Choice, innovation and competitive challenge drive higher living standards and better goods and services. Private monopolies can wallow in complacency, knowing they can charge enough to suit them and not feeling any great need to improve or change. State monopolies seek to persuade us that their pursuit of the public sector ethos allows them to rise above the complacency and poor quality of monopoly, yet so often as with British Rail or the nationalised energy and water utilities they did not do so. Nationalised industries often charged a lot , passed inefficiencies on in ever higher prices, sacked employees instead of finding new jobs for them from growth and innovation, and sent big bills to taxpayers as well.
One of the worst features of nationalised industries or of heavily state regulated utilities is the way they fail to supply enough of what they are meant to provide. The nationalised water industry used to introduce water rationing in any hot dry summer. They saw no duty to supply water to us to keep our vegetable plot alive or to support the flowers in a good July. The regulated utilities we now have are prevented from providing comfortable extra capacity by controls over the amount of permitted investment spending, so we remain on a knife edge of supply should we ever have the joy of a long hot dry summer again like 1976. They are not even encouraged to add to capacity to deal with the large rise in migrant numbers in the last two decades.
The nationalised railway specialised in cutting back track and routes. The Beeching cuts were the worst example, but the process of retreat in services and slimming the workforce was remorseless. It always argued it could not make sufficient capacity available for the crucial commuting demand that was its passenger mainstay, condemning generations of commuters to standing room only, to crowded trains and poor services. The regulated partly private industry of recent years has allowed some good growth, but prior to the big change of the pandemic measures there was still inadequate capacity on many important commuter lines at peak.
The worst example of deliberate shortage of supply is the monopoly provision of roadspace. Local and national highways management has persevered with ancient narrow streets and been slow to build a comprehensive network of motorways, by passes and trunk roads to keep more of the traffic away from homes and High Streets. Some argue this is the green option, yet it means many more vehicles stuck in traffic jams, more pollution near where people live and less fuel economy. It is also a lot less safe, encouraging more tensions between vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians on mixed narrow roads.
The telephone industry was way behind US technology and coverage when it was privatised and opened to some competition. It caught up well, and has shown considerable ability to handle vast increases in data and download demands in recent months, though there is still need for more fibre into homes. The highly regulated electricity industry now leaves our country short of power and dangerously dependent on imports for no good reason. Given the government’s ambitions for an electrical revolution putting in a lot more power capacity into generation and distribution must be a crucial priority.
As the government seeks to interpret its version of the fashionable Build back better mantra it should make substantial increases in capacity in our main networks and utility provision central to that task.
May 28, 2021
Exactly but no political party ever changes the system or moves to allow fair and real competition. The NHS monopoly rationing system kills many thousands and fails millions every year. Also schools, universities, state housing, much of the slow and rip off legal system, the energy market rigging, much of banking…
May 28, 2021
āsubstantial increases in capacity in our main networks and utility provision central to that taskā indeed but the main agenda of government is clearly to the block roads with bus and bike lines as a very inefficient tax raising mechanism (one that even causes deaths by delaying people and emergency services). Also to make a complete mess of energy systems with the net zero lunacy, mess up water provision, to waste Ā£100 billions on the white elephant HS2 and much else.
May 28, 2021
The BBC dripping the nation in lefty, climate alarmist drivel every single day. I recently watched the people vs climate change appalling propaganda from government and the BBC. A climate assembly panel of people randomly selected, almost all therefore with no understanding of energy, physics or climate change. Then asked how the UK should achieve net zero (not whether we should or the damage done by doing so) so a bent agenda from the outset . They then get indoctrination lessons from climate alarmist āexpertsā like David Attenborough of the most juvenile and one sided nature and then they come up with their suggestions.
A sick joke from beginning to end and all at tax payers expense.
May 28, 2021
Agree L/L. I can’t watch Attenborough any more and switch off Country File as soon as I hear the words climate change. It’s definitely a religion.
