ROAD RAGE
Mutiny on the buses
THE Unite union was delighted when Greater Manchester decided to replace its deregulated bus model with the franchised “Bee Network”. But the prospects for a similar transition elsewhere won’t be helped by the disruption a Unite pay dispute has already brought to the network.
Margaret Thatcher deregulated buses across Britain (but not in London) in the 1980s. Big private firms crushed or swallowed smaller ones and cherry-picked profitable routes and times, while local authorities tried to subsidise the rest without revenues from the profitable bits (Eyes passim).