Traffic & Transport
Will Andy Burnham ‘go big’ in expanding the role of the state? | Nationalisation
As he swept towards victory in the Makerfield byelection, Andy Burnham told voters he wanted to see “the essentials of life being run primarily for the public interest, not for the private interests”.
Citing the Bee Network of buses and trams across Manchester city region, brought together on his watch, Burnham repeatedly highlighted the need for more “public control” over the necessities of life. Water, energy, transport and housing are at the top of his list.
Now PM-in-waiting, he is expected to say more about his economic priorities in a speech on Monday.
Burnham’s Manchester address will garner intense interest, from his more leftwing backers to the owners of vast chunks of the British economy. They will be trying to gauge whether he is really serious about expanding the role of the state – all the way through to outright nationalisation – and willing to stare down the vested interests standing in the way.
His choice of chancellor is being viewed as a critical test of his radicalism on this agenda. Advocates of an economic reset, including nationalisation, see Ed Miliband as the only plausible candidate who would be prepared to countenance the steps needed – including facing down intense industry lobbying.
Former health secretary Wes Streeting, by contrast, did not mention public ownership or control in his recent speech on “progressive capitalism”, with the bookies’ favourite for No 11 focusing instead on alignment with the EU, planning deregulation and exploiting the North Sea.
Neal Lawson, the director of the progressive thinktank Compass and a vocal supporter, sees the distinction between public control – which could just mean tougher regulation, for example – and full-blooded public ownership, as key.
“Does Andy Burnham think he can go for ‘control,’ when all of the evidence suggests these things are uncontrollable, and can only be managed in the public interest by being owned in some innovative way by the public sector?” he says.
Perhaps the most radical vision of what public ownership could mean was set out in a dense policy paper published recently by Mat Lawrence, director of the Common Wealth thinktank, under the auspices of Burnham campaign vehicle Mainstream.
Lawrence says of Burnham: “He’s grasped that part of people’s desire for change is this hybrid and bureaucratic model we have for essential sectors, with a weak state trying to regulate privatised utilities, which doesn’t really work for anyone, in terms of affordability, investment, sovereignty, or quality of life.”
Common Wealth was set up explicitly to make the case for greater public ownership – though Lawrence and his co-author Alex Williams eschew the word “nationalisation”.
Their central argument in the paper, The Productive State, is that many of the basics of life – including transport, energy and water, but also social care and housing – have become too expensive, because shareholders are forever taking a slice.
That leads to higher inflation, they say – and therefore higher interest rates; and leaves voters frustrated that basic public goals, such as keeping England’s waterways free of faeces, seem forever out of politicians’ reach.
Cat Hobbs, the founder of the We Own It campaign, which has long argued for public ownership of key resources, stresses this latter, democratic aspect of the argument.
“The arguments are fairly straightforward,” she says. “We’re talking about natural monopolies. We don’t have choice as consumers, and so what we’ve argued is that we need accountability as citizens.”
Common Wealth insists its favoured approach has little in common with the postwar model of great, clunking nationalised industries, funded directly by the Treasury and with ministers in command.
Instead, they hark back to an earlier example – the Central Electricity Board, established by Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government in 1926. The state-owned arm’s-length body built the first national grid, and rationalised electricity generation, helping to drive down bills.
Research by Arthur Downing, of the LSE, has shown that the regional public electricity generators of the time, known as “municipals”, were able to cut prices, because they did not need to pay out profits to shareholders, and could borrow more cheaply than a private operator could.
Somewhat similarly, Common Wealth describes the model it has in mind as “the public corporation, operating with a clear mandate, borrowing against its own revenues, insulated from both Treasury short-termism and shareholder extraction.”
As Burnham prepares to move into No 10, the future of Thames Water is seen as an early test case, with ministers set to decide whether the heavily indebted company should collapse into the state’s special administration regime (SAR) or its bondholders be allowed to take it over.