May 28, 2021
LL
I agree +1
May 28, 2021
Yes, there are many positives to private enterprise, competition and so on. Who would want to go out to state-run restaurants for instance?
However, as the disasters of Boeing, of Grenfell Tower, of banking, and of many others show us, when breaking rules means more money for the people breaking them, then that places an inducement before them to do just that.
Safety, quality control, inspections, and the rest should NEVER be outsourced back to people involved in the respective undertakings, which is what has happened here and in the US. Furthermore the enforcers should be properly resourced and salaried staff, truly independent.
However, all of that becomes compromised, when the politicians making the regulations are themselves involved with those making money in these areas.
May 28, 2021
I think it highly unlikely that anyone put flammable cladding on a tower block to make more money or ācut cornersā. I think they assumed that cladding on the OUTSIDE of a building would not be at risk of catching alight from a fire INSIDE the building.
Many modern house designs feature areas of larch cladding. Why is this allowed? Because it is on the outside! Clearly, in the case of a high rise block of flats, with no sprinkler system and with a lack of fire doors- with some element of hindsight – this is a bad idea.
It is odd that every high rise office building I have worked on, or visited, has sprinklers.
May 28, 2021
@Mike Wilson, the material wasn’t and isn’t approved by Building Standards for use in that situation. The Government permits local authorities and some large building companies to self-certificate their own approvals.
Without digging out the paperwork the height limit I think is around 18 metres for any form of combustible cladding. Although that’s presented as ‘a new reg’ its donkey years old.
May 28, 2021
Boeing have the FIA to watch over them and our builders have building regulations to comply with. That both have proved wanting and are government inspired suggests as much is at fault in the controlling bodies as the respective industries. I know our CAA is known as the committee against aviation, but I would opt for slightly too much control than too little. Put yourself in the position of an individual or committee that sanctions a product, only for it to be the cause of multiple deaths.
May 28, 2021
I agree some independent regulation is sometimes needed.
Grenville Tower however was almost entirely state sector failing they owned it, they moronically clad it at Ā£100k per flat to save perhaps Ā£50 PA per flat in heating bills, they chose the spec., architects and builders who did the work, they were in charge of building control and fire regulations and fire inspections, the fire services failed to fully put out the initial fire and the biggest failure of all the foolish senior fire officers (educated into stupidity one assumes) told people to stay in or go back to their flats. Many hours after it was obvious to anyone with even half a brain & from a mere glance at the TV footage that they should leave immediately.
May 28, 2021
Absolute tripe.
May 28, 2021
Incisive as ever MiC
Unsubstatiated slurs followed by a decent to abuse when challenged.
Hilarious as usual.
May 28, 2021
All completely true as far as I can see, perhaps you can tell me which bit you think is tripe?
May 29, 2021
@Mic – For once LL has put up a non-ranty comment which is on-topic and a good summary.
So which bit exactly is tripe?
Or do you simply not like the fact that local authority of your preferred political bent might be culpable.
May 28, 2021
@LL, yes they self-certificated approval were building regs hadn’t permitted it.
May 28, 2021
The Building Regulations are extremely torturous. I know, because I read through after the Grenfell fire, being cross-referred from one document to another constantly. Written in jargon. But the final conclusion is that the regulation “banning” the use of the cladding only had advisory status under EU law, while the mandatory EU standards failed to ban it.
May 28, 2021
MiC not all of the banks required public money to bail them out. Several of those that did have paid off their debt. The RBS was encouraged to over-developed under Labour, it was unregulated properly and was not forced to do proper due diligence when buying the Dutch company that sank it.
Grenfell Tower? I thought this was a public sector State-owned building? Run by what a council trust/housing trust with people paid by the State to manage it and run it. Please correct me but I didn’t think that a Private sector company owned and rented it out. It was also the State run Fire service that told people to stay inside an out of control burning building for HOURS.
May 28, 2021
I think you are correct.
