On Fri, 4 Jul 2003 19:39:05 +0100, "JNugent"
<JNugent@AC30.Freeofspamserve.co.uk> enlightened the denizens of
uk.politics.misc  by writing:

>> > You have been supplied with the answer.  Accept it, provide
>> > evidence to  the contrary, or shut up.  Your choice.

>..which was interesting, as he certainly *had not* provided any answer to
>the question which had been put four or more times: "Who appointed the
>members of Network Rail?". Nor has he done so yet.

>Of course, one could immediately appreciate his difficulty.

>He had insisted that "Network Rail" was not a nationalised indistry.

>In saying that, he was actually *correct*. But he didn't realise he was
>correct - he actually thought he was wrong.

>The reason why he was correct is that Network Rail was never nationalised.
>It was never in the private sector in the first place so *could not* be
>nationalised, any more than EasyJet or Marks & Spencer could be
>"de-nationalised" or "privatised". Network Rail, is, of course, a
>*publically-owned* industry. It was formed utilising the assets of a
>private company that was cheated out of them by the government, but
>strictly, Network Rail was never "nationalised" (got that, Solon? :-)).

Up to a point Lord Copper:-)

By that argument, nor was BR a nationalised entity, because it was
never in the private sector either, but it was still considered to fit
within the genus "nationalised".

Whilst I acknowledge the impeccable logic sustaining your objection, I
think that it is permissible to use the term "nationalised" as a
generic word meaning "owned by the state" - and that is the sense in
which I shall use the word hereafter.

(Which will save me from making the similar objection to the use of
the term "publically-owned" to apply to entities which are *not*
owned, in any meaningful sense, by members of the public:-)

>But this was overlooked. Dave desperately wanted to avoid having to give
>the correct answer to the question: "Who appointed the members of Network
>Rail?", because the correct answer (indeed, the only answer) is "The
>government". And giving that answer would have made him feel even sillier.
>So he just pretended that he'd given an answer, and pretended that the
>answer that he hadn't given wasn't "The Government".

Indeed so. And perhaps also because he knew that the follow up would
be "who, therefore, owns Network Rail?" ... to which question, the
correct answer is *not* "the members" (who would normally be the
owners of a company and its assets) but "the state".

What Dave is trying to do is assert that because the legal *form* of
NR is that of a company limited by guarantee, it cannot therefore be a
nationalised entity. 

But nationalised entities have taken all sorts of forms in the past.
They have taken the form of departments of state (Post Office),
workers' co-operatives (Triumph), mutual societies (TSB), companies
limited by shares (British Leyland), Quangos (NCB) and (no doubt)
others.

When asking whether an entity is a nationalised industry or not, the
first question is not "what legal form does it take" but "who owns
it". A private company is owned by its members. Is Network Rail owned
by its members? If the members agreed to sell its assets to the
highest bidder and divvy out the proceeds, would they be allowed to do
so? Of course they wouldn't. Why? Because they don't own those assets.
Who does own them? The state.

Therefore Network Rail is a nationalised company.


-- 
Solon