Thames’s shareholders have already been wiped out, and its creditors have offered to take a hefty discount. SAR can be used to tip a firm that provides a crucial public service, and is at risk of collapse, into a form of temporary insolvency. An independent administrator would then take over negotiations with lenders.
The expected outcome after a company has gone into the SAR is for it to be sold back into the private sector once its finances have been restructured. But advocates of nationalisation argue that ministers could instead mandate that Thames ends up a public corporation.
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Even Lawrence, who believes public sector ownership could and should be much more widespread, is cautious about how rapidly this process could take place – conscious of the risk of alarming private sector investors.
“This is not against markets, or dynamism, or entrepreneurialism; it’s about fixing some of those sectors that are not working to provide the affordable foundations for dynamic businesses to thrive,” he says, arguing that state capacity – the ability for the public sector to run things – has to be built up slowly.
Indeed, in the three years left of a Labour administration, Lawrence reckons Thames might be as far as the government could get, in terms of nationalising existing utilities – though Hobbs, and campaigners at the thinktank Compass, would like to see a much more aggressive use of the SAR.
Even that would be less drastic than the approach favoured in Labour’s 2019 manifesto, which was to take “rail, mail, water and energy” into public hands, by exchanging government bonds for shares. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour insisted the plan would be “fiscally neutral” because the state would acquire assets, though the Institute for Fiscal Studies put the upfront cost at “many tens of billions” and pointed out the taxpayer would also be taking on hefty debts.
That same approach – bonds for shares – is the one laid out in the Productive State paper.
Fresh borrowing to fund such a process could be accommodated under the current fiscal rules, if the state acquires a financial asset in return. But that would not apply to the firms’ physical assets, creating potential accounting headaches, unless the rules were rewritten again.
It could also result in lengthy legal battles over what constituted fair value to investors.
The government’s relatively straitened fiscal position, with the debt-to-GDP ratio tripling in the past 20 years to 96% and a debt interest bill of £137bn due this year, also raises questions about the potential cost of additional borrowing.
For these and other reasons, Lawrence suggests Burnham should focus for the moment on quick(ish) wins that lean towards public “control” as well “ownership”.
All metro mayors could be encouraged to use franchising powers to create Bee Network-style integrated transport networks, while the government’s Great British Railways could take more action to coordinate routes and fares across the train operators Labour is returning to state ownership.
Meanwhile, a string of development corporations, with borrowing powers, could be set up to kickstart housebuilding, rather than hoping that planning deregulation alone will fuel a construction renaissance.
Rachel Reeves has already announced the creation of a development corporation for Greater Cambridge.
Lawrence suggests Labour could then go into the next general election advocating a more thoroughgoing nationalisation agenda, that could include taking the energy transmission companies into state ownership.
Another often-cited vehicle for change is Great British Energy: advocates of nationalisation argue this state-owned vehicle has been set up too timidly, and could enter the energy generation business, if it was scaled up and given a more expansive remit.
Burnham’s campaign rhetoric about an expanded role for the state could encompass a wide range of possibilities. With his top team set to be announced shortly, the MP for Makerfield’s every word will be watched intently, to determine whether he is ready, as the title of Miliband’s relentlessly upbeat book put it a few years ago, to “go big”.
Traffic & Transport
Thunderstorms disrupt Gatwick and Heathrow as hundreds of flights delayed or cancelled | Air transport
Thunderstorms have caused severe delays to hundreds of flights at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, leaving passengers stuck on grounded planes for hours in the scorching heat.
Overnight, downpours and thunderstorms lit up the skies of London after back-to-back days of 30C-plus weather as the UK and much of Europe experienced a record-breaking heatwave.
The stormy weather delayed more than 600 flights due to land or depart from Heathrow and Gatwick, some for more than six hours, while dozens more have been cancelled. One flight from Gatwick to Antalya scheduled to land in Turkey at 11:50am is now due in at 6pm.
The UK’s air traffic control service, Nats, said disruption was “expected to continue through the rest of the day” due to “forecasted severe weather across the south-east of England”.