May 28, 2021
So, no responsibility for Fred Goodwin at RBS or for Matt Ridley at Northern Rock? It obviously is a well known fact that the board of directors (and potential share holders) do not have any impact on investment decisions and that everything that happened is because of Labour, or is it not?
May 28, 2021
There are a number of quangos that had the job of overeeing these businesses hefner.
Instead of listing individuals you want to see punished why not blame these regulatory authorities?
May 28, 2021
Ah, the quangos, indeed. Please tell me E2P2, are they all made of Labour supporters, because in case you had not noticed that implicitly was the original a-tracyās claim.
May 29, 2021
hef,
The argument is about the way State funded inspection and auditing quangos failed to monitor and control the industries that was their o ly role.
Nothing to do with them being stuffed with “Labour supporters”
Although it does give us a reason why they were useless.
June 1, 2021
hefner, you are really stretching, I did not say anything about the two organisations you mentioned, they were failures. I’d have taken Fred Goodwin’s Knighthood and pension off him for the mistakes he made instead of letting him slink away with a nice reward. Gordon Brown and the Labour government fawned over Goodwin check it out.
As for Northern Rock, I personally didn’t agree with Building Societies mutualising. They shafted many of their long-standing loyal savers. My BS Britannia completely thumped their depositors when they sold to the co-op with no reward.
These BS’s used to use customer deposits as the source of funds to lend out to homeowners, but instead they were encouraged under labour to borrow in the international money markets and lend to more risky clients without due checks.
The government is responsible for the first Ā£100,000 of any deposits and felt it necessary to step in and take over, I believe they sold part of NR to Virgin. It was the first run on a bank in 150 years and yes it was under Labour, had it been under the Tories for ten years at the time you’d have been the first to squeal.
June 1, 2021
also hefner – where did I say any of those organisations were ‘made of Labour supporters, because in case you had not noticed that implicitly was the original a-tracyās claim.’?
You are setting up straw men.
The only company I said was encouraged by Labour to over-develop was the RBS are you saying I am incorrect in that?
May 28, 2021
@MiC – sleight correction there, Grenfell Tower owners are Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council and not a Private Company. The cladding they gave the go ahead on and signed off on was not an approved building material in that situation. They self-certificated its use, because Government permitted them to do that. The US banned it completely a generation ago.
May 28, 2021
MiC
“Who would want to go out to state-run restaurants for instance?”
LMAO…….don’t give them / Boris ideas !
May 28, 2021
MiC
“Safety, quality control, inspections, and the rest should NEVER be outsourced back to people involved in the respective undertakings, which is what has happened here and in the US.”
Well said. +1
May 28, 2021
But Steve they are not.
Environmental Agency
Heath and Safety Agency
HMRC
Cusoms and Immigration Agencies.
They are all independent.
And with huge powers.
May 28, 2021
Peter2
Environment agency – until brexit answered to EU law.
HSE – same.
HMRC – law unto itself.
Cusoms and Immigration – does what Macron wants.
Independent of those they are ‘supposed’ to serve, and with too much power.
May 28, 2021
Steve
Independent of the Government.
As you have illustrated.
May 28, 2021
Be sure. The cladding was for ease on the eyes of the rich Remain Londoners looking at the buildings and not for the benefit of those people living in them looking out. I expect they would have preferred the money to have been spent on car charging points rather than the ostensible reason of making the flats warmer and drier.
May 28, 2021
By the late 90s there was a pretty good competitive free market in electricity supply but it’s been heavily distorted now by green crap
May 28, 2021
The distortions are only getting worse. The new post-Brexit carbon pricing scheme has seen record carbon prices, in turn forcing up electricity prices. This should not be a surprise, as it offers an obvious bailout route for wind farms that bid too aggressively on their CFDs: fail to trigger the CFD start by not giving a notice, and take a higher “market” price driven by carbon pricing. Meanwhile I read that it is estimated that electricity from planned BECCS units (carbon capture) at Drax will cost Ā£181/MWh, while picking up subsidies worth over Ā£31bn – beating the over Ā£160/MWh that offshore wind costs currently.
