PIRATES OF THE PUBLIC PURSE.

       I have always said that the "austerity" (I love that word, it makes it sound so efficient and harmless), cuts to date are nothing, compared to what is still to come. 2013 will be crunch time, that's when the boot goes in with a vengeance. Homeless set to soar, workfare propping up the corporate profits as people are "obliged" to work for nothing more than their job seekers benefits, disability allowances disappearing, condemning thousand of vulnerable people to isolation and worse, and the only jobs on offer will be low paid part-time. Meanwhile the grand plan of transferring all the public purse to the millionaires' old boys club goes on unabated and all public assets become corporate assets. On top of all the already legislated cuts that have been in the pipeline, we are faced with massive increases in energy prices and increase rail fares. Plus Osborne has stated that all government departments will have to find extra efficiency savings, (cuts), on top of what has already been passed. However, we have to be careful when we talk about "austerity", it is not quite universal. While you and I struggle to pay our way, there are those in this twisted Alice-in-Wonderland system that are doing just fine, mostly, those who do nothing, Company directors, traders in the financial Mafia, and of course, those millionaires who pass all this "austerity" legislation. 

       An interesting article from A World to Win:

Unions should resist rail and fuel price rises with civil disobedience

      Millions of people who commute to work are a just a few weeks away from a massive cut in incomes that will intensify the dramatic fall in living standards that the recession and austerity measures have already created.
       As people struggle back to work after the Christmas holidays, they will be hit by a double whammy of steep rail fare increases and the bills for electricity and gas that in some cases will show rises of nearly 11%. his amounts to a huge transfer of wealth to the train operators and energy companies like E.On which yesterday announced increases averaging 8.7%. These will naturally impact harder on poorer households, adding to five million already in fuel poverty.
     So too will the rail fare rises. Passengers on many routes face fare increases of up to 10% next month. Season tickets and peak fares are regulated and will rise by an average 4.2%. Many commuters pay huge amounts already. For example, an annual season ticket from St Albans to London is around £3,000. That will go up by over £120 in January.
Off-peak and anytime tickets in England and Wales are set to soar, according to the watchdog Passenger Focus because they are not regulated. An anytime return from London to Norwich will now be 9.2% dearer at £107.70. A day return from Holyhead-Llandudno will be 6.5% more expensive.
      The ConDem coalition is pushing ahead with plans to reduce the £3 billion plus subsidy to the rail industry, a process that began under New Labour. That will result in ticket office closures and other “efficiency” savings.
      The rail unions have launched a campaign to bring the railways back into public ownership. Today they were holding protests in Swansea and Cardiff. More actions are planned before Christmas.
They handed out Christmas cards with a "seasonal message" from the train companies, which promised commuters will have a 2013 "packed full of cancelled trains, staff cuts and ticket office closures" while the train companies are "making huge profits".
Rob Jenks, of transport and travel union TSSA, said:

     We want to point out the dramatic rise in rail fares, a 30% increase in rail fares, compared to the average increase in people's wages of 11.9%.  So you can see there's a huge gap between what people can afford to pay and what people are having to pay.
      It's about fares, it's also about all the cuts the industry is facing as the government tries to allegedly balance the books but without taking the opportunity to actually look at what public ownership would bring and all the savings that would make by cutting out profit and various other things.

     The Action for Rail campaign says that since privatisation, more than £11 billion of public funds has been “misspent” on debt write-offs, dividend payments to private investors,  and higher interest payments in order to keep Network Rail’s debts off the government balance sheet.

     At the same time, privatisation has failed to deliver on its promises. Genuine private investment makes an insignificant contribution to the railways, representing about one per cent of the total money that goes into the railway each year.  Our fares are among the highest in Europe, many of our services are overcrowded and rely on obsolete rolling stock.

       Obviously, there is no way the Coalition is going to contemplate public ownership as an option. And nor is Labour. Shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle has only pledged to make sure that the limit on fare rises is applied more strictly. That’s really worth waiting for!
       The savage reduction in living standards that will greet millions on January 1 is unprecedented. Rail unions ought to step up their action. RMT general secretary Bob Crow has in the past talked of a campaign of civil disobedience to fight the government. There couldn’t be a better time to put his words into action than right now.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
11 December 2012

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A RAIL NETWORK FOR THE WEALTHY.

       The new year for most here in the UK will mean more of the same as last year, “austerity cuts” price increases and rising unemployment. Those who still have a job and have to travel will be hit again on the 2^nd January as rail fares are set to rise by an “average” of 6%, no doubt making some think, “is the job really worth it”. If they take a look at what we in the UK have to pay to travel on the rail network and compare it with what those in the rest of Europe pay, then it might be easier to answer that question.

    The following eye-popping information is taken from an article in the Evening Times 30 December 2011.

TEN times bigger!!!

    SOME UK rail commuters facing 6% average fare rises next week are already paying almost 10 times more for season tickets than their European counterparts.

     Figures released today show the price of a 2011 season ticket from Glasgow to Falkirk, which is around 22 miles, would be £1956. A ticket from Woking in Surrey to London, which is the same distance, including Tube travel in the capital, is £3268.

     Yet a similar 22-mile journey from Velletri to Rome costs Italian season ticket holders just £336.17, say the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT). Similar journeys of around 21-24 miles in other European countries reveal that rail travellers on the continent are paying far less for their trains.

     According to the CBT figures, which include the equivalent of multi-modal travel tickets on each city’s underground systems, an annual season ticket for the 24-mile journey from Ballancourt-sur-Essonne to Paris costs £924.66. The cost of a season ticket on the 21-mile Strausberg to Berlin route is £705.85, while the 22-mile Collado-Villalba to Madrid trip costs Spanish season ticket holders £653.74. 

     From January 2, UK regulated fares, which include season tickets, are rising by an average of 6%. The average for all tickets is 5.9%. And the Government still plans annual rises of RPI inflation plus 3% for January 2013 and January 2014.

      CBT’s public transport campaigner Sophie Allain said: “Even we were shocked by how much more the UK ticket was in comparison to our European counterparts. “If the Government is serious about promoting economic growth it must look at reducing planned fare rises.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

     With these figures it is obvious that rail travel in this country is fast becoming the prerogative of the wealthy, you know the type, friends of the Camerons etc.

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