Quote of the day 11th February 2018

“McDonnell ...  starts from the view that public ownership is right and then asserts 'it’s the most efficient way of running public services'.

He can afford to take such an ideological view, despite the mixed evidence, because the idea of public ownership is popular.

Superficial opinion-poll findings are, however, a poor guide to policy. People are dissatisfied with rail services in particular and assume they would be cheaper and more reliable in public ownership. I would say the evidence for this is thin.

As for the idea that more public ownership would lead to a shift of wealth and power to 'working people,' irreversible or not, I think the evidence for that is non-existent. ”

 (John Rentoul, chief political columnist of The Independent, in an opinion piece,

 "John McDonnell's renationalisation plan is clever politics - but bad policy.")

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