NOT long after the SNP won power at Holyrood, Scotland’s rail network got a rebrand. First Scotrail, as it was then known, reverted to its old name of ScotRail, complete with the tagline “Scotland’s railway” and a saltire insignia.

At the time, it seemed like a canny move by then First Minister Alex Salmond — and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon, who held the transport brief — to assert the national identity. See also the name change of the Scottish executive to the Scottish government — with the crowned coat of arms replaced with yes, another saltire.

Now, however, Sturgeon may well be wishing she hadn’t bothered. ScotRail, now owned by the Dutch state but with the same corporate branding, has become synonymous with shoddy service, broken-down trains and missed performance targets. And, partly thanks to that rebrand, it’s harder for Sturgeon to pass the buck.
In the terms set out in its franchise agreement, ScotRail was supposed to achieve 88.5 per cent passenger satisfaction every year. But in 2016-17 SNP ministers lowered the target to 84 per cent, and the following year they adjusted it to 85 per cent.
Labour says this has allowed ScotRail to stay on rather than be given the boot. Last November MSPs voted against a proposal — brought by Labour and supported by the Greens — to end the franchise early.

At First Minister’s Questions this week, Sturgeon admitted that ScotRail was in the “last chance saloon,” after Christine Grahame, an MSP from her own party, posed the question and suggested the “remedial plans” for the operator weren’t good enough. Tory Rachael Hamilton called on the First Minister to apologise to stranded commuters.

Yet those very same MSPs voted down the call to invoke the “break clause” in ScotRail’s franchise. It’s welcome that they’re speaking out for their constituents now, but actions speak louder than words.

Yet more lip service is on display from the SNP in its proposal to “allow” a state-owned company — the owner of ferry operator CalMac — to bid against the private sector (most likely, in fact, foreign governments), rather than actually committing to nationalisation.

This compromise, a reheat of Ed Miliband’s 2015 manifesto, could give us the worst of both worlds. Private bidders could end up suing on the basis that the state has an unfair advantage.
And even if the public bid is victorious, the railway would still be operated in the same failed model of fragmentation, under which public parts of the railway must emulate the practices of the private sector. Perhaps it should be no surprise that the europhile SNP should embrace this model: it’s exactly the structure designed and enforced by the EU’s railway directives, most recently the Fourth Railway Package.

Labour, for its part, must remember that changing the ownership model alone won’t solve the myriad of issues ScotRail faces, many of which are the responsibility of network or fleet problems outside the operator’s purview. The party’s blueprint for public ownership must offer a bold vision for an expanded and much-improved vertically integrated railway network — one that works for the people, and doesn’t merely line the pockets of the privateers or tick the boxes of the politicians.