So how would *you* vote if there was a referendum on ...?

a) No to joining Euro. See how it goes in mainland Europe first. Common interest rates, not sure of that. I know there is the whole foreign investment thing, but I can't see how a single currency will prevent a MNC from investing in a low wage area of Europe. Plus will common economic policies = less room to manovure in terms of tax releif for investment etc?

b) Renationalise railways. In principle yes, it 'd be nice to have an efficient rail service, not profit motivated...but can't see it happening, can you imagine the bureacuracy involved? But I can't see Blair going for a national rail service. They's be white paper after white paper, and nothing would get done, and the service would just get worst whilst the arguement raged on.

Yes-Yes

Yes yes, but I agree or at least sympathise with James' concerns. There's no way the Euro is going to collapse, and even if horrible things happen to it the British economy has far too much in common to stand by laughing. The teething period happening without British particiaption may prove a bonus for us, though.

OF COURSE renationalize the railways, like a shot. Only the WILFULLY PERVERSE on IL* will vote against this ( = yes, I am expecting Mark S to produce some counter-intuitive knotty arguments).

The very question - the very thought - is exhilarating.

Europe is more complex, I think. That's just an excuse for not quite knowing what I believe.

'i wanna live in the eurozone,text a spacetaxi on me vodaphone'

idealistically - yes to both. see problems with having a single interest rate for loadsa countries if thats what would happen.

fck trains - i wanna jetpack

(a) has to be done, otherwise we start getting food parcels from UN circa 2020. Sad but predictable how the British populus suddenly regresses into medieval peasantry when encountered by any challenge to the status quo (euros, paedophiles/paediatricians, Starsailor).

(b) absolutely vital that this be done; it's a life and death matter.

a) No.

b) Yes - what Marcello said.

a) - i think so, not 100% on this, but broadly in favour.

b) - like duh! asap...

(a) Join. Am I the only person who finds this "save our pound" business embarassingly eccentric? Although in fairness, the spin doctors have handled this one incredibly poorly. Every other European country's government appears to have prepared their citizens for years for this, hence the almost complete absence of fuss overseas when the Euro was introduced. Our government's response seems to be a resigned shrug and a sigh of "Well, it's inevitable really". Under the circumstances, public opposition is also inevitable.

(b) Maybe. I think the best system would be a hybrid - with both nationalised and privatised industry being allowed to compete for network contracts.

PS. Robin, I didn't understand your 50's/70's analogy!

a) The "Save the Pound" Little Englander thing is very embarrassing, I agree. Readers of the Daily Mail are having a lot of fun with it all and I wish they'd shut up. Because the argument for not joining yet is quite good, viz. that the Euro-wide interest rates will not suit Britain's economy.

b) Well, no. I think these hybrid national-private schemes which Blair loves so much are the worst of both worlds, and generally involve passing the buck. So I would like to see it privatised or nationalised totally -- no PPP-style mucking about. And in general, I have greater faith in the market than I do in the government, so I think total privatisation is the answer in this case.

Well most problems with the railway network relate to infrastructure failure. It certainly makes sense therefore to place the infrastructure under common management, but I don't have any strong reservations about the trains themselves being owned and run by private companies.

a) Yes Please! I got all excited yesterday and went to the bank and DEMANDED they give me some Euros. Now i have two of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci in my loft - AHAHAAA! b) But of course, ensuring that NO shareholders are compensated, the directors of Railtrack are publicly FLOGGED, Birmingham New Street Station is DEMOLISHED and every single person who has every drawn a wage from Connex is taken out and SHOT. In a sensible, caring, diligent way, obviously.

I'm in a yes yes position as well. I thin there is absolutely no good argument not to renationalise the railways providing this also means proper central funding.

Arguments against the Euro seems pretty much to boil down to the one petty fact that we would not be in a position to set our own interest rates. Well currently this is done by the Bank Of England, not central government, and the idea that we don't follow global trends on interest rates is ridiculous. I believe the Eurozone interest rate is currently lower than the UK's at the moment. Equally the idea that economically strong Britain will suffer from propping up economically weak Portugal is one which could equally - and more eloquently perhaps - be made for further devolution. Economically strong London is proping up economically weak Tyneside for instance.

