Our railways are better than ever. They don’t need renationalising

Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn have both pledged to bring back British Rail. Why? In a speech yesterday, Corbyn justified his position: ‘I think the public mood is there, absolutely there, saying, “Bring our railways back into public ownership.” And we’ll all get a better and much more integrated system as a result’.

Headline figures from recent polls suggest he may have a point: a YouGov survey from early August said 58 per cent supported ‘bringing the railways, water companies and other utilities back into public ownership through renationalisation’. But this could be classified as a ‘would you like a pony’ polling question; it offers no explanation of what renationalisation would entail, only hinting at a fantasy land where fares are cheaper and everything runs on time.

The same pollster conducted a more comprehensive survey in May last year, which looked at the reasons why a majority support renationalisation. 62 per cent said they think railways ‘should be accountable to taxpayers rather than shareholders’, just under half think rail fares would go down and 43 per cent reckon it would be ‘more cost-effective overall’.