A little over a year ago, the Wessex Route – better known to us locally as South Western Railway or SWR – became the first rail franchise to return to state ownership under this government.

An inauspicious start: the first services operated included rail replacement buses.

The Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander declared “I want the trains to run on time – if not, the buck now stops with me.” She was right. In a nationalised industry, whatever management structure you put in place, at the very top of the tree is a minister. Unions also know this, when they are threatening strikes.

As existing contracts expire, more train operators have been returning to state ownership and eventually they will all be part of Great British Railways.

This move to renationalisation pre-dates but seems much in tune with the instincts of our new Prime Minister. His ‘Bee Network’ of buses (though not strictly speaking fully nationalised) is one of the few examples given of Mr Burnham’s philosophy in action in his former job.

But there also seems to be back in politics a broader vibe that suggests that government owning and running things is intrinsically better than private enterprise, even with regulation and democratic oversight. In the pre-coronation phase of the Labour leadership succession, would-be contenders spoke of nationalisation as a goal in itself, rather than as a means to a defined end.

Famously, “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange” was long a stated core aim of the Labour party. Nominally, the text that Mr Blair put in to replace the old Clause 4 welcomes “the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition” with the quest for social justice. But the printed page is easier to change than long-held beliefs.

For consumers, for some sectors, you can certainly see why a change of ownership may appeal. The performance of Southern, South East and Thames Water – each of which serve parts of East Hampshire – naturally sees people want something very different. But trying to do this by the government taking ownership of them may be the logical equivalent of “Something must be done. This is something. So we must do it.”

Ownership alone is no guarantee of success. Welsh Water is a not-for-profit but has also faced serious regulatory action (including on storm overflows). Northern Ireland Water was never privatised, but many of the problems are the same.

The railways can certainly improve, but I just do not recall from the 1970s an era of passenger joy of the sort Heidi Alexander seems to expect now. In truth there were many, many problems with British Rail, not to mention Travellers Fare, Sealink, British Transport Hotels, and the rest of the BR empire.

Under state ownership, passenger numbers kept falling, literally for decades. It was privatisation in the mid 1990s that presaged a new era in which travel by rail would more than double.

History need not repeat itself of course. Alas, for our area, the initial change in reliability following nationalisation was in the wrong direction. It has been reported recently that nearly half of SWR trains are now running late, while cancellations are also on the increase.

But it is still relatively early days. We must wish the management of GBR and the Department for Transport well, for the sake of East Hampshire rail travellers.