It might not have been great but it was better than most...

The government's simplistic desire to always go for the highest bidder has left Richard Branson bemoaning the short sited nature of train franchises. First group offer 83% customer satisfaction whilst Virgin can boast 91% so it seems that customer satisfaction comes a long way down the list of government priorities. As anyone who regularly uses South Eastern knows, value for money is not a concept familiar to the train companies. Apparently, it will be necessary to keep bleeding the poor old commuters year-on-year with fare rises of around 10%+ to fund 'investment' in the railways. For investment read Directors' bonuses.