Railway campaigner Christian Wolmar has been a Labour supporter since his twenties in 1973. Yet in 1999, he was moved to write an article for the Independent which strongly criticised the Labour government for being the "motorists' friend".
while rail has been talked up, it has endured a complete policy vacuum. In its first two-and-a-half years in power, Labour has done nothing to improve the railways. The subsidy from central government to the railways has been allowed to fall dramatically, in line with the Tories' spending plans [...] Prescott has made a lot of noise about getting people out of their cars and on to public transport, but the policy has not been backed by any firm promises or any vision about the future of the railways.
One recalls that Blair-Brown repeatedly kicked Welsh electrification into touch and the go-ahead was not given until Liberal Democrats took part in government in 2010 - only to see the Conservatives abandoning electrification west of Cardiff once they were in government on their own.
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