Some industries better nationalised than privatised?

[expat]

France has its flaws, true, but what has our market-led philosphy led to?
...
By the way the German train system is almost as good and even more profitable.

It's time we stopped listening to Murdoch's (and others) press propaganda.

Indeed. Last year I switched my then weekly commute UK-Germany to different airports, with the incidental effect that I was doing ground travel on German railways instead of UK. The contrast was stunning. German ICE 2nd class easily tanked British 1st class. Faster and more punctual too. Information better. Online booking superior (grisly details available if anyone cares).

Even the online timetables are stunningly better: a nice example was when I tried to check doing the entire journey by train. From my station in Bedfordshire, www.nationalrail.co.uk will only take me as far as Euston; www.tfl.gov.uk will only tell me about travel inside London. www.bahn.de would take me from my home to the Frankfurt S-Bahn station in a single query, even telling me which platforms I had to change at in Brussels.

OK, tell me again that ours is superior because it is a freer market. When I want actually to take the train, please make it a German one.

[Cyberman]

Nothing to do with the fundamental imbalances in the economy then and Maggie's insistence that a large country could live on "services"

No country can prosper with unions and New Lie directing the way that we do business. Th golden goose was slaughtered in the 70s, cloned back into existence by Maggie, and is now being slowly blood-sucked to death by Left-wing parasites.

[sasguru]

No country can prosper with unions and New Lie directing the way that we do business. Th golden goose was slaughtered in the 70s, cloned back into existence by Maggie, and is now being slowly blood-sucked to death by Left-wing parasites.

Yes thanks for that incisive and penetrating analysis. Are you from the Mailman school of the hard-of-thinking?

[oracleslave]

Yes thanks for that incisive and penetrating analysis. Are you from the Mailman school of the hard-of-thinking?

[expat]

No country can prosper with unions and New Lie directing the way that we do business. Th golden goose was slaughtered in the 70s, cloned back into existence by Maggie, and is now being slowly blood-sucked to death by Left-wing parasites.

No sane man who was around during Maggie's government and saw the mass unemployment, ruin of industries, destruction of communities, withering of exports, divisiveness of society, abandonment or heisting of generations of public investments, and steady degeneration of health and education provision (without cutting a penny from their spending), could possibly mistake that period for one of prosperity, especially compared to the so-called sclerotic economies of social democratic Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, etc where there is such a thing as society and there are such things as trains, health services, and jobs.

[Cyberman]

No sane man who was around during Maggie's government and saw the mass unemployment, ruin of industries, destruction of communities, withering of exports, divisiveness of society, abandonment or heisting of generations of public investments, and steady degeneration of health and education provision (without cutting a penny from their spending), could possibly mistake that period for one of prosperity, especially compared to the so-called sclerotic economies of social democratic Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, etc where there is such a thing as society and there are such things as trains, health services, and jobs.

After an illness requiring surgery a patient slowly recovers and then may thrive. The 'illness' was the 70s under Labour and the unions, which was killing the country through a wage price spiral.
Maggie carried out the surgery which was indeed painful but necessary, and the result was a thriving economy which was eventually handed over to New Lie who have ever since been feeding poison to the patient by virtue of high taxes, expanding debt and red tape.

[expat]

After an illness requiring surgery a patient slowly recovers and then may thrive. The 'illness' was the 70s under Labour and the unions, which was killing the country through a wage price spiral.
Maggie carried out the surgery which was indeed painful but necessary, and the result was a thriving economy which was eventually handed over to New Lie who have ever since been feeding poison to the patient by virtue of high taxes, expanding debt and red tape.

Is this a metaphor, or a delusional fantasy?

[sasguru]

After an illness requiring surgery a patient slowly recovers and then may thrive. The 'illness' was the 70s under Labour and the unions, which was killing the country through a wage price spiral.
Maggie carried out the surgery which was indeed painful but necessary, and the result was a thriving economy which was eventually handed over to New Lie who have ever since been feeding poison to the patient by virtue of high taxes, expanding debt and red tape.

Make up your mind - was it a golden goose or a patient?
FFS.
Yes the years 1991-1995, let alone the 80s were certainly great years for the economy

[Cyberman]

Make up your mind - was it a golden goose or a patient?
FFS.
Yes the years 1991-1995, let alone the 80s were certainly great years for the economy

Contrary to popular Left Wing belief, there are booms and busts in economic cycles. Brown never studied economics and obviously neither did you, Sasguru!!!

[sasguru]

Contrary to popular Left Wing belief, there are booms and busts in economic cycles. Brown never studied economics and obviously neither did you, Sasguru!!!

The British economy under both the Tories and Labour seems to be composed entirely of boom and bust with no slow steady build of vital industries. Make of that what you will.