've just privatised Faslane. In case you don't know (you probably do but what the hell), that's where the Trident Subs with nuclear missles are based. Now, by all means sell off "non-essential" services like air traffic control but not the bloody nukes.

Is that a mushroom I see before me...

RL

paulvonscott

I hoped the sell offs would stop.  They should announce it correctly as 'we are washing our hands of it, god help you all'.

red_lichtie

Lets see. What have they privatised

British Steel, British Coal (what was left of it after Maggie!), British Rail,  Air Traffic Control, British Airways, Prisons, Prisoner Transport, Public Transport (buses), British Road Services (albeit that was a failed nationalisation), British Leyland (Rover, etc), there was a state owned oil company (not BP), Naval dockyards, RAF aircraft maintenince (Makes the planes fall out of the sky more often!), Royal Ordnance, DERA (MOD research labs), Dockyards.

What is still left in state ownership is the Crown Estate, the Post Office and the Bank of England.

Must stop ranting about privatisation.

RL

stodge

i'm not sure but isn't the Post Office now onsignia?  does that mean it is privatised now?  i don't really follow it that much but it is a sorry state of affairs.

red_lichtie

No idea. I can't remember a sell off but maybe it was given greater autonomy or summat.

RL