Germany is planning to close some 37GW of coal, lignite and nuclear capacity in the next few years. That is about 50% of its current demand. They have no viable plans for periods of Dunkelflaute when the wind doesn’t blow and there’s next to no sun and it’s bitter winter. Their shortages will create shortages across Europe, so we too will find ourselves short. As Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial pointed out earlier this week: with the weather we have had this year, we would have had blackouts on the plans for 2030’s Saudi Arabia of wind, let alone 2050.
May 29, 2021
@Lifelogic,
Why don’t you – and others – become an MP? Seriously, look at the Cabinet. Look at Boris (his CV for PM is writing witty articles for newspapers and magazines – even I am probably more qualified having worked hard and done reasonably well in IT – although millions of people smarter and more qualified than me).
Most people on this site no doubt would do a better job than some / many Tory MPS (Liberal MPs even worse and SNP / Labour even worse again).
May 29, 2021
Well I cannot really move back to the UK without paying far more tax than the MPās salary, I prefer not to lie and tell the truth, no party would have me and there are no main stream Political Parties I could bring myself to join, nor would I get elected anyway as most voters do not really want to hear the truth.
May 28, 2021
Yes, a monopoly supplier is less likely to be customer oriented than is a supplier with lots of competition. Private enterprise usually works better than state enterprise. The latter overburdons itself with administration, complexity of operating rules and the dreaded quangos. These factors make it less responsive to customer need.
The example of the moment is the NHS. I hear officially from NI that waiting times for resolution of all outstanding health problems is 10 years. I am told privately that within Wales it is a least 5 years. I do not anticipate England or Scotland being any better. The NHS administration will not have within it the level of enterprise necessary to resolve the problem. I therefore suggest that Boris finds a modern day Lord Beaverbrooke. It will be a case of matching demand to capacity throughout the UK, meaning patients might have to travel for treatment. Departments might have to be reorganised for a 24/7 operating schedule. Capacity may have to be found at suitable locations overseas and patients sent there. Government will have to come up with the money to effect it all. Will it happen, your guess is as good as mine, however there are a lot of political brownie points to be gained from a people that see a government getting things done. Call it the blockbuster sequel to the vaccination programme.
May 28, 2021
I see in this morning’s news that senior NHS surgeons are now recommending ‘surgery hubs’ to deal with straightforward operations in order to cut severe waiting times. Some of us have been recommending something like this for decades: release NHS theatre capacity to cope with the big problems, use private facilities for other patients (benefits also include less hospitalisation time for patients and better service). This has usually been opposed because senior health consultants often have a penchant for building their own little empires, regardless of the effect on patients and hospitals as a whole.
May 28, 2021
SM, if this could prove a workable element within what I have suggested above then I am all for it. I still think we will need to look beyond the UK to solve the problem. It was too big before Covid and is now mega big.
May 28, 2021
A state monopoly tends to be run for the benefit of the staff at the expense of the customers and very often to the cost of taxpayers too.
May 28, 2021
We have fair competition regulators but they never seem to consider the main source of unfair competition which so often is the state sector. In healthcare, broadcasting, schools, universities, housing…
May 28, 2021
@LL – “fair competition regulators” appointed by Ministers but responsible, accountable and overseen by no one when things aren’t running smoothly. That appears to be one of the great hypocrisies. The taxpayer, our Democracy does not have a mechanism to get the incompetent removed. At the taxpayer expense there can be a public enquiry of course – and the horse has bolted.
At the very least the HoC should vote and approve the regulators then vote and approve their internal audit each year. Regulators are taxpayer funded organisation their Board of Governors is the HoC, why should they be an exception to the norm?
May 28, 2021
agricola
Well said lots of your points too close to the real world. Some of which you talk about is already happening.
