Sick of trains and buses, fuel, water being privatised it does not work! Privatisation just means inferior services at the highest price! Take back the railways had enough of badly run rundown trains!!!

In public hands the profits could be re-invested back into the railways to bring about cheaper fares and more efficient travel. In private hands, e.g. Stagecoach, all profits will be creamed off into shareholders pockets and the railway will suffer. The public simply cannot afford to support private operators!

This company has failed already and WE the Public are bailing them out for NOT doing their job. Would you pay for a job not done? It was in Public ownership before this and turned a profit but they still gave them the franchise. Corruption is rife.

Please put the East Coast Railroaded back into public ownership. The lottery of private operators has been a disastrous experiment with taxpayer subsidies feeding private companies with no benefit to user or taxpayers.

I have never been able to understand this idea that our public services - which should include rail - should be up for grabs so that some rich outfit can make a profit whilst running the service down, then hand it back!!! Virgin's track record (no pun intended) is far from acceptable with East Coast or the NHS services it is supposedly running.

It only needs any privatised concern which used to be publicly owned to realise what a mess they are in and all for the sake of greedy shareholders who will not invest in our own utilities and once well run public services . Take them back into public control now!

East Coast Mainline ran at a profit last time it was publicly owned - now private owners expect to run it inefficiently and still get the tax-payer to provide them with dividends. No more of this nonsense.

Franchising isn't working especially if it involves companies like Stagecoach and Virgin bidding high on the tacit understanding that they won't have to deliver. Effectively they were in cahoots with Government when they were awarded the East Coast franchise because the Government egged them on to do exactly the same thing that didn't work for GNER or National Express. As Einstein said, if we keep on doing the same thing...

Can't nationalise it again because it made a profit last time. Mustn't repeat that public humiliation lest people start asking questions

I travelled regularly on this route between London and Edinburgh for many years. In period of public ownership huge improvement in price and service. Therefore I travelled much more frequently. Deterioration in both since return to private ownership. I no longer use them.

Virgin Rail and Stagecoach are capitalist companies, if they did not assess the risk properly, that is their fault. Why should the UK citizens bail them out. The sooner the railways are returned to the public sector the better. Why can't the Tories admit that privatisation has been a costly failure.

Substandard service. Over priced. Time for public ownership.

Please put it back into public ownership. It was really well run, very reliable and on time. Since Virgin took it over it has been a farce, trains regularly cancelled and/ or late. It needs to go back into public ownership as soon as possible.

Sick of being told private profit is better than public profit! For whom? NOT for the public, that's for sure. It never made sense to dismember the railways. Look at the mess with the water, Carillon, and now this - all ideological failures. These things worked perfectly well in public ownership. But after YEARS of extracting profit from the public, raising prices etc - the mess and the greed has had its day, and its time to get back to proper services for all of us - for the good of the country.

Why when owned by the public it makes a profit but not when owned by fat cats!!!!? Go public take it all back should never have privatesed any company. These services from water to rail are public therefore should be owned by the public. Lower fares better service.

Fat cats will only be interested in lining their own pockets and not giving a good service to the public. It is about time the Government realised this and bought all our services back into public ownership - be it rail, water and all services. Give the public the profit to plough back into infrastructure and not big companies that can throw the contracts back at the drop of a hat. My housekeeping would not work that way we would be out on the streets!!

Having worked on the Great Northern, seams to me that the 'Main Line' should be in public hands, but very transparent!

It certainly looks as though the government staggers from one private company to the next with none managing the east coast line for the people, only for their own monetary benefits. In my opinion the railways should not exist to benefit the wealthy but for the benefit of people needing to use it. Have it brought into public ownership

give it back to the public

Public ownership worked. Let it work again!

No real comment except that you are right

It should be in the public sector - Chris Grayling has to be the worse Cabinet Minister we have had

Public ownership for me

Public ownership of East Coast mainline had a good track record, excuse the pun. The Government needs to be wary of giving out contracts to huge corporations after the recent collapse of Carillion and the problems at Capita.

Perhaps we need to remember that Virgin make profits elsewhere, if it weren't railways there would be no question of bailing them out, yet again government forget they, government, don't have any money.. it's my money, I choose not to give it to Richard Branson and the like.It's a bit like Carillion, the directors pension scheme is secure as are their bonuses but I am expected to prop up the scheme, who will prop up mine when I don't have enough income, I had to provide the whole of my pension no one else contributed a penny. Government has forgotten where the money comes from...me and people like me.

The previous success of East Coast Line under public ownership proved it to be efficient, on time, profitable to the Treasury and public purse, and gained the highest passenger satisfaction ratings and levels of use than under any private company. This privatisation madness must stop starting with the railways, then the power companies, both have over the last 20 - 30 years seen very poor service, rising prices and huge profits going to share holders and more importantly much of those profits going back to foreign state run railways that own our railways! How can the Tory ideology square up the insane anomaly of being ok to allow a foreign state owned railway, own and run ours but the Tories do not like a British based state ownership? How can we ever justify public money shoring up private companies which gives them no incentive to make profits or become more efficient. A bad deal all round. The only privatised industry that has made some big improvements is the Water Industry who are heavily scrutinised through Ofwat, a far more rigorous regulator than those supposed to be looking after the railways and power supplies, who are ineffective. Privatisation is not a golden panacea, it has it's issues and limitations like everything else. We need a mixed State and private economy, where all services are state run. That formula works well in countries that do ensure a healthy mixed ownership economy, such as in Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries to name but a few.

The Conservatives are blinded by dogma, they are supposed to run the country for the good of all its citizens. Public ownership for the railways is the only way forward. British Railways was decried as inefficient, ( when ever any of these ideologues criticize BR they come up with the comment about BR sandwiches) At least in my book BR ran a better service than any of these so called private companies.

Privatisation has cost the taxpayer billions.

As a very frequent traveller between Newcastle and London, the monopoly that Virgin/Stagecoach have does not make for reasonable fares or indeed anywhere near the prompt service passengers require. I find myself getting up earlier than before just to make sure I get an earlier train to be in London for meetings. Failed on the last 3 occasions. The best era was East Coast - on time, reasonable prices, on-board services etc. And they paid their taxes and still made a profit to put back into the company. This lot put profit before people and the money in their off-shore bank accounts tax free. Public ownership please.

MAKE THEM PAY IT ALL BACK. THE LONGER YOUR DENIAL AND REFUSAL TO ACT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, MORE BLOODY AND DESPERATE WILL BE THE RETRIBUTION. WITH CLOSE TO FORTY YEARS OF YOUR DOGMA, ASSET STRIPPING, EMBEZZLEMENT AND TAX FUNDED BAIL OUT, WHEN EXACTLY WAS IT GOING TO GET BETTER? STAND ASIDE, THE FUTURE GROWS IMPATIENT AT YOUR OBSTRUCTION.