public ownership

Great British Railways is a public body which is in the process of being set up, and is part of the government's plans to bring parts of the railway system into public ownership.

But this is a parable about the perils of public ownership of the means of producing anything, especially news.

In response, according to Stephen Hirst’s 2006 book, “I Am the Grand Canyon,” the Havasupai wrote a letter to the Sierra Club in 1973: “ ‘Public ownership’ of land does not place the power of decision in the hands of some theoretical ‘people’; ‘public ownership’ means in practice control by bureaucracy under the heavy influence of whatever federal administration happens to be in office.”

Greater Anglia has become the latest rail operator to enter into public ownership as part of the government's renationalisation of the network.

The legislation needed to establish the new body is still due to go through parliament, but some services have already been transferred into public ownership as franchises held by private companies start to expire.