Christian Wolmar

In his annual end-of-term report, headmaster CHRISTIAN WOLMAR gives his verdict on the performance of pupils at the school of railway children after another tumultuous academic year.
It is the time of the year to review the performance of the pupils in the school of railway children. Last year’s report (RAIL 416) warned that pupils had [...]

The creation of Network Rail has effectively renationalised the infrastructure, but CHRISTIAN WOLMAR believes the other main pillar of the privatised railway – the franchises – have also failed to deliver, and they too are being run by the state in the shape of the SRA.
At the first conference that Alistair Darling addressed as Transport [...]

I was working at Shelter in 1980 when the Right to Buy was introduced by Mrs Thatcher’s new pioneering government. Shelter was, of course, implacably opposed, producing pamphlets outlining the potential disastrous consequences.
Looking back at this material now, much of the damage that was predicted has, indeed, come to pass. Shelter highlighted the fact that [...]

In March, the last tenants in the Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust were finally relocated to new housing, a decade after the creation of the HAT. It is a remarkable and largely unsung success story of a controversial housing policy that could point the way to similar schemes across the country in Tony Blair’s drive [...]

The decision by the High Court to award libel damages to two nursery workers in Newcastle over allegations of child abuse raises searching questions about how such abuse cases should be dealt with in future by the judicial system. One would be hard pressed to find a less suitable arena for assessing the veracity of [...]