Nish Kumar’s amusing piece about our railways (G2, 15 August) correctly mentions that public ownership of Britain’s railways was agreed by last year’s Labour party conference. It has in fact been Labour conference policy for many years to take our railways into public ownership as and when current franchises expire. The new factor is that Labour’s current leadership is publicly campaigning for this policy to be actually put into practice. As the policy has long been popular not just with Labour supporters but also with a majority of those who have previously voted Conservative, Kumar is clearly right to make the point that “Corbyn might be on to a winner here”. Why are Chris Grayling and Theresa May so silent on this increasingly salient issue?
Francis Prideaux
London
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