Sunday 22 May 2011

The Rising Cost of Railfares

The Government’s review of the railways will lead to even fewer services, less staff and higher fares although fares are so high at this moment in time that commuters are going to find it extremely difficult to come up with even more money!!

I believe privatisation of the railways was one of the worst decisions ever made by a Government.  Furthermore if the clock could be turned back to the 1960s before Dr. Beeching took his axe to the railways then I believe that any British Government, of whatever political colour, would jump at the chance of having the sort of coordinated and extensive rail network throughout the country that existed at that time rather than having to spend vast sums of money on building new lines.

The Future of the Post Office

I totally opposed the part privatisation of Royal Mail and the Post Office when it was considered by the previous Government and I remain totally opposed to the current Coalition Government’s proposals. 

Post Offices are a vital part of our community, not least in rural areas, where they are often the focal point of a village.  If some commonsense and innovative thinking was to permeate the Post Office and Royal Mail then the Post Office could be a thriving business providing not just a traditional postal service but banking facilities and also carrying out a number of local authority tasks.

While it is true that the whole nature of the Post Office business has changed, with more use being made of the internet and less of traditional letters, the real problem arose because the European Commission brought in a Post Office Directive allegedly aimed at opening up ‘competition’ in postal services to ‘give the customer a better deal’.  This always was nonsense but is part of the European Union’s objective of bringing ‘competition’ into every walk of life on the grounds that it would somehow benefit consumers.  It does not.

As I have said I am totally opposed to the privatisation of the Post Office and Royal Mail and I will continue to oppose the Postal Services Bill although I have no confidence whatsoever that the Conservative Government and their Lib.Dem collaborators will listen to what the public want.

Thursday 5 May 2011

NHS Reforms

I have received a huge number of letters and emails from different people who are concerned about various aspects of the Government’s proposals and I have responded to everybody who has contacted me setting out exactly what my views are on the Government’s proposals.

The only people who can now stop the proposals are medical professionals and public opinion and although the Coalition say that they are now going to ‘pause’ and ‘listen to people’s concerns’ I suspect that what they really intend to is to try and give themselves more time to lecture the public on why they are initiating these unnecessary and destructive changes and, particularly so far as the Lib.Dems are concerned, to delay the Health and Care Bill until after the Referendum and local elections on the 5th May when they fear public retribution for what they are proposing. 

The conservatives have always wanted to ‘roll back the state’ and to undermine the founding principles of the NHS and their intentions were cynically revealed by Michael Portillo when asked by Andrew Neal on the BBC’s ‘This Week programme’ why the Government had not told us about their plans for the NHS prior to the election.  Portillo responded ‘because they didn’t believe they could win the election if they told you what they were going to do.  People are so wedded to the NHS.  It’s the nearest thing to a national religion sacred cow’.  This says it all!