THE East Coast train service is now dumped on the tax payer. Simply the latest hollowed-out privatised firm. We seem to be approaching Brexit and the break with our most serious trading partners just as 40 years of privatisation of the UK is shown to have entirely rotted the infrastructure of Britain.
From failing banks to failing government contractors, to failing rail contracts to the closures of high streets shops, they have one thing in common. Chief Executives and shareholders are not going to be selling The Big Issue any time soon but the UK tax payer is going to be paying a hefty price for decades to come either for operations that used to belong to the nation, or to prop up plundered pensions schemes after the government took its eye off financial regulation of the plain greedy.
This week I finally received a cheque from Virgin Trains for yet another failed journey. I had made the application on February 15 so yes, it took three months. Ironically I then went to pay it in to TSB – the bank that had so many problems recently with online banking. The cashier paid in an amount different to that shown on the cheque. Neither she nor her colleague who came over to look knew how to resolve the problem.
So – run this by me again, which bits of Britain are NOT broken as we stumble blindly but furiously into Brexit?
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh
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