Friday, November 5, 2010

British government sells Channel Tunnel rail link to Canada

The Guardian reports:

The Channel tunnel rail link has become the latest piece of British infrastructure to be snapped up by acquisitive Canadian pension funds.
Two of Canada's largest pension funds have paid £2.1bn to operate Britain's only high-speed railway line for the next 30 years. It is the first privatisation deal done by the coalition government.

The RMT union slammed the rail link sell-off as "just another act of political vandalism on the UK railways". Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, said: "The most modern section of the UK rail network has been sold off for a song in what amounts to nothing more than a fire sale of the family silver to prop up the financial deficit caused by the bankers and speculators in the first place.

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