Quote Originally Posted by dml1954 View Post
The problem with what you say is that Beeching was actually affiliated to the Labour party and most of his recommendations were implemented by a Labour government who had strong ties (and probably large amounts of funding) from the road transport unions, who wanted to replace railways with bigger road networks and therefore benefit their own members at the expense of railway staff. The Conservatives did commission the reports from Beeching in the first place, due to the vast amounts of money being lost every year but to solely blame them for the current situation is way wide of the mark.
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.