Big Sir Jim and his Old Trafford problem: just don’t let

United’s part-owner has power and influence but getting taxpayers to up the value of his asset is hopefully beyond him

There’s an advert on TV at the moment for generically going somewhere on a train. It doesn’t matter when or to what end. Just travel on a train. Go anywhere. Just do it.

This seems a bit odd in a time of diffuse, franchised operators. But adverts for general “things” were common in the last century, when even in asset-stripped, organ-harvested Britain a lot of the things-infrastructure was still publicly controlled.