It isn’t clear from Andrew Martin’s article (Let a public train take the strain, Opinion, 8 August) whether Andy Burnham is unambiguously committed to public ownership of the railways, or merely to giving permission to a public company to bid for a slice of the action.
The latter policy would perpetuate time-consuming and expensive tendering processes in which large sums of taxpayers’ money would be diverted to fund lawyers, accountants and public relations consultants.
The former policy, consistently supported by the Labour party conference (and the public), would automatically restore franchises to public ownership as and when each current contract expires. This would ensure that taxpayers’ money is in future spent not on subsidising private shareholders, but on holding down fares at a reasonable level and on investing in service improvements – a policy both economically prudent and electorally popular.
Francis Prideaux
London
• Isn’t it time Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair joined the Conservative party? Their taste for riches and stated antipathy to the left belies the groundswell of public support for Jeremy Corbyn; support which comes from a wide cross-section of young and old who have simply had enough of the increasingly pernicious brand of supranational capitalism which blights our society, our international relations and our very future in so many ways.
These are not people harping back to the “bitter divisions of the 1980s” (Corbyn to unveil plan to create high-skill workforce, 3 August), but decent folk who think together we can describe and achieve a fairer and more harmonious place to live.
Anna Ford
London
