Jim - I agree with you totally about the railways. The price of fares are putting people off the railways even though the service has improved - Manchester - London in under two hours. However, it's at a cost. I was in London and found myself back at the train station an hour before my booked train was due to leave. I went to change the booking and they wanted an additional £109 to go an hour early. I was stunned; the train left the station with empty seats and I had to wait an extra hour and eventually went home on packed commuter train. A fiasco.

It's going to take a government with balls to sport out the railways, and I suspect this lot isn't the one and if the bleedin' Tories get in then that'll be that, as they are so utterly against any sort of state control (although I believe even Thatcher thought that rail privatisation was a step too far - but Major didn't).

It's like the NHS in that it has to be seen as a service for the people, not to turn a profit. I mean, what politician expects a financial return when they stick a £25k bomb on a mud hut full of kids in Iraq?