Labour Party supporters in 1997, of which i was one, were happy as a pig in mud when Labour replaced the nasty party of John Major and with Tony Blair at the helm, introduced the minimum wage and tax credits. Finally we said, a Labour Party that will fight for the little guy and will reverse the worst aspects of Thatcherism where almost everything we owned was privatised. Just got your latest massive utilities bill? That's Maggie’s legacy.
The great start by Blair to rid the country of the Conservatives destructive schemes were forgotten as Blair put his efforts into being the chief poodle for George Bush's mad scheme to force Democracy on the Middle East.
Blair jumped before he was pushed and Gordon Brown came in just as the economy collapsed and left the door open for the nasty party to get a foothold back in power with the assistance of the Liberals Democrats.
So that's where we are today and the Conservatives are back to there old tricks of selling off whatever they can get their grubby hands on.
It is blatantly obvious that privatisation doesn't work, it increase costs and lowers the quality of services because it is impossible for the private sector to deliver the same service for less and make a profit and making a profit is the only reason they are there in the first place.
While the likes of the privatised railway and telephones irk me because they are taking the customers left, right and centre, they are not must-haves but the gas and electric suppliers know that whatever they put their prices to, and each rise is followed shortly by all the rest of the companies, we HAVE to have them. They have us over a barrel and they know that and a few old people dying due isn't going to stop them putting profits first.
Now the Labour Party, supposedly the Party for the working class, plans to return railway network to public control by renationalising the railways.
They have said that the current fragmented system under which we own the track and private companies run trains is failing taxpayers and passengers while benefiting private train operators and their shareholders, who are guaranteed taxpayer funds if profits fall below a certain level.
They estimate that it costs £1.2bn of our money each year as a direct result of subsidising the private companies, money that could have allowed fares to be 18% lower than at present. UK rail passengers, who already pay the highest fares in Europe, face further increases of at least 6% from next January.
Finally, a Labour Party that we need, one that is run for us although i would like to see them start with the utilities where people are actually dying because they cannot affords to pay what the firms demand, but let's hope that this is the first of many and Labour returns to it's ideological roots and we begin rolling back the privatisation experiment now it's been proved to have failed so dramatically, especially before the Conservatives sell off the NHS.
The great start by Blair to rid the country of the Conservatives destructive schemes were forgotten as Blair put his efforts into being the chief poodle for George Bush's mad scheme to force Democracy on the Middle East.
Blair jumped before he was pushed and Gordon Brown came in just as the economy collapsed and left the door open for the nasty party to get a foothold back in power with the assistance of the Liberals Democrats.
So that's where we are today and the Conservatives are back to there old tricks of selling off whatever they can get their grubby hands on.
It is blatantly obvious that privatisation doesn't work, it increase costs and lowers the quality of services because it is impossible for the private sector to deliver the same service for less and make a profit and making a profit is the only reason they are there in the first place.
While the likes of the privatised railway and telephones irk me because they are taking the customers left, right and centre, they are not must-haves but the gas and electric suppliers know that whatever they put their prices to, and each rise is followed shortly by all the rest of the companies, we HAVE to have them. They have us over a barrel and they know that and a few old people dying due isn't going to stop them putting profits first.
Now the Labour Party, supposedly the Party for the working class, plans to return railway network to public control by renationalising the railways.
They have said that the current fragmented system under which we own the track and private companies run trains is failing taxpayers and passengers while benefiting private train operators and their shareholders, who are guaranteed taxpayer funds if profits fall below a certain level.
They estimate that it costs £1.2bn of our money each year as a direct result of subsidising the private companies, money that could have allowed fares to be 18% lower than at present. UK rail passengers, who already pay the highest fares in Europe, face further increases of at least 6% from next January.
Finally, a Labour Party that we need, one that is run for us although i would like to see them start with the utilities where people are actually dying because they cannot affords to pay what the firms demand, but let's hope that this is the first of many and Labour returns to it's ideological roots and we begin rolling back the privatisation experiment now it's been proved to have failed so dramatically, especially before the Conservatives sell off the NHS.
5 comments:
maybe yawl don't know how to privitize...
q
There are also plenty of examples stateside of privatisation not leading to the results expected of it. I'm not ideologically against privatisation - in fact, all other things being equal I think that industries should be run without any help from government by private contractors chosen on merit - however I know there's a lot of kool aid out there being offered by people who say that the results of privatisation are always a net good for society.
It's the utlities that really gripe with me, rail and less 'important' things are an added bonus.
utilities are rarely privitized here. well, unless you count phone, internet. power, water, sewer, are usually public. poor service in general but cheap.
q
That's interesting to hear, Q... I guess I'd always just assumed that utilities were generally privatised in the US...
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