Greg Tucker - RMT Waterloo Branch Secretary (personal capacity) A REPORT by the Rail Passengers' Council has concluded that a majority of rail travellers support some kind of re-nationalisation; ald that the present system is in a "mess". Then, agreeing that privatisation has been a monumental failure, the MPs of the Transport Select Committee weighed in with recommendations to reintegrate the railways in one publicly owned Railway Agency.
Transport Secretary Alastair Darling says he welcomes the reports. A government review commissioned by Darling is due to be completed this summer. But it is clear that the government is not prepared to take the steps actually needed to develop Britain's railways. Darling wants to use the pressure for renationalisation to force through a limited restructuring of the infrastructure, whilst leaving the privatised core intact.
Such a policy can be seen in the South East. After a lot of local pressure, the Strategic Rail Authority was obliged to end the Connex South East franchise and run trains from London to Kent itself - effectively renationalising the service.
But instead of welcoming this as a first step in taking all franchise back into public ownership they now propose to re-privatise the service. The RMT campaign to keep South Eastern Trains public has met with increasing support - meanwhile Labour continues to press forward with their plans.
Years of Labour tinkering with the mess handed them by the Tories cannot escape the painful logic of a rail system run for the profit of a few, rather than as a service in the interests of all.
The Strategic Rail Authority was the big idea of Labour's first term. But rather than bringing the fragmented rail network under unified control, it has served as a mouthpiece for the rail bosses. Cuts in services
This is why it is happy to propose cuts in rail services, which cut costs while maintaining profits, rather than make the rail companies honour the extravagant promises they made to win their heavily subsidised franchises.
A Railway Agency that united the SRA with Network Rail could be an improvement. But then things can hardly be worse. than they are now. However, leaving the train operators outside the equation renders any public benefits useless - all that will happen is that the operators will have an easier job fleecing their work force, passengers and the public.
To make matters worse Labour is talking of abolishing the Health & Safety Executive role in managing aspects of rail safety.
Rail workers hold little but contempt for the HSE, which has failed to hold rail companies to account. If they proposed setting up a new independent rail safety watchdog to better police our rogue employers we would be jumping for joy.
But the plan is the exact opposite.
According to the government the HSE has been too prescriptive, creating a climate of fear in railway managers scared to act in case they do something wrong.
What a joke! What they propose is to leave the industry to police itself - leaving managers free to continue to put all our lives in danger.
There is only one solution - to reunite all the infrastructure, passenger and rolling stock companies in one, publicly owned body - less wasteful of public subsidy and democratically accountable.
Bringing the railway back into public ownership and control is a necessary prerequisite for making the investment needed to secure a safe, modern transport system able to cope with the demands of today.
Given that this could be done at minimal cost - letting the franchises revert to the public when they expire - under existing Transport Act powers, why are we waiting! Group 4, Securicor and Wakenhut follow an active Immigration Service policy of movement to break up any resistance since the Yart's Wood fire.
White vans move people around, leaving them for hours without food or drink, on journeys that zig-zag across the country and often end with extensive waits outside the immigration cante 'to processed'. Lock-up
Despite the Home Office categorization of centres into shorter and longer term holding centres, men, women and chil dren can find themselves locked up for anything from a few days to many months. Many in these migrant prisons have left wartorn and plundered countries seeking a life in the West. Others have lived here for many years with families, jobs and friends and are arrested in 'snatch squad' operations - in Southampton, Birmingham, Piccadilly, in the streets, from people's houses in the early morning.
People in detention get the same diet of boredom, racism, lack of information and brutality as before - all well documented by detainees, visitors groups, campaigners and most publicly recently by the Mirror's undercover journalist at Yari's Wood.
Changes to the law going through parliament will see this nightmare increasing in intensity, as people find their access to health services, legal aid and judicial oversight cut.
step up its work over the next year, con ing to build campaigns at as many of the tres as possible. At its annual meetir March it also planned to organize a plat in the European Social Forum, to cont regular meetings in Westminster with pathetic MPs, and to work with o European Campaigns to keep up pres be on Brussels and to repeat the successfi People in detention get the same diet of boredor racism, lack of information and brutality as befor
Jan day of action, which saw over 50 de strations outside detention centres a Europe • To get more details on conditions join any of the http://www.barbedwirebritain.org.u closecampsfield.org.uk or [email protected]
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18:50 nce April 2004