Some industries better nationalised than privatised?

[Bob Dalek]

Doesn't Dodgy Agent usually chip-in at this point with, "Maggie was the Second Coming."?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Doesn't Dodgy Agent usually chip-in at this point with, "Maggie was the Second Coming."?

Aye, either him or CyberTory

[expat]

My wife's divi would suffer if BG were nationalised.

Oh come on! Is that supposed to be a convincing argument for the rest of us, especially BG customers?

If gas prices were kept artifically low..it would mean either tax increases or reduction of services.

Ah, but if prices were not kept artificially low, but neither allowed to rise artificially high....?

Plus would we work extra hard to insulate our homes and reduce consumption otherwise?

Dunno. But if you think it is a good public policy to encourage insulation/energy saving, over and above the level that people would adopt as a result of fair energy prices, then by all means propose that as a policy. Perhaps to be encouraged by tax credits or some such? I don't see why it should be encouraged by discouraging the opposite, by allowing some company to profiteer.

[expat]

I can think of 2, maybe 3:

1. Post Office. Once the envy of the world, hugely reliable. After privatisation, as we all know, rubbish.

2. British Gas as was. Can't remember any problems with this. Not to mention the current blatant profiteering.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2...6-13276715_ITM

3. British Rail. Surely rail travel deteriorated hugely after privatisation?

I can tell you your answer if you tell me what you think the question is.

"Better" = better service,
or "better" = more profit for supplier companies' shareholders, regardless of level of service.

[Cyberman]

What a load of bullocks. Did you never notice how much aggro there was between Blair's spin doctors and BBC journalists?

The BBC is renowned for its left wing slant and even its own employees admit it and are proud of it. You obviously have not been around long, but with experience you will learn.

[Cyberman]

I am glad I'm not the only one who thinks this - Rupert Murdoch is certainly a genius at ripping us off though, getting us* to pay for stuff twice - and there are more adverts on Sky than ITV C4 etc - he must've taken lessons from Mrs T or vice versa.

Actually, there are good and bad private and state-owned outfits. Rail is a mess but there are a lot more people travelling by rail and some things have improved in some areas. My memories of British Rail are not in any way fond ones.

Likewise, getting a phone put in by the GPO (or a fault repaired) was a nightmare. At first the privatised monopoly run by BT delivered improvements, but then now they are (IMHO) abusing their position in the market place.

Just as it makes me laugh that some people will always argue (for example) Labour = scum Tories = fabulous as if it was really that simple, the idea that any form of ownership is automatically better doesn't wash in most cases.

That said, obvious candidates for stuff that has to run from taxes like Defence and the Police have been mentioned and I tend to agree - but of course that doesn't mean they can't buy in services from private outfits.

Many of the state run industries in this country would have had a better reputation if successive governments of both parties hadn't starved them of investment and plundered their incomes. It was a stroke of genius for Thatcher to sell us so much stuff we'd already paid for and anyone moaning about gas prices and profiteering now better not have voted for her.

In practice, unfortunately, we didn't always get the benefits of privatisation - in reality many of the "privatisations" were simply replacing a state monopoly with a private one, but it was a fabulous stealthy way to raise cash without seeming to put up taxes.


*Mrs PSB actually, as I refuse to

Give Thatcher credit for her successes!! Labour would never have privatised anything because they are and were always in hock to the unions.
Thatcher kicked off a revolution and British Airways for example, have been in profit virtually every year since. Prior to that it was a basket case. Not everything has been a success but on balance privatisation has been a success and other nations have followed in the swathe that Thatcher carved through the bloated bureacratic jungle.

WELL DONE MAGGIE !!!!!

[Diver]

Give Thatcher credit for her successes!! Labour would never have privatised anything because they are and were always in hock to the unions.
Thatcher kicked off a revolution and British Airways for example, have been in profit virtually every year since. Prior to that it was a basket case. Not everything has been a success but on balance privatisation has been a success and other nations have followed in the swathe that Thatcher carved through the bloated bureacratic jungle.

WELL DONE MAGGIE !!!!!

[DodgyAgent]

Doesn't Dodgy Agent usually chip-in at this point with, "Maggie was the Second Coming."?

You are quite right, but I am not going to talk about Maggie.

As the BBC is not subject to market forces it is therefore potentially dangerous. It is fine to say tha we dont have to put up with advertising but the flip side is that it reports and presents as it wishes. It has its own political agenda and it employs 5000 people in HR. Need I say any more. I will though. The BBC should stick to producing good radia and TV programs plus BBC worldwide. It should not be trying to compete with Sky trash TV.

On SAS's point about nationalised Industries. Where there is no competition or consumer choice then one has a choice between an incompetent poitically useless institution/public service (Royal Mail) run for the benefit of those who control them and those who work in them (as opposed to the benefit of the consumer). With a privatised monopoly exactly the same dynamics apply only that instead of politicians being in control, it is sharp ruthless hard headed businesspeople who are in control. I will though argue that as these de nationalised companies are run as cash cows it is 99.9 % certain that `they will be run much more efficiently than if they were run by the public sector. This does not mean that we as consumers enjoy better services as the efficiency is turned not into better services but into putting more money into the shareholders pockets.

There is no future in public run services, the challenge is in how we create consumer choice in order to deliver efficiencies into public services and de nationalised monopolies. Why for example do we have one health care unit for each region? why not have two or three providers each competing for patients? It works with food why not with health and education?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Doesn't Dodgy Agent usually chip-in at this point with, "Maggie was the Second Coming."?

Aye, either him or CyberTory

Give Thatcher credit for her successes!! Labour would never have privatised anything because they are and were always in hock to the unions.
Thatcher kicked off a revolution and British Airways for example, have been in profit virtually every year since. Prior to that it was a basket case. Not everything has been a success but on balance privatisation has been a success and other nations have followed in the swathe that Thatcher carved through the bloated bureacratic jungle.

WELL DONE MAGGIE !!!!!

The only credit she deserves is for managing to persuade people that they should pay twice for things and that privatising things would lead to competition. You keep quoting BA which is fair enough, do you have any other examples of how privatisation has "on balance" been a success?

As for Thatcher "carving through the bloated bureacratic[sic] jungle", even the most cursory inspection of the facts (as opposed to blind rabid hero worship) would dispel this - not least of which because she is the Mother of the modern Quango. BTW she wasn't averse to nationalising banks in order for her spiv friends not to be embarrassed was she - it was only industries she didn't like that had to close.

She also nationalised the water companies who had up until then been owned by local authorities so that they could be "privatised" although of course this was just another example of a private monopoly - I remember that odious cretin Ridley questioned about competition in the Commons and saying "well I suppose people could drink Perrier".

[sasguru]

Aye, either him or CyberTory

Cretin