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First win Intercity West Coast franchise

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David10

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Isn't the franchise supposed to be signed tomorrow?
The 10 day cooling off period expires tomorrow, so unless Virgin or any of the other bidders call for a judicial review, the DfT are free to sign a contract with First. The select committee can still conduct a review but it will have no bearing on the franchise.
 

PR1Berske

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The 10 day cooling off period expires tomorrow, so unless Virgin or any of the other bidders call for a judicial review, the DfT are free to sign a contract with First. The select committee can still conduct a review but it will have no bearing on the franchise.

*orders popcorn for BBC News session*
 

David10

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"Sir Richard Branson's hopes of clinging on to the west coast rail franchise are fading as the government prepares to formally strip Virgin Trains of the London-Glasgow route."

That reads as if the Government has simply terminated Virgin's contract and put First in charge!

Virgin automatically ceases to run the WCML in December.

Terrible journalism right there.
Agree, some of the journalism in the last 2 weeks has been appalling. Stripping Virgin of the franchise implies they have screwed up G4S style, rather than having been unsuccessful in regaining the contract which would be a far more accurate way of reporting.
 

Retorus

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The whole thing makes for cringeworthy reading for those of us familiar with the railways, the amount of bandwagon hopping and number of people saying that Branson should refuse to sell "his" trains to First is baffling...
 

WatcherZero

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I quite liked the quote from the Minister who said something along the lines of 'we note the offer made by Virgin through the press'. Cutting! In other words, you didn't come to us directly with that offer, so you're clearly courting public opinion, or put another way - making a stunt.

They said the same thing about News Internationals offer to make Sky News editorially independent if they got the go ahead to increase their share of Sky Television 'we see the offer in the press' but saying they didnt seen any problem with the Murdoch aquisition anyway, a couple of weeks later.....
 

junglejames

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So you would take their votes away from them (or anyone else for that matter) because they don't know enough about running the NHS, maintaining the roads, policing, social policy, housing and all the rest and you disagree with them?

You miss the point. I ont mind people that make mistakes. However, its when these people turn round and calls others liars, because they have tried to point them in the right direction. The amount of times people have tried trotting out 'FGW walked away from the GW franchise'. I keep trying to put them right, but just get called a liar, or a First supporter. Or even a First employee. Ive even had someone accuse me of setting up a 2nd FB account to make myself look like 2 people. Ive had someone ask why First havent got a petition going if they are so good. etc etc etc.
These are the people who would be dangerous. Those that cant accept people pointing them in the right direction, and instead keep quoting blatant lies.
 

WatcherZero

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Technically they did walk away, the Government offered them the optional extension for good performance and they refused to take it. Now if they had not been offered the extension and the contract naturally ended then you could say they didnt walk away. That extension break point was put there for the Governments benefit not the Tocs and they did agree years in advance what the franchise payments would be for that extension. It was the First who offered them the payments for the extension then refused to take it not vice versa.
 

David10

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FGW's contract was unique in having an option in the TOC's favour, normally it is in favour of the DfT. Supposedly the DfT screwed up on some calculations and First were prepared to walk as preferred bidder. As part of the compromise which otherwise would have resulted in the process beginning from scratch, First were able to get the break clause inserted in the contract.

NXEA had qualified for an automatic 3 year extension, but this became null and void after NatEX handed back the keys on NXEC.
 

PR1Berske

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From the Independent, looks like "sources close" are confirming there's to be a day in court after all

My opinion - JUST DROP IT, BRANSON!

Lawyers for Virgin Trains were yesterday preparing to launch a last-minute legal challenge to stop the Government signing a contract which will strip them of their right to run the West Coast Mainline service.

The company said it had a team of lawyers working over the Bank Holiday examining their options for a judicial review of the decision to hand over the West Coast franchise to FirstGroup. A final decision will be made today but a spokesman for the company said a challenge was "likely" unless the Government backed down and allowed Parliament to scrutinise the deal.

