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Political control is such toss, isn’t it?

A “great British rail sale” is being launched on Tuesday with more than a million tickets available at up to half price, including tickets from London to Edinburgh for just £22.

The Department for Transport said that the discounts, which apply to off-peak tickets for travel between April 25 and May 27, were a response to the cost-of-living crisis.

So the pricing on the trains is being used to dig the government out of a political hole. Which is why we don’t want political control of pricing decisions, of course.

8 thoughts on “Political control is such toss, isn’t it?”

  1. “Which is why we don’t want political control of pricing decisions anything on the planet, of course”. FTFY

    Unfortunately, we do have political control of the railways, so expect it to be fubar’d in pretty short order.

  2. If it’s a response to the “cost-of-living crisis” why is it also a commercial decision? If this is purely commercial, why didn’t the government do it earlier? And if people are really in a “cost of living crisis” why are they fannying around going off to Edinburgh? Shouldn’t they be taking in laundry to help pay the bills?

    Addolff,
    “Unfortunately, we do have political control of the railways, so expect it to be fubar’d in pretty short order.”

    All that’s really kept the railways running outside London is commuting. If it wasn’t for the growth in the service economy in the 90s leading to agglomeration around certain places which required trains, we would have had Beeching II. When the government cuts the £400m/month of emergency funding for Covid, rail is going to go into a death spiral.

    Almost no-one likes going by rail. They like cars, and they use cars except where it’s congested. People from Swindon who take the family to London drive as far down the M4 as Slough or Greenford and then get the train rather than hand over £160 for train fares. Not only are cars quicker door to door, they’re cheaper and more reliable. I would not take a train to Edinburgh because unlike a flight I have no guarantee of a seat. And I don’t want to stand for 6 hours.

  3. “It can show the Treasury that the way to increase income is to cut fares, not to keep ratcheting them up and driving people off the railway.”

    There’s something else this makes me think of. Some sort of curve. It’s on the tip of my tongue.

  4. BoM4

    If you attempt to travel between Edinburgh and Manchester by Trans Pennine Express, there’s little likelihood of a train, let alone a seat.

  5. What’s another half a billion when they’ve already spaffed 400 billion on furlough, eat out and all the other gimmicks.
    Fire half the civil service, defund most quangos, reform planning, privatise the NHS, cancel HS2, abandon net zero. That might make a difference. A few discounted rail tickets are nothing.

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