Readers respond to the government’s plans to restructure the railway industry
‘Maybe it’s time to stop fetishising efficiency in favour of a safer, more people-focused railway.’ Photograph: Kumar Sriskandan/Alamy
‘Maybe it’s time to stop fetishising efficiency in favour of a safer, more people-focused railway.’ Photograph: Kumar Sriskandan/Alamy
Letters
Mon 24 May 2021 13.17 EDT
Last modified on Mon 24 May 2021 13.18 EDT
I do not agree with much of what Simon Jenkins says on the plans for a part-nationalised, part-privatised rail network (There’s nothing ‘great’ about this new British Railways revamp, 20 May), but he is right that the model being proposed is wrong. There used to be a simple maxim that the reason for involving the private sector in public services was to transfer risk. Taking risks was something the private sector was supposed to be good at. It targets investments to make the service attractive. It then sells that service to maximise profits.
Why ID card plans are likely to pass this time | Letters
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There s nothing great about this new British Railways revamp | Simon Jenkins
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I am shocked no more. The climax of this weekâs television bonanza of police corruption was not âWho was H?â in Line of Duty. It was the three-part documentary on BBC2 called Bent Coppers. It was the more gripping because it was not fiction, it was a documentary. But the message was the same as Line of Dutyâs: no one in charge of the police really cared about corruption.
Bent Coppers told the story of Londonâs Metropolitan and City of London police in the 1960s and 70s. They took money from crooks almost from bottom to top. The source of payments was initially vice, pornography and bank robberies. Then, after the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, the growth of the illicit drugs market led to corruption exploding.