Voters remain to be convinced on East Coast privatisation....

According to a Survation poll on Politicalbetting.com privatising East Coast looks like an electoral winner!

Or not.

Rail privatisation failed - Official

Telegrammed by Leo Pink
The Government's response to the Franchising Consultation appears to mark a clean break with the policies of the discredited Major, Blair and Brown years.

Or so it would appear from this:

• A significant part of revenue growth that has occurred on past franchises has been due to macroeconomic growth rather than solely a result of good management on the part of the operator.

Quite a startling piece of revisionism that.

And then there is this:

• Demand growth is largely outside an operator’s control.

Presumably demand shrink too, so National Express East Coast was a hapless victim of economic forces?

And best of all this:

• The devolution of rail services in Merseyside and London has had an extremely positive effect on patronage.

So state control beats market forces!

Should we read this as an apology from Petrol-head and his Marsham Street minions?

Selling off NR - Cui bono?

Telegrammed by Bulldog Drummond
Interesting that two very similar stories (Alistair Osborne in Friday's Daily Telegraph and Tom Winsor in the Times today) suggest that the Government could trouser £12bn by selling off Network Rail.

This is based on the accounting wheeze that the Regulatory Asset Base is really 'worth' £36bn.

The figure is arrived at by deducting the debt of £23bn which supposedly leaves an equity of £12-13bn.

Complete fantasy of course as the RAB is not a realistic asset valuation in commercial terms and it conveniently overlooks the question as to who would want to invest in a business that has such huge debts, which can only be propped up by massive government subsidy and borrowing that, in part, goes to cover normal running costs and paying debt interest.

Network Rail is a complete dog's breakfast of a business and is only viable with huge levels of taxpayers' moolah.

The only people who can have any possible interest in selling off this business are the huge army of bankers, lawyers, consultants and general hangers on who are experiencing thin pickings at the moment.

It is certainly not in the interests of the taxpayer or those who want a properly run and cost-effective railway.

Nexus concession to be announced today

***Winner of the Nexus concession expected to be announced at 17:00 today***