I have a question how can the government invest in the bus industry which is now run by the private sector.

Subsidise loss making routes?

Why should private operators be subsidised for loss making routes? Surely the first thing to do would be to find out why those routes were loss making in the first place? And if it turns out the current operator wasn't up to the job, they lose the contract to someone who is up to the job.

I'm not sure it works like that - some routes are loss-making, because they service rural or small communities, with low use, but high need for the people who do use them; if you leave that to the market, no provider would take it on. That's why the privatisation of bus services has failed people - the market goes where the money is; same story with superfast broadband and the left behind rural communities - BT focused all its infrastructure investment on where it could make the most money.



For me, if something can reasonably be called an essential service, the private sector is likely to fail to deliver it in an equitable way.

It should be a per requisite that the bus companies have to run certain routes, along with the more lucrative stuff.

This is one area where privatisation just doesn't work.



It's all well and good for the "bean counters" to chop out loss making routes. However, some of these have to be part of the overall service.

Some things are not just down to pound notes.



Maybe we should have stuck to the socialist model, providing a decent service and with a play to reduce the amount of traffic on the roads

I was being a touch facetious. Some things just can't be left to the markets.

I agree up to the last paragraph - for 90% of the customers the bus service works - it has plenty of customers that is for sure. If you wanted to get the 10% a regular service then it has to funded so that can only be by increasing the costs to the 90% so your socialist model makes everyone poorer but that is the model drag everyone down apart from those at the very top e.g. private education is only for the very few at the top!!



Is it about the many or the few?

So what's your solution? Bo**ocks to the 10% who don't happen to live on a profit-making bus route?



Meanwhile, 'making everyone poorer' actually means reducing traffic on the roads and by extension, cleaning the air; increasing connectivity to rural and small communities, so more people can become economically active; allowing young people to live in the communities they grew up in rather than moving to increasingly overcrowded and unaffordable conurbations; all that annoying, socialisty stuff?



It would be much easier for you to just agree that Corbyn was right about the buses; I don't think it will make you ill or anything.

Its about catering to the majority - is it better to keep 90% happy or upset 90% - these routes don't exist because nobody uses them so actually you are increasing traffic and reducing clean air on the roads by running routes just to cater to a very few passengers. Young people who work in the city will be serviced by routes that exist to service that requirement i.e. early morning and early evening rush hours. Capitalism at its finest.



Corbyn was wrong about buses - much better to invest in electric rail infrastructure. Do you think Leeds would be a more efficient/effective city if it had a Metro similar to Newcastle/Manchester or Liverpool or a load more buses creating even greater traffic jam? If we want to get people out of cars then we need a fast reliable service in the city and its surrounding boroughs - buses are not the way.

You really are a tiresome dullard.



Nobody uses them *because* they don't exist - of course *someone* wants to use them - but not enough people to make it profitable for a private company; your typically selfish and glib suggestion was in fact, a resounding yes to my question about bo**cks to those people.



The modern bus would of course use alternative fuel - so whilst it serves your argument to conjure up an image of an old Routemaster spewing out black diesel smoke - you know that's not at all what I'm advocating.



Electric trains are a lovely idea - but there does have to be a viable way for people to get to the stations.

Of course I am because unlike you I don't worship with uncle Jeremy and uncle John. You are a Neanderthal hankering after a by gone age just like your heroes. If the election didn't suggest you are out of step with public opinion then nothing will. When will it get into your thick skull that Socialism is idea not a practical solution to anything. As a society we have to make choses we cannot be all things to all people - we could dump the GDP into the NHS and it still wouldn't cover everything everybody wanted. The fact that you cannot comprehend these simple concepts and that compromises are needed - so we put your bus routes we have take money from somewhere else - so we run less routes when people want to actually use them so a very few get a great service - we upset many to cater for the few - where is the logic in that?



How do people get to the stations on the underground - usually either walking or via connectivity through main line stations - this is not difficult even for you.

What on earth are you talking about man?! My entire point was that not everything has to be capitalism v socialism argument; and that when Corbyn talked about buses in the HoP and was jeered at, Johnson is now talking about buses and is being lauded for investing in northern communities. It's just common sense that if you want people to work and to travel in a greener way, you have to provide the infrastructure to enable that - and it's not socialism or any other ism to understand that if you leave the profit motive as the only driver, it won't happen to the extent that you need it to.



Cool story about the underground - maybe he'll build one in Rotherham when the bridge from Scotland to Ireland is finished?