Despite Stephen Byers welcome statement that he is "considering handing [the Tube] over to TfL" and he will publish the results of an independent evaluation of PPP "before a decision is taken" on whether to proceed or not, the critics of PPP, despite winning the arguments, remain to be placated.

Consultant reports can perhaps be illuminating, but they are at best theoretical extrapolations. What is plain fact, however, is the experience of railway privatisation.

PPP proponents contend that the scheme is quite different from the policy formulated under the last administration. However, even a sympathetic organisation formed to promote PPPs, The International Project Finance Association, concluded that the PPP could lead to "a Railtrack of the Tube" and that "there is strong concern that the scheme veers too much to being a full privatisation. It threatens to repeat the same mistakes as the privatisation of the railways".

Under PPP we will revisit the debacle of Railtrack. Increased fragmentation will make operational and safety management significantly more difficult and leave an industry without the ability and leadership necessary to co-ordinate effectively. Extra interfaces and bureaucracy will inflate costs as witnessed on the West Coast Mainline upgrade and other major projects. Also, sectional commercial interests will be protected by individual companies - 'delay attribution' and performance penalties will institutionalise conflict in the Underground just as surely it has on the mainline.

The effects of this 'contract culture' will be equally pernicious as managerial control is supplanted by costly legal wrangling over jurisdictions and interpretations. Behind this damaging disaggregation is increased sub-contracting; Hatfield rather than Ladbroke Grove was the seminal event for the rail industry, where the dangers of separating the maintenance and renewal of the infrastructure from the body that controls it, quite literally the fault lines in privatisation, where tragically exposed.

PPP does not represent best value, improved safety, greater efficiency or even common sense. If the Government now opts for retaining unified management control within the public sector, this is not an embarrassing volte face but a sensible way to reflect public opinion and conduct public policy. If 9 out of 10 Londoners are not prepared to back PPP why should No. 11 prevail?