“Rail fares need to rise and it is fantasy economics to claim otherwise,” writes Tim Wallace. “The Government has fallen into the “free stuff” trap. Train companies need to make bigger profits and commuters should be the ones to pay for it. If not, we risk seeing more Carillion-type failures where politicians encourage companies to charge ultra-low prices without thinking about the need for public services to be run on a sustainable basis.” Wallace argues that Secretary of State of Transport Chris Grayling wanting rail operators to use the CPI measure of inflation rather than RPI is not sensible financially or politically. This is because he believes the Conservatives are never going to ‘out-freebie’ Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and so Grayling is giving commuters the false impression that he can lower fares.
We've read it in: The Telegraph August 15 2018, Online
