Private operation of rail services backed despite Southern's woes

In the face of a seemingly rising tide of opinion that ‘something needs to be done’ about the country’s railways, a prominent business news journalist came down strongly against any suggestion that the answer to the problem is for the railways to be returned to public ownership.

As the travails of various rail franchises, most notably Southern Rail, have continued to generate large amounts of media coverage in recent months, so the calls from various media pundits for the rail network to be renationalised have become progressively louder. A robust counter to this trend was, however, published on the Sky News website in late January. Here, Ian King, a business news presenter with Sky, told readers: “Rail privatisation has been a success.”

“Even some...

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