As Britain’s Labour Party closes the gap with its Conservative rivals in the June 8th general election, there’s at least one part of the party’s platform that’s widely popular: nationalizing the railways.
According to the party’s manifesto, a Labour government would end the outsourcing of passenger services to private companies, a practice that began in 1994. The idea might seem complex and expensive, but it has become a significant feature of Britain’s current election campaign—and it’s an idea that many U.K. citizens seem to like a lot: A recent survey found 52 percent of respondents favored renationalization, versus 22 percent against. That makes the idea currently more popular than the party that proposed it.