Some travellers expressed their frustration on social media. One said they had been stuck on a grounded British Airways plane at Heathrow from 7am until noon. Another person said their daughter has been sat on an easyJet plane at Gatwick for four hours.
According to flight tracker FlightAware, at least 367 flights due to land or take off from Heathrow were delayed on Saturday and 352 in and out of Gatwick.
Some travellers have been stuck abroad in the sweltering heat. Twenty-nine-year-old Adam Joseph told BBC News that he had been stranded at Venice airport without air conditioning after his Gatwick-bound flight was delayed for at least four hours.
“We could’ve stayed at the hotel for another three to four hours,” Joseph said. “We are also being told that even in the event of a four-hour-plus delay, because of an air traffic control restriction, we will not be entitled to compensation.”
He added: “I’ve had to give up my chair to a family with a pregnant mother.
“People are very angry … we have had no communication from [British Airways] whatsoever.”
British Airways said in a statement: “Like other airlines, we’ve had to make some adjustments to our schedule today due to air traffic control restrictions caused by adverse weather conditions affecting parts of UK airspace.
“While the vast majority of our customers will be unaffected, we apologise for the inconvenience caused and our teams are working hard to help those impacted get their journeys back on track.”
EasyJet said it had to “pre-emptively cancel some flights to and from Gatwick in advance” over the thunderstorms.
“We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the weather disruption for our customers and are notifying passengers in advance with their options to rebook or receive a refund as well as hotel accommodation and meals where required,” a spokesperson said.
Delays have also hit smaller airports including Leeds Bradford and Edinburgh, with three departures delayed at the former and four arrivals and 15 departures delayed at the latter on Saturday due to the weather.
London City also experienced disruption, with a spokesperson for the airport saying: “Flights are gradually returning to normal following this morning’s weather-related air traffic restrictions. There have been some associated delays and cancellations.”
Traffic & Transport
Heathrow expects fall in passengers and profits this year because of Iran war | Heathrow airport
Heathrow has said that passenger numbers and profits will fall this year because of the conflict in the Middle East.
Europe’s busiest airport said it expects a 1.1% decline in the total number of passengers to 83.6 million, as the impact of the Iran war affects global air travel.
“The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is putting notable downward pressure on traffic,” it said in its latest investor report. “This reflects the risk that continued volatility in the Middle East could dampen traffic volumes, with impacts extending beyond the region to global travel demand over the remainder of the year.”
Heathrow said there had been a 0.7% increase in passenger numbers, to 32.8 million, in the year to the end of May, driven by factors including an increase in the number of passengers using the airport to connect to flights as other major hubs were affected by the regional conflict.
Heathrow also said it expects profits to decline by £147m year on year, and £60m compared with its last forecast, published in December.
The company said it had been “engaging closely” with its regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, to discuss the cost of its plan to build a third runway.
Earlier this month the Department for Transport released documents estimating that the economic boost from a Heathrow third runway could be a tiny fraction of previous estimates.
The government analysis shows that the runway would only boost GDP by up to 0.05% – 90% less than the 0.5% previously stated – while the overall trade-off from the bigger airport could set the UK back by as much as £62.5bn.
Analysis for the DfT also found that expanding London’s hub airport could have “major adverse” effects on the health and wellbeing of up to 3 million people living locally.
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The construction and operation of the third runway will worsen not only noise and air quality but could also harm access to housing, education, healthcare, open space, and transport, the report by the consultants Aecom said.
In May, Heathrow’s new chair opened talks with airlines and the billionaire local landowner Surinder Arora to attempt to defuse a row that threatens to further delay the project.
Traffic & Transport
I was wary of driverless cars and their tech overlords – but they could give me a different future | Gabriel Stewart
The robotaxis are coming! The robotaxis are coming! Well, actually, they’re already here. Until now they’ve been the stuff of science fiction, but this summer London’s streets have seen Silicon Valley-based company Waymo testing out self-driving cars. It hasn’t been the smoothest of introductions – from cars getting stuck in a cul-de-sac and repeatedly waking up the residents of Shoreditch to one driving into a crime scene, after a double stabbing in Harlesden.
