This is a great bit of viral marketing from the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, which google tells me is a trade union for workers in the transport and travel industries in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
This is an eye opener pic.twitter.com/PMplLC75cc
— Valerie Farrington đź’™ (@Valhalla51) August 17, 2022
The video does a fantastic job of exposing how much of Britain’s privatised infrastructure has been gobbled up by European State Owned companies.
According to full fact:
The French government is a major shareholder in one of the Big Six energy providers in the UK. EDF Energy is part of the French EDF Group. The French government is the majority shareholder in the group, with 83% of shares, as of September 2017.
Of the other big six energy companies, E.ON is based in Germany. N Power is part of the Innogy group, another German company. Scottish Power is part of the Iberdrola Group (a company based in Spain).
A German company, Deutsche Bahn, runs several UK rail franchises—Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, Grand Central, and Northern. The German government is Deutsche Bahn’s majority shareholder.
Rail travel in France is run by a state-operated rail company, SNCF. SNCF is also the majority shareholder in a French private transport firm called Keolis which in turn jointly runs railway company Govia with the UK Go-Ahead Group. Govia operates UK franchises: Thameslink, Southern, South Eastern, Great Northern, and Gatwick Express.
Greater Anglia, Stansted Express and Scotrail are all operated by Abellio. Abellio is run by Netherlands Rail whose only shareholder is the Dutch government.
Abellio has partnerships with other businesses to run rail franchises. Along with the Japanese companies Mitsui & Co. and East Japan Railway it runs London Northwestern and West Midlands Rail. Abellio also runs Merseyrail with UK-based Serco.
The c2c franchise is operated by Trenitalia. Trenitalia is part of the FS Italiane Group which is owned by the Italian government.
A German company, Deutsche Bahn, runs several UK rail franchises—Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, Grand Central, and Northern. The German government is Deutsche Bahn’s majority shareholder.
Rail travel in France is run by a state-operated rail company, SNCF. SNCF is also the majority shareholder in a French private transport firm called Keolis which in turn jointly runs railway company Govia with the UK Go-Ahead Group. Govia operates UK franchises: Thameslink, Southern, South Eastern, Great Northern, and Gatwick Express.
Greater Anglia, Stansted Express and Scotrail are all operated by Abellio. Abellio is run by Netherlands Rail whose only shareholder is the Dutch government.
Abellio has partnerships with other businesses to run rail franchises. Along with the Japanese companies Mitsui & Co. and East Japan Railway it runs London Northwestern and West Midlands Rail. Abellio also runs Merseyrail with UK-based Serco.
The c2c franchise is operated by Trenitalia. Trenitalia is part of the FS Italiane Group which is owned by the Italian government.
Taking back control or giving it away?
Privatising UK rail, often to foreign nationalised rail companies did mean lower fares are better rail services – but in their countries.
— Locke (@jlz0z) November 19, 2021
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
