Rail Vote Embarrassment for Blair

[gottaB]

The Labour leadership was snubbed this morning when it was revealed that the party's conference had ignored its calls and voted for renationalising the railways.

The vote - taken last night but only announced today - showed nearly two-thirds in favour of the taking the private rail operating companies back into public ownership.

The resolution is unlikely, however, to feature in Labour's manifesto, having been pre-emptively ruled out by both the chancellor, Gordon Brown, and the transport secretary, Alistair Darling.

But the embarrassing clash of conference floor and leadership platform came just hours before Tony Blair makes his vital pre-election platform speech.

Rail Vote Embarrassment for Blair....

[LivingInTheBubble]

1. Great.

Since privitisation the taxpayer is actually paying MORE on the rail network than before. Not surprising when you find out KBR are involved in the contracts...

[calico1]

2. When does Blair face reelection? n/t

[T_i_B]

4. Next year most likely

Blair can call an election any time until June 2006 but he is widely expected to call a general election next year and to win again, due mainly to the landslide majority he already has in place. Here are two threads from the UK forum on the subject

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x495

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x563

[Jacobin]

3. Sounds like a good step. This "privatising" mantra thing has gone too far

I'd like to see our airlines re-regulated, too. It was much better when they were regulated.

British rail system has been clusterfucked since corrupt private companies took over

[Raster]

5. De-Regulation: code words for you and I still pay for it, just now a ...

..."private concern" profits off of it. Instead of profits going back into the de-regulated industry, now they go into fat-cat pockets.

De-regulation has been a mess. The only group that profited were the hand-picked new owners.

[gottaB]

6. yeah, it's a lesson for us all n/t