There must be many a Scottish person feeling absolutely outraged and livid at the news that Scot Rail is to be operated by a Netherlands off shoot Abellio, franchisee company of its state owned NS railway, after First Group failed in its bid.

This decision by Cameron and co in Westminster comes less than a month after the Scottish Independence vote being narrowly lost by the SNP, and it is shameful that Scotland’s railways are being given over to a purely for profit Dutch franchisee company which is clearly at odds with the will of the people there, who have repeatedly shown that they want a state owned railway run for the sake of the people.

Furthermore, it would appear Abellio primarily has no other reason for its existence than to bid for franchises outside the Netherlands, with no doubt any profits made from running Scotland’s railways ironically being ploughed back in investment in state owned NS.

Purportedly the majority of the population of Britain as a whole want their railways renationalised and returned to public ownership, along with the greedy power and utility companies, after the evidence is clear that we have all been continuously ripped off since the flog off of our state assets.

It was mooted by Ed Miliband’s Labour Party that if elected then the people would get their wish that the railways would be renationalised, but just as Ed appears to have such problems in eating a bacon sandwich he seems to have developed a certain penchant for fudge when trying and failing to backtrack on abolishing the iniquitous bedroom tax. Latterly he seems to have bitten off a particularly chewy piece of fudge whilst backtracking on full renationalisation of the rail network, when pathetically announcing that state owned companies will be allowed to bid against the private franchisees.

I think that by now Ed, most people are sick to the back teeth of being ripped off by the private franchisees and their sky high fares and the resultant profits that are absurdly and quite shamefully used by the foreign owned ones to invest in their own state run railways. Normally such backtracking is reserved for parties that win an overall majority at a General Election but this time it would seem that Ed may have got off to an early start.

Is it small wonder I ask myself that many of the electorate are disillusioned with the two major parties and the promises that they continue to break so glibly, and so maybe now that soon to be redundant Alex Salmond is looking for a job, maybe we should invite him to put his hat in the ring for the Westminster premiership, as who knows, the word of a Scotsman may just perchance prove to be more reliable.

Psst! Alex, if you are listening, there is a job going down here if you would like it.

G A Woodward Nelson Street Swindon