Lewisham Council demands Southern loses its franchise for delivering a diseased corpse of a train sy

On 20th July, I proposed a motion to Lewisham Full Council demanding that Southern has its franchise removed for repeated and sustained failure. With support from Cllr Liam Curran and all other councillors, the motion was passed. As a result the Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, wrote to Govia and also to the Secretary of State for Transport demanding that urgent action is taken.

Click HERE for the letters sent to Govia and Chris Grayling MP. See below for my speech introducing the motion.

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ONE

Privatisation has failed - as it always fails.

TWO

Southern has failed repeatedly. Despite making millions of pounds for French state railways - GOVIA, the parent company is 35% owned by the French government - commuters and passengers in this country are being treated as cash cows sent to slaughter. The so called temporary cancellations are on top of the a remedial plan from the last failure only months before.

They are messing up real people's lives in the pursuit of profit. The government are excusers of shameful and blood sucking parasites who take taxpayers money and deliver a diseased corpse of a train system.

THREE

At what point in this country did we condone the reward of failure. Was it the Thatcher years or later? Many of us sitting here would be sacked if we did not do our job properly. Southern are rewarded.

My only distraction from a commuting hell are the tweets of the parody account of Southern, named BadSouthern. Here are some of the tweets:

A parody but reflects the frustration that privatisation breeds failure and the government rewards that failure.

#SouthernRail #SouthernRailway #Southerntrains #Privatisationfailures #LewishamCouncil