Cost of rail nationalisation in Scotland – Herald’s uncritical reliance on notorious Taxpayers Alliance’s known biases is very poor quality journalism

Professor John Robertson OBA

The Herald’s Martin Williams today has – ScotRail costs double under nationalisation as services fall – based entirely on a report by the Taxpayer’s Alliance a group known for hiding its sources of funding (above) and for highly selective analyses always predisposed to finding evidence in favour of privatisation.

I really doubt the value of spending time looking in detail at the report. The group’s long history of cheating and lying on behalf of the rich and powerful makes them instantly unworthy of our time and Martin Williams knows that.

What he is, in fact, arguing for is the private extraction of wealth from taxpayers into the pockets of the rich which we see all-too-clearly in the daily media reporting of the horrific costs of water, rail and energy privatisation since the1980s.

For a quick read on the above: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/17/privatisation-premium-billions-from-uk-energy-bills-paid-to-shareholders

For more detail: https://labourhub.org.uk/2025/09/18/britains-privatisation-disaster-the-figures-speak-for-themselves/

4 thoughts on “Cost of rail nationalisation in Scotland – Herald’s uncritical reliance on notorious Taxpayers Alliance’s known biases is very poor quality journalism”

  1. Aye, yet another “Exclusive by Martin Williams” apparently now ‘Reporter of the Year’ https://archive.ph/ncmyW

    Had to laugh at his description with my emphasis “The TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group and think thank that pushes for reduced government waste…”, the same tripe always trotted out when it comes to government spending on anything which may benefit the lives of the public – Yet what amused most over this tripe was the Herald’s spell-checker failed a la Grauniad – You’d have ‘thunk’ the “Reporter of the Year” wouldn’t have spotted the “think thank”, but he was probably too interested in the “fee”, or still pissed…

    It is striking though how so much effort (and rather obviously money) is going into disparaging Scotland’s public transport arrangements solely because of SG’s interventions…

    From Wikipedia these two paragraphs say it all “The TPA’s campaigning approach focussed on the media, relying in part on the reduction in journalists’ investigation budgets. It aims to shape public opinion through the media by packaging its research “into brief, media-friendly research papers, complete with an eye-catching headline figure to give reporters a ready-made “top line”.”[9] Its research is often based on “using the government’s own data and Freedom of Information requests to winkle out examples of public sector waste”.[9]

    The TPA’s income from donations rose from around £68,000 in 2005 to around £1M in 2009.[10]“

    N’est ce pas ?

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. ‘relying in part on the reduction in journalists’ investigation budgets’ – it’s certainly relying on a reduction in journalistic quality!

      From The Herald article, it seems the TPA’s ‘case’ is based on comparing the scale of government funding of Scotrail in 2024-25 with that back in 2021-22 when it was operated by Abellio. The article refers to a number of relevant factors which will impact the difference in funding but fails to assess their aggregate significance:

      • the impact inflation has had on costs – an impact felt even if nothing else had changed in the intervening period
      • the increased fee that has had to be paid to Network Rail over the period
      • the increased costs of meeting Scotrail staff wage demands
      • the cost implications of actions taken by the Scottish Government to mitigate the adverse effects of the pandemic.

      When one takes all of the above into account, what is the net difference in costs?

      Which of the above line items that the Scottish Government has agency over? Of the others, which cost items would The Herald have wished had not been met and with what adverse impact – and linked , consequent costs – e.g. strike action? And if there still remains an increase in cost, what is the scale, what benefits if any have accrued from the increase, and how do all these costs compare and contrast with UK rail industry benchmarks?

      We shouldn’t expect the TPA to be concerned about the above: once upon a time – but now a long time ago – we might have expected The Herald to help inform its readers better. Nowadays, any source of material for gaslighting Scotland seems to be prioritised!

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

  2. Indeed John, thanks, and, thank goodness the SNP took Scottish Rail back into public hands, and kept Scottish Water out of private hands. Had the Labour branch office, under orders from their masters in London, been allowed to continue to control the Scottish parliament, they would definitely 100% have sold off Scottish Water to private companies. The consquences of any of that scenario does not bear thinking about.
    Shame Scotland has almost no control over energy though 😦

    The ‘tax payers alliance’, hmm should it be called the tax evaders alliance…

    The Herald rag is an enemy of Scotland, I just wish they would go take their fake rag to England, where they are headquartered. Disgraceful lying rag.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  3. Historical lack of investment in rail services in Scotland, by Westminster. Journey times take twice as long in Scotland. Cutting journey times in Scotland will cut journey times in the UK. Less flights and overnight stops.

    £Billions wasted on HS2. Instead of improving services in the North.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.