Should transport be a top priority for Starmer? – in conversation with Christian Wolmar
Rock & Roll Politics with Steve Richards
Podmasters
4.7 • 909 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With the nationalisation of the railways, the need for economic growth, climate change and a focus on addressing regional inequalities, transport should be at the top of the government’s priorities. But is it? I’m joined by transport guru, author and podcaster, Christian Wolmar, to discuss why Transport is often overlooked by prime ministers and chancellors and how hopeful or gloomy he is now.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards. |
| 0:20.6 | Thank you very much for |
| 0:22.0 | tuning in. And now for this podcast, we're going to be exploring one of our favorite themes in the |
| 0:31.1 | Rock and Roll Politics Cooperative. I hope you all agree, which is a deep dive into transport. And some of you have emailed and said, you know what |
| 0:42.2 | you've got to do, you've got to get that transport genius, Christian Walmart, back in to delve |
| 0:48.2 | deep as to what's happening, because we haven't had him in since Labour came to power. |
| 0:53.4 | And one of our recurring themes is the centrality of |
| 0:57.8 | transport in theory, but quite often not in practice. And we have got so much to look at |
| 1:05.5 | in our time together with Christian Walmart because just since Labor came to power with our second |
| 1:13.3 | transport secretary, public ownership is part of the theme with transport in a way that has |
| 1:21.7 | been under explored, apart from when Christian does his podcast, which we'll talk about, |
| 1:29.4 | and so many other things as well. |
| 1:37.8 | How do you get economic growth in Britain? Well, transport surely is key, but does the Treasury agree with that? |
| 1:46.0 | So, I mean, we could be here for hours, Christian Walmart, but thank you very much for coming in and say it is one of the big issues in the rock and roll politics podcast. And a big issue in your podcast every week, |
| 1:51.2 | your podcast, calling all stations, reflects on these issues all the time and so do your books |
| 1:57.3 | and so on. So you are perfectly placed to address these questions. Can I begin by |
| 2:06.4 | asking you this? Let's begin with the public ownership theme. Now, this in a way is one of the |
| 2:14.2 | few distinctive areas of this government compared with new labor, compared |
| 2:18.3 | obviously with the 14 years of Tory rule which preceded it. Public ownership of the railways. |
| 2:27.6 | Here is one of my worries about it. Kirstama and Rachel Reeves have not made a single speech addressing the issue of |
| 2:38.4 | public ownership of railways. Given how distinctive it is, you would have thought at some point |
| 2:44.0 | they would do so. Indeed, in opposition, Rachel Reeves forgot they were committed to this. |
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