Announcement

**Dogg Thang** · 10-07-2020, 13:34

Same here in Ireland. We're 'on 1 or above'. Our cases are on the rise for the first time in 10 weeks. Are they going to slow the opening up? No sign of it yet.

**Team Andromeda** · 10-07-2020, 14:04

Originally posted by prinnysquad View Post

Water companies should be nationalised ASAP.

I rarely agree with your politics :P . But Water and Aviation/airports should be re-nationalised along with the Railways. Privatisation only works when there's competition, which there isn't with the water utilities , Airports or on the railways

**Golgo** · 10-07-2020, 15:05

Originally posted by Neon Ignition View Post

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ut-open-tender
Keeps happening and Labour is failing hard at calling out the obvious corruption

Didn't the hundreds of thousands wasted on the failed track-and-trace app also go un-tendered to a company run by a mate of Cummings?

**MonkeyJuggleDX** · 10-07-2020, 15:29

Originally posted by Golgo View Post

I'm in Leicester lockdown and it would be tempting (I won't) to go park up in one of out-of-boundary villages to photograph the Leicester pissheads trying to sneak into the pubs. Should be top entertainment. There's no love lost among the tribal Brexiteer gammons around here so I imagine lots of punch ups when the unclean Leicester mobs try it on.

I'm just south of Loughborough and our busiest pub is the only one in the village that hasn't re-opened yet because of the amount of people from within the lockdown area that go there. Luckily it's a quiet village at the busiest of times anyway.

**fallenangle** · 10-07-2020, 15:54

In my part of NW London things are practically back to pre-March state from what I've seen today.

Roads very busy, loads of pedestrians ignoring social distancing almost entirely, mask wears (50/50) in particular, dumb people standing texting in the middle of the pavements and the push bike wankers are back riding on the pavements as if thy own it etc etc.

My Tesco supermarket after being reasonably well organised for the the last three months was chaos. They've removed the one way system, stopped reminding people about social distancing. For some bloody stupid reason they've also changed the queuing system to the tills so that they're now all backed up down the aisles opposite each till meaning that those wanting to shop for stuff in those aisles are practically forced to mix with them. Social distancing difficult before is now being made completely impossible.

If we're going to get a significant new spike here expect to see it two to three weeks from now because to all intents and purposes everything is back to 'normal', the rules are being ignored and often having to be ignored. It'll very interesting to see the result, particularly if that significant spike does not occur.

**prinnysquad** · 10-07-2020, 17:40

Originally posted by Team Andromeda View Post

I rarely agree with your politics :P . But Water and Aviation/airports should be re-nationalised along with the Railways. Privatisation only works when there's competition, which there isn't with the water utilities , Airports or on the railways

Can you name many infrastructure projects/services that have been better since privatised? Telecoms maybe? Competition is an illusion. It’ll only ever result in higher prices, not lower, due to price fixing, racketeering and the need to siphon off profits to shareholders.

On the flipside, the list of cack privatisations is extensive, with examples of said price fixing, the neglect of resources, and far, far poorer services.

People seem to think that all these courier companies that did Royal Mail in is a good thing. Pfft. No. It normalised high prices. They all make it ridiculously difficult to get your stuff. it takes days longer for things to arrive. I recall two deliveries per day, cheap prices and very quick service. Now, thanks to DHL and Hermes and that lot, they’re all equally crap.

Power companies? Crap.
Bus services? Crap.
Crime lab? Crap.
Outsourcing ‘experts’ like Capita? Crap.

The list is extensive.

**nonny** · 10-07-2020, 17:50

I've honestly been shocked at the state of the rail service here after coming back from Australia.

People complain about it there but when I used to live outside of Sydney a 47min commute roundtrip into your city used to cost me the equivalent of £4.70 and here the same distance into Bristol costs me £24!

I wouldn't mind but the service isn't even comparable. Disgusting really and it's only getting worse.

**Hirst** · 10-07-2020, 17:58

Something that isn't mentioned often when saying about the Royal Mail is that the government opened the market up for everyone else but doesn't require them to maintain the same standards, for example the need to deliver to all British addresses and the requirement to deliver a certain percentage of mail within a certain number of days. The private companies are able to cherry-pick easy profitable routes from under the RM and just fire all the complicated loss-making stuff back through the RM (and they can't refuse it). If all the rival companies had to follow the same rules, I doubt there'd even be any rivals to begin with. It wouldn't be worth the bother.

Privatisation also allows the government to completely sidestep any responsibility or accountability, so you can't blame them for your train being dirty and overcrowded.

**prinnysquad** · 10-07-2020, 18:10

Exactly. Not ‘competition’. An artificial, loaded sham. That has benefitted nobody except a few pigs with their fat snouts in the trough.

**Team Andromeda** · 10-07-2020, 18:23

Originally posted by prinnysquad View Post

Can you name many infrastructure projects/services that have been better since privatised? Telecoms maybe? Competition

It works when you have actual competition. With Water you only have one choice/provider for your area, the same for the Train . Where it works is like with Airlines ,Telecoms and Postal service's. Where you are given a option to use a other service .I only wish BT Openreach didn't control the network.

I don't agree with you over Postal sorry. Ive had many a nightmare with Royal Mail and Parcel Force long before the part sell off

**prinnysquad** · 10-07-2020, 18:25

You can’t honestly say it’s better now though? That’s insane! Everything about it is terrible.

What part of privatisation has been the most beneficial? The higher prices? The longer delivery times? The greater inconvenience? The shocking delivery practices?

Nothing was perfect when nationalised, but to claim it’s better now is absurd.

**prinnysquad** · 10-07-2020, 18:41

Openreach (or something like it) is vital and should be under national control.

You can’t leave the physical line network in the hands of companies. Or you get a ****show like Railtrack. Or the pipes ‘maintained’ by water companies.

There’s simply no need to profit from a service. It leads to too many compromises.

**Hirst** · 10-07-2020, 18:49

As a counterpoint, hand on heart, I don't think I've ever had a single item lost by Royal Mail on any service - tracked or untracked - in my entire life. And I'm somebody who uses it heavily. Obviously it happens, it must do, but I've only had things lost by low-value couriers like Hermes, who build the loss of parcels into their service (it works out cheaper for them to deliver things in a lousy slapdash fashion and compensate the ones that fail - which I guess is fine if the item wasn't irreplaceable as it often is).