"You don't pay expensive lawyers to work over the Bank Holiday weekend unless your intentions are pretty clear," said a spokesman for the group. The move came as Labour urged the Transport Secretary Justine Greening not to sign off the contract, which could happen any time from midnight tonight, until MPs have been able to scrutinise it in detail. In a letter to Ms Greening, the shadow Transport Secretary Maria Eagle wrote: "The decision appears almost exclusively a 'bottom line' one, driven by a particularly high pledge of payments to Government."

She added: "You will know of the history of franchise contracts being brought to an early end, at least in part because of over-ambitious payment promises that proved impossible to realise. There are fears that lessons have not been learnt."

Ms Eagle also warned about the impact on fares and levels and quality of services and the possibility of First cutting short the contract.

FirstGroup claims it will deliver better value for taxpayers. It plans major improvements to the InterCity West Coast franchise to enhance the customer experience, including improved Wi-Fi and catering, as well as additional services and more seats and reducing standard anytime fares by 15 per cent on average.

But Virgin claims FirstGroup's payments to Government to run the franchise are skewed towards the end of the contract period – leaving open the possibility that it could pull out early and substantially reduce the worth of the deal to the taxpayer.

In an interview on the BBC, Richard Branson who runs Virgin Trains alongside the transport company Stagecoach claimed that FirstGroup's bid will lead to "almost certain bankruptcy". "I think that the person who can really intervene to try to get some sense into the Department for Transport is the Prime Minister and he is on holiday, the Chancellor is on holiday and we would like things delayed by a month or so," he said. "If, as a result of that, it means that the handover is delayed we would obviously be very happy to run it on a not-for-profit basis."

The Department for Transport dismissed Sir Richard's offer to run the service on a not-for-profit basis to allow the deal to be re-examined, insisting it would go ahead with the contract. A spokesman said: "However, the winning bidder was decided by a fair and established process and no reason has been advanced to convince DfT not to sign the agreement."

He added: "We are in receipt of a letter from Virgin Trains which is a precursor to legal action. We are reviewing the correspondence. The Department is confident in the process it undertook and the decision made in awarding the West Coast franchise."

FirstGroup insisted the bidding process was fair and deliverable. Chief executive Tim O'Toole said: "We won the bid fair and square."
 

NSEFAN

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I heard Justine Greening on Radio 5 this morning to talk about the WCML franchise, as well as HS2.

I hope she will be replaced by someone who doesn't just quote soundbites when asked straight questions. :roll:
 

Solent&Wessex

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And what was her verdict on the current status of the WCML deal, in particular Beardie's legal challenge mentioned above?
 

PaxVobiscum

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She's just said "No" on the Radio 4 Today programme when asked directly "Will there be a pause (before signing)?"
 

NSEFAN

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I couldn't tell. She seemed to have difficulty in answering the questions asked. :lol:

She seemed confident that the bid from First was deliverable. She did point out that Virgin were happy with process, until it became apparent that they weren't actually going to win.
 

Masboroughlad

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JG is hopeless. She got facts wrong on Breakfast this morning.

As an aside. Hope Branson takes action with a judicial review.
 

PaxVobiscum

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When asked if she believed First's growth predictions of 10%, surprise surprise, she avoided giving a direct answer, just repeating the blurb about all bids being subjected to close scrutiny (or words to that effect).
 

cambsy

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Greening was poor on tv, looked like rabbit caught in head light, no wonder she didn't want to take notice of public and mp's, she just spouted a script, no sign of thinking, no sign of interacting or defending dft, she is clearly lacking In experience for her position, Virgin will eat her alive. Think Virgin will get judicial review, and Greening will be destroyed by this debacle.
 

Solent&Wessex

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Ministers avoiding direct questions and failing to answer what was actually asked is nothing new, it has been this way for as long as I can remember, and before.

Don't forget that the majority of the process and detail would have been handled by DfT civil servants, ie office staff. Most of whom would remain the same regardless of who was in goverment. In many cases the relevant minister is very ill informed and is just a front and spokesman for the relevant department.
 

