LORD Adonis — a Labour Party Peer and Head of the National Infrastructure Commission — resigned on December 29 in protest against the decision of the Conservative Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to bail out the privately owned East Coast Railway Line until 2023.

Readers may remember that this line failed while Tony Blair was in office and the line was being run then as it is now by Stagecoach and Virgin jointly.

At that time the Labour government decided to run the East Coast Line on a not for profit basis known as Directly Operated Rail (DOR).

This service was profitable and took no subsidies from the public purse, whilst winning awards for its excellent service. Please note no shareholder involvement.

Roll the situation forward we have a Conservative Government back in office again.

The East Coast Rail Line had been put out to tender some time ago.

Despite its success, DOR was excluded from the bidding process by the Conservative Government, as it is ideologically opposed to the state provision of our necessary services, as they believe that the private sector is more efficient than the state.

The franchise was returned to Virgin and Stagecoach which is now once again looking to the government for a bail out.

Which means that much needed improvements will be curtailed and our rail fares are some of the most expensive in Europe.

And still some people will say politics doesn’t matter.

Mrs F Henderson

Church Lane

Westhoughton