How radically left-wing is Labour’s proposed ‘renationalisation’ of the railways? Though militant Mick Lynch of the RMT union ‘strongly welcomed these bold steps’, the real answer is: hardly at all. The revolutionary socialist group Counterfire agonised thus: ‘While it would be extremely obtuse to say that Labour’s policy is bad, it would be naive to say it was adequate, let alone particularly socialist.’ I’m struggling to disagree with that summary.
The central idea of taking train operating franchises into public hands as they expire comes as no shock: LNER, Northern, Southeastern and the dreadful TransPennine Express have already met that fate, along with Scottish and Welsh trains, and those that remain private are largely despised by passengers. ‘Open access’ operators such as Grand Central, Hull Trains and Lumo, which travellers tend to prefer, will continue. So will the private companies which own and lease the rolling stock that HM Treasury is never likely to pay directly to upgrade.
The establishment of Great British Railways as ‘a directing mind’ for the entire network, and of a unified ticketing system, is in line with a 2021 blueprint for Boris Johnson’s government by Sir Keith Williams, who has largely welcomed Labour’s plan.
An incoming Labour regime seizing control of a vital element of national infrastructure might look like revolution. But this plan is little more than a pragmatic attempt to bend the tangled mess of privatised rail back into shape. We wait to see whether it holds fares down and saves the taxpayer a promised £2.2 billion a year; we’ll wait much longer to see whether the Tories ever try to re-privatise the whole thing. Meanwhile, Labour’s ‘Getting Britain Moving’ scheme is unlikely to produce a worse rail service than the one we already have.
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Clash of mining titans
Here’s a deal to make City pulses race and meters run: BHP Billiton, the Australian mining conglomerate, is bidding £31 billion for Anglo American, its London-listed but South African-based smaller competitor. BHP’s objective is to create the world’s largest copper producer – with the prospect of being the key supplier to the booming global electric vehicle industry. Anglo, with vociferous support from South African ministers fearful of job losses, has rejected the offer. But BHP will doubtless come back at a higher price, while rival bids could emerge from the likes of Rio Tinto and Glencore. Whether or not Anglo mounts a successful defence, it may end up selling its majority stake in the De Beers diamond company and other interests in platinum and iron ore.
One way or another, multiple transactions and a feast of fees beckon for London bankers, lawyers and PRs. But there are fears that famine could follow if a taken-over Anglo leaves the London stock exchange, as BHP did in 2022 when it chose to shift its primary listing to Australia.
The mining sector has been a traditional strength of the London bourse since the 19th century – and a counterbalance to the City’s 21st-century failure to attract and nurture high-growth tech companies. Another bellwether deal this week was a £4.2 billion bid from US private equity for Darktrace, a listed Cambridge-based cyber-security company – echoing the loss to listing in New York of its neighbour Arm, the microchip designer. Pessimists are prompted to observe that if London is not just trailing in the tech race but also losing its status as the leading exchange for mining shares, it will eventually cease to be a market that matters to global investors.
But hang on, you ask, does a battle between faraway BHP and Anglo really matter to the UK economy? One answer, from close to my northern home, is that Anglo owns the £7 billion Woodsmith potash mining project near Whitby – which BHP, already invested in potash in Canada, is unlikely to sustain. In a globalised market for natural resources of all kinds, the clash of Australian and South African titans puts 1,400 North Yorkshire jobs at risk.
No to the high life
Visiting the ‘Scalpel’ – a 38-storey glass-and-steel tower in the City’s insurance quarter – I was disconcerted to find myself alone in a buttonless lift, robotically programmed to stop only at the floor I was authorised to visit. ‘D’you get a lot of panic attacks?’ was my first question to my host. ‘No wonder youngsters don’t want to come to work these days’ was the thought behind it.
New skyscrapers sprouting up in London and elsewhere are packed with ‘wellness facilities’ to meet modern expectations, but I suspect that’s partly because the sci-fi strangeness of them too often makes occupants feel unwell. What a relief, as I left, to find a hubbub of early-evening lager drinkers in human-scale Leadenhall Market around the corner.
These thoughts led me to a Policy Exchange paper by Ike Ijeh on the impact of tall buildings in urban life. It begins with the statistic that in 2000 there were just 13 buildings in Britain taller than St Paul’s Cathedral but today there are 129, of which 107 are in London, and the majority luxury (rather than affordable) residential.
We’re told the capital needs more office space for insurers, lawyers and tech firms, but Ijeh describes the City skyline as ‘discordant and chaotic… in its frenetic scrum of jostling misshapen perfume bottles’. London is not New York or Shanghai and these structures will always feel out of place here, as the decline of Canary Wharf – that displaced North American business district in Docklands whose value fell by £1.2 billion in the past year – is starting to tell us.
As for places to live, Ijeh argues that ‘mid-rise’ (five to 12 storeys) has always been better than high-rise, both for aesthetics and quality of life – London’s Edwardian mansion blocks offering fine examples – and can also achieve the higher density of dwellings that thriving cities need. In short, if we want London to be the best place in the world to live, work and do business, let’s stop peppering our capital with joyless towers.
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