Comments by "Nigel Johnson" (@nigeljohnson9820) on "UK's Sunak abandons part of high-speed train line meant to open up Northern England" video.

@j377yb33n the French TGV is not profitable, but maybe that does not matter as UK rail travelers subsidise the French train companies. Ironic really as the French train company is owned by the French government. So the conservatives are indirectly in favour of nationalization, provided the government involved is foreign.
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@j377yb33n it depends if you regard public transport as a service to the economy. Part of the support structure necessary to allow the productive parts of the economy work. The UK should make its wealth by selling the surplus of what it produces. Surplus, because it is important to provide for the needs of the local market first, a necessity to avoid buying expensive foreign imports. Unfortunately the UK has an imbalance in its economy, where the parasitic service sector has become dominant. This has produced a requirement for this sector to show a profit. If the service sector is supporting a healthy manufacturing and production sector, then the need for services to make a profit is less important. Given the dismal performance of state ownership, I prefer to advocate for such service industries to be made not for profit trusts, with a mandate to be self-sustaining and providing the best service possible. That covers the water, power and transport infrastructure industries. These should never have been allowed to fall into foreign ownership. The French high speed train network does not show a profit, but no doubt the French would argue that it does not need too, as its function is to support the productive French industries, by providing efficient transport links. And there is the difference with the UK. In the UK service industries must make a profit as they are an end in themselves, not supporting a successful production sector whose taxes can fund them.
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@j377yb33n I do not have any party allegiances. I have been accused of being both left and right wing. It is my opinion that the conservatives are heading for a landslide loss at the next general election. The conservatives will have lost the election, none of the other parties will have won. In other words, voters will desert the conservatives, not rushing to elect labour. None of the other parties seem to have a clue about what is required they are each trapped by their historic ideologies. It is why the UK has flip flopped between left and right for the past 70 years. Each party fails in its own way by repeating the errors of its own history.
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@j377yb33n I assume that you are in write only mode and have not read any of my posts. The country has flip flopped between conservatives and labour, one slightly right of centre and the other slightly left of centre. It could be argued that this has resulted in a liberal average of total inertia. Each party has its extreme factions, one fascist the other communist. The fall of the Soviet Union demonstrated the weakness of the communist system, enduring that any hint of communism would frighten off UK voters, as was demonstrated by Jeremy Corbyn recently. At best you could describe UK politics as ostensibly slightly right wing social democratic, or liberal with a lower case L. Unfortunately such labels are earned by how UK wealth is spent, not how it's earned, and there is the problem. There is not a plan to make the country profitable. All conservative free market economics has done is abdicated responsibility for earning to foreign investors. I am getting really tired of pointing out that investors expect to take out far more than they invest, and foreign investors export their profits off shore, so the wealth is permanently lost to the UK economy.
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