Reports surfaced yesterday that the Labour Party leadership is about to announce its plans for the future of Britain’s railway network. The rumour is that the next Labour government would ensure that all future franchises to run rail services will be open to public sector as well as private sector bids.

Thus a state-owned concern such as Directly Operated Railways, which has made such a success of running the East Coast mainline, would be permitted to tender for other services. 

Embarrassed by the contrast between public enterprise efficiency and subsidised private sector greed, the Tory-Lib Dem government has banned DOR from competing for the franchise upon its renewal next February.

Invited to confirm Labour’s plans, a party spokesperson has dismissed the reports as “pure speculation.”

No doubt such bashful timidity is prompted by fears of a big business backlash against moves towards public ownership, although opinion polls constantly show that renationalisation of the railway industry enjoys the support of between 60 and 75 per cent of the population.

Coincidentally, yesterday also saw the announcement that the London Docklands Light Railway franchise was being awarded to the giant French transport group Keolis.

The company already operates four other privatised rail passenger franchises in Britain, in partnership with other firms. The irony is that the majority shareholding in Keolis is held by SNCF, the French state-owned rail corporation.

In fact, three other rail passenger franchises in Britain are currently operated solely or jointly by Abellio, the international arm of the state-owned near-monopoly Dutch Railways, while most of our rail freight is now carried by DB Schenker, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, which is owned by the German government.

Deutsche Bahn recently bought up Arriva Trains and so, like Abellio, runs both rail and bus services in different parts of Britain.

In other words, substantial parts of our railway network are already back in some form of public ownership — except that it’s French, Dutch or German while British public ownership is squeezed out.

We shall see whether Labour leaders will stop apologising for the past nationalisation of our railways and restore them, in full, to British public ownership which alone would put passengers and investment first.

No cause for pride

Queen Elizabeth may find the new aircraft carrier named after her a “source of pride and inspiration,” but she didn’t speak at Fife’s Rosyth Dockyard yesterday for us all. 

The new warship represents a colossal waste of public money at a time when the unemployed and disabled are being ground into penury in the name of austerity.

Originally costed at less than £4bn, the carrier and its sister ship will now come in at more than £6bn in a period when we are told the public coffers are near empty.

There are better ways to employ the skills of our workers and meet the needs of our people.

The same amount of money would have built and equipped at least 12 medium-sized, state-of-the-art hospitals.

Instead, HMS Queen Elizabeth will be travelling the seas and helping to kill people in countries which can afford few if any hospitals of their own.