Teenage Corbynistas who are too young to have known the joys of nationalised British Rail can look across the channel to learn about the merits of socialised transport:

“The dilapidated network, delays, abysmal debt … The situation is alarming, not to say untenable. The French, whether they take the train or not, pay more and more for a public service that works less and less well…”

So says Prime Minister Edouard Philippe about the state of SNCF, France’s publicly owned railway. He plans to tackle the railway union’s amazingly comfy conditions for workers. He wants to “align its costs with European standards”, when “running a train in France costs 30% more than elsewhere”. The unions suspect he is preparing to privatise the company, he denies it, he is just going to neo-liberalise reform the railways to be run more like a private company. The railway union has called a national strike for March 22…