Eurostar “is not our company to rescue”, the Government has said, insisting France must take responsibility for the bailout of the struggling Channel Tunnel operator.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said French taxpayers rather than their British counterparts must lead Eurostar’s rescue.
“We will look to be helpful, but we don’t actually own this company,” he said. “It is not our company to rescue.”
Just to rub it in perhaps we should mention that we might be interested in some cheap assets after it has gone bust?
I suppose that makes up for his failure to reverse the deadly ‘smart motorways’….
Cheap assets? Don’t they just lease the trains, like all the other TOCs?
Things have changed, though, haven’t they. What might have been a viable business model before Brexit and before the Great Mortality no longer works. The increased border formalities at both ends and the customs duties payable by returning Brits who go shopping and the imminent prospect of vaccine passports will reduce private travel a lot. As for the freight, the best thing the French could do to support the company is to stop being bloody-minded.
@TMB There is no freight on Eurostar. It is the passenger business.
@AndrewM I think the earlier trains were leased, but since 2004 when it was restructured from an international JV, it appears to have acquired a taste for owning outright. Some of its surplus trains are already leased out to SNCF and operate as TGVs, so the rest could go the same way.
No Julia it doesn’t.
He and the vast majority of the HoTrash need to be disposed of .
A giant game of run-across-the-smart-motorway-until-the-traffic-gets-you-all would be an apt demise for that evil little crew.
Grand Day Out for the UK public.
Alex – Thanks – my mistake. I was thinking of Eurotunnel, of course.
Who cares? There’s loads of flights going into CDG and Orly from across the country. Driving to, or near Paris isn’t that much of a slog. And if time isn’t a big thing, there’s Megabus.
Here’s an idea: why don’t all those useless, overpaid rail staff take a pay cut to something closer to what people on buses earn? They only earn eyewatering sums because there’s a monopoly and they can hold the users to ransom and bleed most of the income out of the service.
Cue Boris U turn in five … four … three …
Don’t Decnine… you got me worried now.
UK Gov wisely sold it shares in Eurostar, some years back.
Grant Shapps could now tell us why we had to subsidise BA when it’s owned by a Spanish company. Did the British taxpayer receive shares in return? (Question expecting the answer “no”.)
British Airways has been shite since forever. Let the bloody thing die already. No country needs a “Flag Carrier” in this day and age.
actually looking at the Headline “france-must-rescue-eurostar-says-shapps” – umm but did he use the word “must”? not that i can see from his quoted sentences.
A couple of years ago, Remoaners were telling me that Eurostar would have to close after Brexit, because the train drivers’ licenses would cease to be valid when we left the EU.
It’s remarkable.
They want to ruin us, But every time I open the newspaper I see them shoving another pile of bargaining chips our way.
The train staff don’t earn eyewatering sums, they’re PAID eyewatering sums.