What jolly japes!
Over at the Fares Fair website is a statement of what the campaign hopes to achieve:
Fair Fares Now is calling for:
- Affordable prices, including peak times and turn-up-and-go tickets
- Reliable services that aren’t overcrowded
- Straightforward tickets that make train travel simple
So who has Stephen Joseph and co managed to sign up as supporters of this exciting new campaign?
Why it's the usual rent a crowd of Rail Future, Friends of the Earth, Sustrans (sic), Transport for All, the TUC and the RMT.
Could this be the same RMT that managed to secure an inflation busting 5.2% pay increase for its SWT members in October and which has just rejected the same pay offer for its Network Rail members?
It surely is!
That's the way to drive down rail fares !
UPDATE:This from The Velopodist...
I'm not quite sure who the masked person picking the pocket in your picture from Brighton station is meant to be.
But it looks a little as if he's a stockbroker or other wealthy person from the south-east picking the pocket of an ordinary taxpayer.
Which, appropriately, is precisely the situation that will obtain as long as 50 per cent of the cost of every rail journey comes from public subsidy, rather than passengers paying for their own trips.
But maybe that wasn't the message Stephen Joseph and friends wanted to convey.
UPDATE: This from Bob (no not that one)...
I take exception with your point that the RMT secured a 5.2% increase for us in SWT at the end of last year, this pay increase was agreed 2 years ago as part of a 2 year deal with the second payment being 1%+RPI or 1.5% whichever was the greatest.
Unluckily for SWT the RPI in August was 4.2% but it could easily have gone the other way.
There was then a ballot as to whether we should take a reduction in hours instead of the full amount, but this was rejected, (we still work 42 hours in the guard grade) as most of us had already realised that the cost of living was going to be dearer, and with the rise in prices, transport (yes some of us have to pay to get to work), and VAT (and don't get me started on that subject - some shops have increased prices by 20% instead of 2.5%), we have been proved right.
And finally NO I am not an activist just a normal elderly person trying to manage for his last year of working in the railway industry.