“East Coast rail line to be nationalised” says the headline on today’s Financial Times. But before you raise a cheer thinking a newly radicalised Labour Party is set on a course to put major transport infrastructure under the democratic control of workers and passengers read on. Lord Adonis (that’s him in the picture below with Venus, I think) has said that they only intend to keep it in state control for  ”about a year” before finding another company to flog it to.

At the moment the trains are run by National Express which had to pay £85m last year and was facing a  bill of £395m this year. They negotiated this deal when times were good in 2007.  They had been counting on increased passenger numbers of 10% a year and were a bit disappointed when the volume increased by a more humble 0.3%. You can see their problem. Adonis seems to have misunderstood the way capitalist companies operate. He’s reported as saying “It is simply unacceptable to reap the benefits of contracts when times are good, only to walk away from them when times become more challenging.” Well we may think it’s unacceptable but it’s what makes them a business rather than a public service and they’d be very poor capitalists if they did not do anything else.

Can we conclude anything from this?

The first obvious point is that Labour, in the face of all evidence, is not willing to accept that private companies are only in it for the money. Even when circumstances force them to undo a small bit of the neo-liberal package they always make sure that they can get rid of a public asset at the earliest opportunity.

The second point, which is no revelation to anyone who has had experience of comparing train services in France or Italy with those in Britain, is that it’s easier, cheaper and much more efficient to keep the whole damned system in state control.