A great way to score some points. With the new banking crisis and tax avoidance in the news, everyone is one again thinking that everyone that dares to make money is evil. that is anyone making money but you, obviously!
So, you now begin your effort to make out the train operators as evil. It is in fact the private companies and their greedy CEOs getting rich from your train ticket. They're only looking out for their shareholders, who are also greedy and probably don't pay tax.
Include some examples of no longer being able afford to take your kids to the seaside, or your nan to get to hospital for her regular check-ups and job done.
Besides Network Rail costing us the most, and ROSCOs also doing their level best to rip us off too, I think many TOCs offer some very reasonable off-peak and super off-peak deals. They have an incentive to offer competitive pricing to get more people to travel on their trains, off-peak at least. If nationalised, would it matter so much? There's no need to make a profit.
Commuters will always be hit hard as there's usually a capacity issue and lowering prices without investment will just result in even more crush loading and even more complaints. I am sure it's no surprise that people who can get a seat or have a fairly relaxed commute are less likely to complain about what they pay to travel than those who are standing or even miss trains, or travel on trains that break down or are cancelled regularly.
I'd still like to see something in between.. based on the TfL way of doing things. Still keeping private operators, but having a nationalised look and feel to the end user. More joined up thinking on timetables and ticket pricing, and more money on doing up stations, staffing them, security, revenue protection etc. It's perhaps the best chance of getting the best of both worlds.