No to joining Euro. See how it goes in mainland Europe first.

This attitude annoys me (the see how it goes first one)... basically you want other people to do the hard work of setting up the single currency and if it works out well you can freeride in

Yes-yes. I've got to use the Euro anyway 'cos I'll be living in Paris next month, so I volunteer (alongside our noble Dutch contingent) as ILE euro guinea pig.

yes/yes w/o qualms BUT pf is correct i have ubertwisty opinions on both despite this

i. Is top-down nationalisation practically achievable in the Age of the Death of Deference?
ii. Euro public debate = bankers vs wankers surely. I suspect my judgment is based on the following deep wisdom: "The European Central Bank? They can't be MORE incompetent than Lloyds surely?"

I mean, surely?

As far as I understand it all European financial decisions are made by Frank Furt. I don't know who this fella is, but then I don't know Eddie George very well (except he has a very boring voice).

I made my second payment in euro currency this morning - and messed it up, feh! (handed over a two 50 cent coins and a 20 instead of a 50 and two 20s)

Join, renationalise obv. (I think I would still have a vote if it was today, and I certainly will when the euro referendum finally happens).

a) Either join the euro or join NAFTA, but isolation is no longer an option, unless Albania is a good role model for the future

b) Can't think of any better solution, except for maybe dynamiting them and starting over. Apparently the situation goes all the way back to the 60s, so however bad it looks, it's probably worse.

1) Join! The people on our currency are too ugly, we need some new faces.
2) Don't bother. Was the service really much better before privatisation? Really? And what's more, they'll whack the tax up on my cigarettes to pay for it, fuck that.

If they put your head on money, you're famous. If they put money on your head, get outta town!

B-b-but there ARE NO FACES ON THE EURO! It's all bridges'n'shit, symbolising transcendence. The notes look incredibly frumpy I think, and the whole issue could have been made much much simpler if they had designed super sexy sci-fi 23rd century money with Mondriaan holograms on. Or got the Paul Frank people to design everything.

No faces = even better.

a) Yes - but if the anti-inflationary bias of the ECB is toned down: it's a system designed to cope with surging West German expansion, and is it ill-fitted for the sluggish 00s. My feeling is that if German re-unification - and the massive burden imposed on Europe's strongest economy - hadn't happened, the momentum for the Euro would be so strong we wouldn't even be arguing about this.

b) God yes: whether DG believes it or not, in the old days you used to be able to go the train station and expect your train to be on time. Nowadays, I just assume the trains will be late - and increasingly opt for a bus-tube option rather than suburban trains. And the crucial point is that the track people and the train operators HAVE to be the same people: that's the very logic of railways.

I don't remember a single time in my young life when my dad, who used to commute up to London every day, had anything good to say about British Rail.

That just proves he's from England, DG

a) Yes. Only real argument against is interest rates being the same across different economies, which doesn't really stand up for me as I'm fairly sure the economies of London and Frankfurt are already closer than those of London and Bradford.

b) Yes, but only as a first step. Bringing the network back into public hands is hardly a magic bullet. The train system in 1992, whilst being slightly better than now, still wasn't anything to write home about. What the railways need is a big load of investment, a sensible management structure and to become part of an integrated public transport system.

hm but i don't think it's London and Frankfurt that ppl are worried about is it RickyT? it's London and places like Rome and Madrid.

B-b-but there ARE NO FACES ON THE EURO! It's all bridges'n'shit,

Wrong, there are faces and national symbols on the euro coins

Sent some on Dutch ones to my folks back in blighty :
Mum: 'Eh look they've got the Queen on one side'
Aunt: 'What! our Queen?'

But in the end Rome & Madrid (and more inmportantly Lisborn & Athens) will have a lot less say in the overall economic pattern of Europe that Frankfurt. Much like London petty much sets interest rates to suit the south-east.

well, then that's hardly fair is it?

let's all set our own interest rates!! revvolution now!! Rates divisible by five will be shown the mark s door obv!!

Can we have irrational numbers?

hm. would irrational numbers mean giving all yr money away to the MANG?

No. It would mean the MANG giving money to me, via my cunning rounding hacks.

*excellent* in which case i shall sign up to the Bank of RickyT pronto.

