Can Keir Starmer take the brakes off Britain’s rail network?
The IndependentIn part, Labour won the general election because of a feeling among the public that “nothing works any more”. Both in his leadership campaign in 2020 and in this year’s election manifesto, Keir Starmer promised to bring the railways into “common” or “public” ownership. It also says that management by Great British Railways will “reform the ticketing system, to make it simpler for passengers, drive innovation across the network, replace the current ticket types and maximise passenger growth. During the previous era of nationalisation, for example, keeping British Rail fares artificially low to help fight inflation pushed the then nationalised industry into huge losses. The old British Rail, the product of nationalising the exhausted old private concerns in 1948, was no stranger to rail strikes – and, given that it was a monolithic national operator, a rail strike could be, and very often was, a national affair, completely shutting down the network for more than a fortnight in 1955, for example, and leading to a national state of emergency.
History of this topic
What’s the point of publicly owned railways if train fares don’t go down?
The Independent
Rail fares will continue to rise under Labour’s public ownership plan, transport secretary indicates
The Independent
Trains can only get better, says the government – let’s see
The Independent
Rail nationalisation takes a step closer under Starmer’s first major public reform in Commons victory
The Independent
Is public ownership back in fashion under Labour?
The Independent
Starmer Govt Releases Plans To Renationalise UK’s Privately-Owned Railways
News 18
How would Labour’s plan to nationalise the railways work?
The Independent
Labour pledge to renationalise railways within five years
The Independent
Keir Starmer will not bring HS2 back to life
The TelegraphDiscover Related
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