I think you're mistaking criticism for irony. Personally, I'm glad that those railways look like they'll be nationalised. It's just a bit of a joke that it turns out to be the privatisation Tories that end up doing it. Privatisation of the railways tends to be recipe for disaster. You only have to look at the fares and compare them to Europe to realise that: https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/train-prices-across-europe
Train Prices Across Europe - The Results
The UK has reclaimed its rightful spot at the top of the 'ridiculously expensive train prices' pile, charging 55p per mile for railway passengers.
The only country that previously had more expensive trains than the UK is Norway - but after a price drop this year, they are now a slightly more modest 46p per mile.
... these two countries are a world ahead, however.
The UK charges twice as much as the next closest country, as Austria and Sweden have prices set at 27p per mile.
Compare this to Eastern Europe - a whopping 18 countries in Europe have prices set below 10p per mile, including Poland, Slovakia and Serbia. Remarkably, prices in Belarus sit at a ridiculous 1p per mile.
In fact, the average across the whole of Europe sits at a lowly 14p per mile, less than one third of the UK figure - despite it being equivalent in size to many countries included in the analysis.
Looking at the numbers in each country's respective native currency, more prices actually dropped year on year than increased - 16 countries saw a price reduction, 13 countries saw a price increase, and 9 remained the same.
The average price shift across Europe? Down. Despite the UK having the most expensive train prices across the whole of Europe, they still increased by 3.1% on average (2.9% on the specific London > Oxford route included in the study). Across Europe, prices were down 1.74% on average.
