(21 Nov 2019, 9:19 pm)streetdeckfan wrote And do you really think it would be any better having them nationalised instead? There's only one thing that does dodgy deals more than private companies, and that's the government!

There's no point in looking back at what nationalised services were pre-86 and thinking it'll be like the 'glory days'. That's not how the real world works! Plus, you have to consider back then it wasn't just the bus companies that were nationalised, it was a lot of the automotive manufacturers as well, which meant that a lot of vehicles were being sold at BOM price, or even at a loss.

And the reason those fares were attractive was because they were subsidised. If you remember back to a quick bit of maths I did...


That was me being very conservative with the costs, and not including a lot of the costs that I couldn't find the figures for so I'd imagine the actual costs would be a lot higher. Now, if a lot of passengers are suddenly getting travel for free, that means the cost per paying passenger go up. If they don't want to do that, the money has to come from somewhere, and that will be higher taxes. 

Like I said, I don't want to get too political, but if we assume that Labour have actually costed everything out properly (with people who actually know what numbers are), and can do it with little impact on the 'average' person, then great! But I highly doubt they have.