Prospect to dread

IT is a word that will send a chill down the spine of rail commuters across Scotland: nationalisation.

Some will recall the bad old days of stateowned railways in the 1970s and dread the thought of returning there. Others will wonder at the wisdom of having the SNP more involved in transport in Scotland.

This is the party that built a bridge that can’t open in winter, the owners of a shipyard that doesn’t build ships. It is still trying to offload Prestwick Airport seven years after buying it for £1, while continuing to pour in taxpayers’ cash.

Transport Secretary Michael Matheson told Holyrood he was invoking legal powers that allow the Scottish Government to take ScotRail into public ownership when no viable bidder is available.

No doubt ministers think their sudden, pre-election gambit will attract more Labour voters on May 6, but when the politicking fades away they will still be a rail operator. It will be their job to manage the service and their job to explain when things go wrong.

Rail is one of the arteries of Scotland’s transport network. It should be governed by serious policy-making, rooted in the market, rather than the semi-Marxist spasms of a government chasing votes and headlines. This ploy may well leave Scotland’s rail service in a worse condition than it was before Covid-19 hit.

Instead of reaching back to the 1970s, the Scottish Government needs to remember taxpayers want their money spent wisely, not buying ministers a train set.