East Coast Mainline.
- First it was privatised. Taxpayers gave the franchisee billions in subsidy and through upgrading the infrastructure.
- Then the operator failed to make their insane financial model work and walked away: the state took it over again, in the form of a company called Directly Operated Railways.
- DOR was so successful that subsidies come to 1% of its income, less than all the other 15 privatised operators, 32% of whose income is taxpayers' money, on average.
- About 20% of the money paid back to the government by train operators comes from DOR.
- DOR is to be privatised again.
So in summary: a state railway, in a fair and real-world test, is shown to cost taxpayers, the government and the passenger less than a privatised one. So it's being privatised.
At this point, one can only surmise that evidence is far, far less important than ideology. What a stupid government.
