Public ownership

I’m writing as a long-standing floating voter with no particular party-political axe to grind, but does Philip Haigh’s outlining of the Labour Party thinking on rail ( RAIL

903) reflect Corbynite or Starmerite policy?

The proposals described seem to reflect the failings of nationalisation which we witnessed over the BR decades: steady loss of traffic to road and air rivals (reversed after denationalisation); long-term underinvestment at the whim of HM Treasury; and a monolithic, unresponsive, bureaucratic structure.

The concept of nationalisation proved to be flawed, with ‘Parliamentary accountability’ proving unworkable (too remote, long-winded and lacking in expertise). Even the Chinese communists realised in the end that this kind of economic model basically doesn’t work and embraced something more akin to Western capitalism.

Of course, public ownership can have other interpretations. Philip’s article mentioned a Labour policy of local commuter systems managed on a local basis, separated from national operations.

Such services are likely to be captive-market natural monopolies, so public ownership/ control would be entirely appropriate with accountability effected through local, direct democracy (something not feasible on a national scale).

‘National’ operations (mostly inter-city, cross-country and trans-Pennine) may be best run by competing, profit-seeking, free enterprise operators with accountability through passenger choice. As for freight, why change anything?

Again, infrastructure is more suited to a public model. The Beeching era rationalisations of duplicated main lines generally left a single, monopoly line for each particular service.

To summarise: public or private enterprise each have their own different applicabilities. Doctrinaire politics should be kept out of the railway.