Railways

I am very grateful to Trevor Hare for his comment on "Winter is upon us", a previous posting. He writes or, as he puts it, "rants" at length about my suggestion of rail renationalisation. The points he makes, however, are really good ones and certainly made me rethink my own woolly ideas.

I don't wish to return to bad old ways of British Rail but do feel the present system of free market rail transport has not given us much of an improvement. I endorse Trevor's idea of a 51 percent national stake in a railway company. Being a Francophile I approve the idea of allying closely with a European rail operator for management expertise. Now does anyone know how I can go about getting some action on this idea? I could try the e-petitions at the Downing Street website or try putting pressure on the prospective leadership candidates for the Liberal Democrat party.

I read Matt Grimshaw's excellent article in a recent Guardian, "The Liberal Democrats are at risk of obliteration", and this re-awakened some of the political zeal I have lost over the years. Readers of my previous postings will know I was considered as a possible Liberal Democrat councillor candidate earlier this year. I backed out on ill health but the County LibDem councillor won the borough seat, which was a "good thing" all around.

Anyway I would describe myself as a Socialist Democrat or a democratic socialist or whatever influenced by ideas of John Stuart Mills. Once upon a time I might have described myself as a Labour supporter in honour of my coal working ancestors on my mother's side of the family. However New Labour are vying with the Tories to "steal each other's policies, principles and voters" (Matt Grimshaw). Matt Grimshaw advocates leaving the middle ground to the two parties already there and to use the Ross Perot tactic of 1992 to attack the "Self interest of the ....political elite." Grimshaw goes on to say the LibDems should forget the 5% of voters lost to Cameron but concentrate instead on the 40% of voters who no longer bother to vote. "They must articulate a new vision of liberal democracy that creates new dividing lines in British politics". He agrees with my own thoughts that the best man for the job currently was Ming Campbell, whereas in Huhne and Clegg, the new contenders, we have more of the Cameron/Blair effect. Gordon Brown had the chance of moving away from the same effect but seems to be muffing his opportunity. Don't they see that voters are put off by "the prevailing political wind" and need something of substance rather than style from their democratic leaders?

Politically I felt and still feel a hatred towards Thatcherite policy and the free market approach to national institutions. How are we ever going to get a green transport policy when we are in the hands of freebooters and entrepreneurs? I live near Portsmouth, a city drowning in traffic. It is ideally built on an island and could find solutions to many of its problems, but not if it has to rely upon private enterprise for public transport. Buses should revert to some form of public ownership and we should be exploring other means of large scale transit systems. I cannot believe that a LRT system would not be suited to Portsmouth and bridges/tunnels built as means of access. How would I pay for such schemes? Come in, Trevor, more help needed on this one!