A variant of the word “nationalisation” appears precisely once in the document outlining Labour’s new rail policy – and it’s to say the party won’t do it. “With ten current rolling stock companies owning and leasing trains and carriages worth billions,” argues “Getting Britain Moving: Labour’s Plan to Fix the Railways”, “it would not be responsible for the next Labour Government to take on the cost of renationalising rolling stock as part of our urgent programme of reform.” The newly established Great British Railways will instead continue leasing rolling stock but, by allowing different routes to share, will do so in a more efficient and cuddly way.
This decision to otherwise avoid the term is clearly a deliberate presentational choice. The question is not whether the new rail policy counts as nationalisation: it very clearly does, which is why it’s been widely reported as such. The big question is how radical a policy this really is.
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