"The Bank of RickyT, where pi = 3 0r 4, depending…"

I was thinking more along the lines that an irrational number gives you an average of 0.5p in rounding errors to skim off on per interest rate calculation, no matter how big the amount involved. But I like your suggestion better.

B-b-b-but! Returning to the question, can anyone PROVE that British Rail was any better than the current arrangement? Or is this simply NME-style kneejerk anti-Conservative rhetoric at work?

Proof by ratio of trains leaving/reaching destinations on-time, to not?
Proof by comparision of scales of lack of on-timeness?
Proof by comparison of existentitial-status ratios (eg how often you were told a train existed which actually didn't)?

To be fair, I think many of the routine failings which are now pandemic were already present in the unified but chronically underfunded system, but as dave q points out, blame Beeching for that. Or the mass desire to own two cars.

I don't actually believe the will or the talent exists within the powers-that-actually-be (fat cats plus tony's cronies, to use two rhyming cliches which set my teeth on edge) to set up in any short time a workable INTEGRATED TRANSPORT POLICY, and yes I worry that an unworkable one will just throw us back to square one AGAIN, but frankly the idea that thrusting businessmen armed w.the Right to Manage are going to achieve something better is silly. Nationalisation under a mixed economy is the least worst, because of the usual scope for under-the-desk fudging.

Well quite. That was my question, CAN you prove it woz better? Not really. I certainly can't tell the difference.

It may not have been better (tho it was) but at least you knew who to complain to. The current fractured system is a mass exercise in buck passing if nothing else (I have a friend who works in Train Care who spends much of her time trying to prove that the trains which failure are due to Railtrack, the train operator and not the lack of care she puts into looking after said trains because she is constantly passing the buck).

With one central management at least there can be vision and drive. I have been genuinely impressed by the improvement in London's buses over the past two years, its people friendly management which improves the easy stuff (single pricing scales, intergrated timetabling) whilst it goes about the serious and tough stuff.

Nobody is saying that pre-privatisation the train service was particularly great (and we all used to moan about it incessantly), DG, but almost everyone I know thinks it was better. The train lines I know best: Gypsy Hill to Victoria, Kings Cross to Leeds, Paddington to Teignmouth - were normally OK six days a week (Sunday was always hopeless) - now they are not. Sorry, I don't have stats to back up my argument, although I'll find them if you insist. But this view is shared by a lot of people who are generally in favour of privatising whatever is on offer (& none of whom have ever read a copy of the NME in their lives). Even the Economist, which tried to defend the policy for a while, now says it was a disaster - although clearly they are not in favour of renationalisation. What we've got now is chaos: the only question is which way forward.

Mark S is right: DG's father is typical of all BR commuters ever. British Rail was a national joke / laughing stock, but in an affectionate way - deep down, most people had some kind of notional respect for it. And I think most people *did* expect trains to be on time unless they weren't, whereas now most people expect trains not to be on time unless they are.

I'm sorry, but DG is wrong. I remember feeling a relationship and affinity with BR, as a traveller, however underfunded and neglected it was, that I don't believe anyone ever feels with any of the myriad companies that make up the privatised rail system. I hope the tabloids who used to rant and rave against BR as though they genuinely hated it (which I think very few of its customers did) choke on old "Speed Up British Snail" headlines, while the Mail desperately tries to persuade us that it never advocated privatisation.

Mark S has a point - no, people will never again feel the kind of respect / automatic admiration for the national rail system they did in the days of British Transport Films and the modernisation plan. All a renationalised rail company would be is a rail company providing a service, but if it was an efficient service in an increasingly integrated transport system, that'd be enough. Compared to the shambles we're in now, it'd still be a thing of utopian wonder.

And MJH is wrong about Birmingham New Street.

One body to manage the railways = good idea obviously, but I don't honestly see the need to nationalise rail as it would cost a fortune and probably not be much better. Surely some super hard bastard watchdog org would be enough if they could fine the trousers off rogue operators?

Thing is, since the railways will always have to be heavily subsidized, any private company would have to squeeze a profit out of us as passengers and as taxpayers, which is bound to cause resentment unless they do a fucking incredible job. Which is why while I have kind of changed my mind about phone lines and power, I still think that public ownership is the most logical way of running a railway.

I would soil my ballot.