Quote Originally Posted by Harry Monk View Post
Beeching's brief was provided by Harold MacMillan in 1960. There is a dispute as to whether Beeching was sacked by Harold Wilson in 1965, or left of his own accord, each side publicising their own story. As the NUR was one of the most powerful unions at the time, your assertion that the Road Transport Union could out manoeuvre the NUR is way off the mark.

As the Tories were in power from 1960 - 1964, and Beeching left in 1965, all the decisions would have been made by the Tories, who's interest in privately owned Road Transport companies rather than a Nationalised Rail System was far greater.
You are rewriting history there. Typical Labour supporter tactic. All the main recommendations of the Beeching reports were implimented post 1964 by a Labour Government. The Conservatives commisioned his reports to see what could be done to improve a system losing millions each year and badly out of date but were then out of power before anything major could be done. Labour could easily have scrapped them if they were that bad an idea but decided to carry on in full. The road transport unions were becoming increasingly powerful at the expense of the railways and large amounts of money were being spent on improving the road networks at the expense of rail, which was seen as an outdated and very expensive method of transport. The Road Transport Unions were therefore seen as the way forward and they pumped large amounts of money into Labour coffers. Read the Wikipedia article on Beeching if you dont believe me.