letter to Jim McMahon about nationalising rail

Dear Jim

I'm a member of the Labour Party in Bournemouth and was reading about contacting Grant Shapps about nationalising rail, but it's daft of me to share ideas with him so I hope you don't mind if I make contact with yourself.

Efficiency of staffing.

I was an apprentice at Hawker Siddeley Aviation Brough. Thousands of people poured off trains and buses into that factory from the 1930s to the 1970s. It was deliberately over staffed to create jobs and it worked.

Similarly at British Steel, I worked as a miner and the mines were over staffed to the extent I was allowed to study at Hull University.

Later at GKN Westland in a huge office with hundreds of people busy doing nothing basically. Over staffed to create jobs in a Keynesian policy that both Labour and Conservatives followed until Margaret Thatcher came along.

The same was the case in all nationalised industries, councils and the civil service and beyond into the private sector.

Keynes suggested this over staffing be temporary but it wasn't possible. The State had to be and remain a reserve employer. The idea of the state as reserve employer was put forward by Winston Churchill who was also an avid free market supporter.

If we can update Keynes a little and put forward an idea of notional employment efficiency. We can work out just how much the state can support jobs in a way that the contribution to the economy via consumption equals or nearly equals or balances the tax returns. The state doesn't in fact pay the full wages because much of it - a surprising amount in fact - comes back in taxes of one form or another.

Plus the state has to pay unemployment benefits so this goes into the equation and allows a level of over staffing in (potential) labour intensive sectors - like rail.

So there is an argument way way over and above simple profit and loss why key industries should be under public ownership.

Plus public ownership needn't be in the form of previous nationalisation; it could be more like public investment corporations where banks, pension funds, private sector corporations, customers and consumers can invest through a public investment bank. The corporations remain in public ownership provide fantastic investment opportunities?

It's such an exciting possibility.

Labour will be called upon to rebuild a collapsed economy after the next election. We need ideas now.

So I'd like to put forward the idea of bringing rail into public ownership as a public investment corporation (or something similar).

Labour needs to get on the front foot with ideas because I guarantee Mr Sunak has a dedicated team working on things like this.

Regards

Graham Poulloin

01202 7765747

@gg_poulloin