The Conservative Party and the fate of public transport in Britain since 1945

The mayor of the metropolitan region of Manchester, Andy Burnham, has announced that public control of the bus services in the area will resume. This is not only extremely welcome, but a demonstration of the extremely practical things which can be accomplished by social democracy/democratic socialism, something which, for entirely understandable reasons, continues to elude Starmer and the shadow frontbench. It also advertises the value of decentralised and effective local government, and provides a tantalising glimpse of possible future municipal/regional achievements, if only this state could embrace a form of flexible federalism.

However, the question has to be asked: how did this state of affairs arise ? The railway system in Britain, unlike its counterparts on the Continent, grew not in a planned manner, but as a consequence of speculative bursts of activity in the 1840s. Later routes were similarly unco-ordinated with each other. The result was a hopelessly duplicated and wasteful system, with at least two guages of track, which was too concentrated on London, with relatively weak regional and East-West connectivity. Railway companies struggled to make profits, which was the case before the advent of the motor vehicle ; and a rationalisation and merger of railway companies in 1923 failed to remedy the underlying malaise. Nationalisation in 1948 merely stabilised a parlous situation. Under the management of Richard Beeching (in the early and mid-1960s), British Railways embarked on a wholesale closure of lines which were deemed to be unprofitable. The consequence was that, although many duplicate lines were closed, many towns were deprived of railway services. The concentration of the main routes of the network on London, and the concommitant lack of regional connectivity, were exacerbated.

At the same time, Harold Macmillan's Minister for Transport, Ernest Marples, became an enthusiastic advocate for motorways, beginning with the opening of the first stretch of the M1 in 1959. This was a prelude to the re-modelling of town centres in the 1960s to accommodate the insatiable demands of the motor vehicle. The Treasury's stranglehold on the purse-strings of the railways inhibited the modernisation, particularly the electrification, of the railways. A more integrated transport system was never on the agenda. The privatisation of the railways in 1993 and the de-regulation of the buses in 1986 merely completed the fragmentation of the transport network. John Prescott's assigned task, under Tony Blair, to integrate the transport system, was a monumental missed opportunity. It was as if Blair wanted to defeat his own objective by giving Prescott too much to do. Thatcher's attempted justification for this lamentable state of affairs (that if someone over the age of thirty travelled by public transport, they were one of life's failures) is probably one of the most stupid statements ever uttered by a politician, though admittedly there are many keen contenders for that title, including quite a number of Thatcher's own assertions.

There are many sensible arguments for expanding bus services, bringing them all under public ownership, and improving their reliability and connectivity (particularly with rail services). They have the potential to offer much safer transport (than, for example, taxis) to senior citizens and to women. (Of course, the restoration of bus conductors would help). However, these considerations appear to have no impact whatsoever on central government policy.