BY the time you read this, it is possible that a key asset owned by the UK Government will have been handed to the French Government to run instead.

It will not have been transferred across the Channel because it is failing and in need of rescue because, as a Government minister admitted, it is currently “successful”.

And it will not have been flogged off to cut our massive national debts. Indeed, this is a move that will cost – not save – the Treasury money, at a time when it needs every penny.

It is a decision that defies all sense because this decision – the re-privatisation of the East Coast rail line – is not based on sense, but on ideological dogma gone mad.

That is the only way to view the expected news that the race has been won by two companies, Keolis and Eurostar, that are majority owned by France's state railway, SNCF.

I suspect it will have been announced at 7am today, to the stock market. If not, it will come tomorrow, or at the start of next week.

The contest appeared over after shares in the two rival British bidders - First Group and Stagecoach (a joint bid with Virgin) - saw their share prices plummet.

When the announcement comes, it will be accompanied by the usual Department for Transport (DfT) guff about exciting new investment and better services, but this will, of course, be nonsense.

Yes, investment is about to go in – but this has nothing to do with whether trains are run by the French Government, First Group or Stagecoach.

That investment is the switch, from 2018, to Intercity Express Trains built by Hitachi in County Durham and paid for by you, the taxpayer.

In any case, investment has already been going on while the line has been in the hands of state-owned – that’s UK state-owned – company Directly Operated Railways (DOR).

DOR put in sophisticated booking software, wireless access on trains and says it significantly boosted numbers of first-class passengers by offering them free meals.

It is also credited with increasing its share of overall travel from Edinburgh and Newcastle by attracting passengers tempted to fly instead.

The most recent data found that passenger satisfaction was “significantly improved”, with 91 per cent giving the East Coast line the thumbs up, against a national average of 82 per cent.

Then, of course, there is the money flow. DOR operator expects have paid back £1bn to the Treasury by the time it hands over the keys, just before next year’s General Election.

Now much of that cash will go in profit to the private operator and – it seems likely – can be used to improve services between Paris and Lyon instead.

And, inevitably, there are fears of a third “franchise fiasco” after both National Express and GNER handed back the East Coast keys, when they ran out of cash.

Last month, laughably, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin claimed only Ed Miliband’s union “paymasters” wanted state ownership, adding: “He doesn't listen to passengers.”

In fact, polls repeatedly show most people support taking the entire rail network - not simply the profit-making, “successful” East Coast line - into public hands.

But your Government that is not allowed to run your trains. That’s France’s job, apparently.

l Follow Rob on Twitter: @rob_merrick