Rail fares: Labour vows to stop foreign rail firms "leeching" fare income and to keep it in Britain

The Labour Party has used the annual increase in rail fares to highlight "a franchise system that's totally failing people," and its policy to nationalise the railways so that fare income is not "leeched out of the nation's coffers" by foreign firms.

Labour's shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald was reported as making these strident comments about foreign rail operators as he visited Leamington station in Warwickshire to highlight a 27% increase in average fares since 2010. He said public ownership was "a more sensible way to do it...we have the confidence to do it ourselves," the Kenilworth Weekly News said.

The comments in the newspaper came after senior journalist Andrew Marr, in an "optimists' view of Brexit," said that it would allow re-nationalisation of the railways, and after The Guardian said that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was to be re-launched as a "leftwing populist" in a bid to take advantage of "a wave of anti-establishment feeling".