Reply to: Some industries better nationalised than privatised?

[Bob Dalek]

The reasons the French are relatively efficient in delivering public services is because they have a civic pride that works well as long as it is on their terms. The French culture of service is not market driven as it is in the UK.

The downside is that most services are delivered in this way and that the concepts of choice and the free markets are alien to them. What the French are having difficulty with is getting companies to invest there, and much as theere is a great deal to be admired by their system it wont last.

This will change! Right now, IT is, in essence, a Paris-based minor bit of fluff. A lot of France is super-rural and is virtually empty, compared to Blighty. Stand by for big investment as our land becomes too expensive (thinking of India here) - and their unions will, like ours, be battered by the eventual onslaught.

[Cyberman]

Suggest maybe reading Paxman's book on politicians - he sort of comes to the conclusions that in general politicians have minimal impact on the economy - obviously the occasional big policy decision has but usually it's doing it's thing with or without them.

New Lie have had a massive effect on the economy. For years they grew the economy based on high taxes and debt, and now their inertia is driving us into recession. Even today's announcement on Stamp Duty will have a huge negative effect because buyers will now hold off until autumn in the hope that they will not have to pay any!!

[zathras]

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?

Yes, but not the ones you mention.

The water companies were originally nationalised by a Tory government because the private companies were unable to provide clean water at a reasonable amount.

British rail is a bad example because of two things

a) Beeching - who did more to destroy the railways than anybody else

b) The way they were privatised. It would have been better if the Network Rail/Railtrack was not created and the companies became responsible for both the track and the rolling stock on it, as well as the stations on the route.

If you follow b) then the lines of responsibility are clear. This is the way other countries who have privatised did it and it works.

The trouble is thanks to Beeching ripping up large chunks of the railways the competition between routes does not happen and you end up with a private monopoly.

The recent price hike in Gas was down to us being reliant on imported gas rather than our own.

[sasguru]

Suggest maybe reading Paxman's book on politicians - he sort of comes to the conclusions that in general politicians have minimal impact on the economy - obviously the occasional big policy decision has but usually it's doing it's thing with or without them.

Agreed although some on here believe that the Tories will provide a paradise and the streets will be paved with gold. The UK economy like any other is tied into whatever happens in the rest of the world. Except that poor decisions made years ago and more recently mean we are going to suffer more than most

[snaw]

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.

Suggest maybe reading Paxman's book on politicians - he sort of comes to the conclusions that in general politicians have minimal impact on the economy - obviously the occasional big policy decision has but usually it's doing it's thing with or without them.

[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.

[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]

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

[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?

[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]

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.

[oracleslave]

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

[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?

[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.

[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.