Quote Originally Posted by Tribesman
EA , is it correct that your countries privatised transport sector now recieves more government hand outs that the industry recieved when it was state owned ?
You mean the railways and subject to the usual caveat about lies damned lies and statistics, yes, that seems to be correct.

Figures vary. The most favourable I have seen puts the subsidy at the end of the 80s at £500m pa (in 80's value) and the subsidy today at just over £1 bn, which would be a modest increase. However these are government figures and so are probably a lie. The least favourable puts the old subsidy at £1.3 bn in todays value and the present subsidy at £3.8 bn in the same values (Transport 2000 figures). Transport 2000 also say:

The cost of the West Coast Main Line route modernisation now stands at £16.68 million per mile (at 2000-01 prices), compared with the East Coast Main Line modernisation in the 1980s at £1.8 million per mile (at 2000-01 prices) or even the French TGV Est – a completely new, high-speed line – at £10.84 million (at 2000-01 prices).
Neatly illustrating the point, that should be engraved on the heart of every Tory, that private sector companies will guzzle public money and do no work too, if they are allowed.