90019

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As an aside. Hope Branson takes action with a judicial review.

I'll be very surprised if he does. If there was anything in it, Virgin would have done something about it already, rather than resorting to an e-petition and trying to rubbish Firstgroup.
The whole thing is just about Branson throwing his toys out of the pram because he hasn't got his way.
It's all rather pathetic, really.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Ministers avoiding direct questions and failing to answer what was actually asked is nothing new, it has been this way for as long as I can remember, and before.

The lawyers would have been hanging on every word.
Several reputations (and careers) at stake.
 

Badger

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I see absolutely no problem with waiting for MPs to have a look at the deal especially when an entire party want that as well as an e-petition. The Virgin-are-being-babies bashers are just as bad as the blind Virgin lovers. This is serious business not just some quick decision and if people think there's a problem and that it might want to be looked at again, on such an important decision as a 13-year franchise agreement, no it is not childish to ask for it to be reviewed.
 

swt_passenger

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From the Independent, looks like "sources close" are confirming there's to be a day in court after all

Was already quoted and discussed on page 119 of this thread.

'Independent jumps on Branson's publicity stunt bandwagon' would be another perfectly reasonable interpretation... I wonder what 'sources close' will be feeding to the press when it all goes as the DfT planned?
 

PaxVobiscum

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Ministers avoiding direct questions and failing to answer what was actually asked is nothing new, it has been this way for as long as I can remember, and before.

I suspect that I have been listening to Ministers failing to answer direct questions on the radio (and anywhere else) for longer than most people on this forum. :D
 

IanXC

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I see absolutely no problem with waiting for MPs to have a look at the deal especially when an entire party want that as well as an e-petition. The Virgin-are-being-babies bashers are just as bad as the blind Virgin lovers. This is serious business not just some quick decision and if people think there's a problem and that it might want to be looked at again, on such an important decision as a 13-year franchise agreement, no it is not childish to ask for it to be reviewed.

I have to say I find it difficult to understand this view. There's an established process, which the bidders, Labour and the TSC all know about. There was a franchise consultation, and then an ITT which they all knew about. If they felt the specification or the process wasn't right then they had the opportunity to say so during those 15 months.

As I see it Branson has beenn throwing his toys around, the campaign has gained some traction (based on misinformation) and so as the bandwagon has rolled on politicians haven't been able to resist getting on.

Funny how Virgin didn't complain about the process until it became apparent they werent going to win isn't it?
 

marks87

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Is James Morris on Facebook a poster from here?

He's doing sterling work on the "campaign" pages, debunking the myths and basically pointing out the idiocy of the masses.
 

Metroland

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I see absolutely no problem with waiting for MPs to have a look at the deal especially when an entire party want that as well as an e-petition. The Virgin-are-being-babies bashers are just as bad as the blind Virgin lovers. This is serious business not just some quick decision and if people think there's a problem and that it might want to be looked at again, on such an important decision as a 13-year franchise agreement, no it is not childish to ask for it to be reviewed.

Totally concur. The Franchise process in general leaves a lot to be desired as well. I think many people's gut feeling is there isn't the checks and balances there, especially in favour of the passenger and tax payer. We need a full independent review.
 

Ferret

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I see absolutely no problem with waiting for MPs to have a look at the deal especially when an entire party want that as well as an e-petition. The Virgin-are-being-babies bashers are just as bad as the blind Virgin lovers. This is serious business not just some quick decision and if people think there's a problem and that it might want to be looked at again, on such an important decision as a 13-year franchise agreement, no it is not childish to ask for it to be reviewed.

'Quick decision'?! Can I give you the opportunity to think about that quote, and maybe consider if it's in any way close to what the DfT have done?

The people who think there is a problem are by sheer coincidence, the ones who have lost out. Who'd have thought it?!


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Cooling off period doesn't expire until midnight, so nothing will be signed until Wednesday.

So I've just read on the Beeb site! I'd got it into my head that it was today that was the earliest date for signing - heaven knows why!
 
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