YOU sometimes have to wonder why the Labour Party’s economic policies, under the supervision of John McDonnell (recreation in Who’s Who: “generally fermenting the overthrow of capitalism”) don’t go the whole hog.

Take this week’s announcement about cutting the price of rail fares by a third as part of rail renationalisation. Why stop at a third? We’ve been promised free broadband (once Labour have nationalised chunks of BT, and their competitors, if they won’t play ball). The Royal Mail and water, electricity and gas companies will be nationalised, too. If the state can afford literally hundreds of billions of pounds to buy such firms, while only those earning more than £80,000 a year will pay any more tax, why a measly 33 per cent off? If pensioners and those under 16 will go free, why can’t we all?

One reason maybe is that Labour’s economic policy is a demented fantasy of such profligacy that it makes Venezuela’s socialism – McDonnell’s model, until it went bankrupt with an inflation rate that has increased by 60 million per cent over the past three years – look like Ebenezer Scrooge haggling in Poundland. But let’s leave that minor quibble aside.

Assume we could afford to renationalise rail (we can’t), ignore the fact that the bit that doesn’t work is the bit that’s nationalised (it is), and forget that, for some reason, it’s a tremendously popular policy (even though 90 per cent of the population don’t use trains to get to work, and 40 per cent never use them at all).

The first question is why nationalisation would improve the railways. There’s no obvious reason why being owned by the state would magically improve services, or reduce costs. Indeed, the empirical evidence is the reverse. British Rail performed poorly – was indeed a national joke – from the 1960s to 1993, when it was privatised.

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The Golden Ages of railways were the Victorian period, with more than 120 private companies, and 1923-1940, when the “Big Four” carried more passengers, and even covered more miles, than the entire US network, despite the differences in population and distances. And reduced costs by 15 per cent during the period.

There’s no reason why being owned by the government would make fares cheaper; what matters there is government subsidy. It’s true that British fares can be ridiculous – absurdly, it’s often cheaper to fly and, surreally, there was a recent story about a man who bought, fuelled and insured a car for a journey for less than the ticket price.

But that’s if you don’t plan ahead or travel regularly. Contrary to popular belief, UK fares are near the bottom of the international tables for railcard and advance tickets, while season tickets have fallen 12 per cent in real terms in the past two decades. Passengers have doubled, safety has improved, and spending on infrastructure accounts for 98 per cent of the money the rail companies take in. If you wanted to expand, improve or invest in the rail network, you would – on the evidence – want more privatisation, rather than to get the state involved.

Britain’s approach is to aim for rail users to pay the cost of their journeys – although, even so, Scottish government subsidy already covers two-thirds of the (nationalised) network’s cost. Other countries, with apparently cheaper services, get the cash from general taxation. It costs just as much (in fact, in France, it costs the ordinary taxpayer twice as much); it’s just that the money comes from everyone, whether they ever use a train or not.

When so much of the UK population doesn’t – especially since so much of the population couldn’t travel by train, because there is little provision where they are – another question is why Labour want low-paid workers in Peterhead or Grangemouth to subsidise rich commuters in the suburbs of Glasgow and Edinburgh, or stockbrokers from St Albans working in the City of London.

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In fact, it’s worse than that, because at least the commuters are paying for the privilege; season tickets from some stations around an hour from London can be more than £10,000 a year. Current subsidies in the price of travel are, in effect, subsidies not to them, but to London businesses so that they can employ workers who can’t afford to live (because, let’s face it, who can?) in the capital.

You may think that tax revenue would be better spent on providing bus services for provincial communities, or repairing potholes, or reducing fuel duty, and thus allowing ordinary workers in the majority of the country to get to their jobs.

Corbyn and McDonnell propose, by contrast, that those with precious little access to rail should subsidise well-heeled commuters and, since even many of them aren’t well-heeled enough to live in London, in practice to give city firms a subsidy in their wages bill.

There’s no reason why trains would be better with a fat state controlling them, no reason why those who don’t use them should pay for those who do, and no reason low-paid workers with terrible access to transport should help rich firms in large cities dodge costs. But reason’s not Labour’s long suit.