The automated vehicles (AVs) have so far had trained drivers waiting behind the wheel to take control if needed, but will soon be shedding their human minders. Waymo and British rival Wayve are hoping to launch driverless minicabs in the capital this year, subject to approval from the British government and Transport for London, among others. A subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, Waymo currently operates ride-hailing services in 10 US cities, but London, with its narrow streets and densely populated centre, will serve as one of its biggest challenges yet.
Is this a good thing? I have to admit I was initially suspicious, being naturally resistant to all forms of modernity and any “solution” proposed by the tech industry. Plus, the clunky camera-laden Jaguar SUVs hardly scream sex appeal.
But there is an aspect to this too little considered: for me, and others with accessibility needs, AVs offer a different future, a possibility of independence that feels otherwise unattainable. I will never be able to drive due to my poor vision, a reality that has left me unable to apply for many jobs and made me reliant on others to get around – especially when outside of cities. Many rural areas simply don’t have trains or taxis, causing an accessibility minefield for anyone living there or visiting. Driverless taxis may not solve that but they offer a roadmap towards the wider rollout of self-driving cars that could.
It’s no small matter. Transportation barriers limit the ability of disabled people to get jobs, access health care and socialise, with only 42% of those with difficulty seeing, and 54% of those with other disabilities, being in employment in the UK, according to 2022 analysis by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). With about one in four people in the UK living with a disability, this technology could be an important vehicle for social inclusion and participation.
None of this is to wash away the consequences of inviting the tech lords to dominate our streets, especially by using disabled people as pawns in their arguments to do so. There are questions to be answered around surveillance – sensors within the cars will record information about our journeys and interactions with other vehicles or humans en route. It is possible the tech firms involved could use this to sell products and services to users. Proper regulation, rather than an aversion to the life-changing technology, is needed.
The cost of job losses for taxi and delivery drivers as the technology advances must also be taken into account. A 2025 report from rideshare data collection company Gridwise found that hourly pay fell for taxi drivers in all cities with AVs from July 2024 to July 2025, with the sharpest drops observed in Austin (-5.3%) and San Francisco (-6.9%). This contrasted with a 1% increase in hourly pay for rideshare drivers nationally. The government should listen to trade unions seeking assurances that any transition towards autonomous passenger services includes protections for affected workers.
And then there is safety: naturally the main port of call for critics. Individual examples of vehicle mishaps are often highlighted when raising concerns. But, the reality is self-driving cars have so far been less likely to get into crashes than their human-driven counterparts. Recent analysis analysis by the nonprofit news site LA Reported found that over almost 38m driverless miles in Los Angeles between March 2024 and December 2025, there were only 28 Waymo crashes reporting injuries and only one in which the robotaxis were at fault. Humans driving the same distance would have had about 60 such crashes, so Waymos ended up in 64% fewer crashes with injuries.
When it goes wrong, we know all about it. In December, a video emerged showing a Waymo robotaxi driving a passenger through the scene of a police standoff in downtown LA. Last month, 3,800 of the robotaxis were recalled after a software issue led to an empty Waymo vehicle entering a flooded road and being swept into a creek in Texas. Driverless cars may never be completely safe but neither are human drivers. If one is said to cause fewer deaths and injuries, it is surely advantageous to adopt it.
There is no denying that self-driving cars are fraught with moral and societal complications and that those will have to be dealt with carefully through greater government regulation and protections. But this is an opportunity for disabled rights that is too great to be missed. As well as revolutionising the lives of those with disabilities, these cars could transform the safety of everyone else – assuming that, as they develop, they continue to be much safer than human-driven cars. There must be a positive conversation and disabled people must be a part of that conversation. The government should set up an accessibility advisory panel with representation from across the disability spectrum.
The robotaxis are coming! Think what that could do for you; think what that could do for me and millions like me.
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