A private medical company working within the NHS unable to give an appointment closest to your home ,no flexibility. Had to drive past two hospitals for the appointment and drive an extra 38 miles. No concerns to the patient or the environment if you are into this saving the world crap being rammed down our throats.
May 28, 2021
I find many private companies have appalling customer service. A supermarket delivered just 6 items of our order this week. Once upon a time I would have telephoned and someone would have sorted it out. Instead it took a whole day of endless attempts to contact them including, 3 times, having the phone put down on me abruptly. I was not being unpleasant.
Generally, I dread something going wrong with anything. I stick with existing suppliers if they have half decent customer service.
May 28, 2021
It is somewhat spiritually deflating to read articles such as that deliberately and If I may so rather cynically avoids any reference to the most powerful of all State monopoly’s and one that represents a threat to this nation and our most ancient freedoms. I refer of course to the highly politicised and discriminatory Socialist Client State that is now under the direct control of Labour, their hard left unions and the viral phenomena that is the Guardianesque scam lobby system that continually seeks oppressive laws, forces your party to impose laws that you don’t agree with and feeds off taxpayer funding providing it with the means to perpetuate their power based and reach
The NHS. This highly inefficient, political organisation now in bed with the Tory party has an appalling history of patient care that if replicated in the private sector would lead to lead to private health provider employees in prison on manslaughter charges. The partial application of the criminal law is abhorrent to the latter is discriminatory and cannot be legal
State education, now highly political and under the control of pernicious forces dedicated to rolling out their victim an offence culture progressive agenda.
The police now more a political force rather than civil have become utterly detached
Many other areas (CPS, The Electoral Comm, Quangos etc) remain beyond control and are used to protect open abuse of our democracy
The above organisations consume hundreds of billions of pounds annually and waste a hefty percentage of that funding as they roll out their political agenda using the Marxist diversity and inclusion agenda to take control of public organisations
John can ignore, for political reasons, these developments all he likes but he knows as well as everyone that without reform this Socialist client state has the capacity to destroy democracy and freedom. The bullshit namely Build Back Better is nothing less than an expansion of State power that will eventually create a digital form of authoritarian control
It’s all too depressing to see the Tory party and many of their small State, libertarian MPs accept these sinister developments
May 28, 2021
DOM
I couldnāt agree more, the solution is so blindingly obvious so I have to ask why isnāt it being addressed?
May 28, 2021
Lester
Why isn’t it
Because we are plagued with a new generation of kipper politicians, who have recognised the threat of the more senior experienced qualified members who have been put out to grass on the back benches. They are too small in number and all have been labelled in the minds of kipper and his fillets as, past it, old world, troublemakers this is reinforced by the unfit for purpose national broadcasting company. The voices for common sense, national pride and general concerns at the path we are being pulled down, held back, basically stifled by the ignorance and incompetence and arrogance of those who will not question anything.
May 28, 2021
Indeed.
Schools and exam syllabuses have become propaganda organisations too especially on, totally one sided, climate alarmism. Just like the dire BBC.
This it seems it the agenda of LibLabCon & Boris and more importantly also of Queen Carrie it seems.
May 28, 2021
I agree. But the alternative system, based on hard-nosed, greedy American capitalism is also flawed (I couldn’t live in the USA – it is way too bonkers for my own peace of mind and sanity – whether I am rubbing shoulders with rich or poor or the middle classes – sure, lots of Americans I get along with too but generally less so than fellow Brits who I feel more comfortable with generally).
We’ve got to focus on capitalism based on work ethic / Judaeo-Christian values (whether people believe in God or not) and the best of Greco-Roman world which compliments Judaeo-Christian values.
May 28, 2021
And at end of day, what people need far more than political ideas is soft + tough love. There is so much hatred of self and others in our world in general – from the rich to the poor – that society / civilisation simply cannot function as it should no matter how brilliant the wisdom and skills of its politicians.
May 28, 2021
I fear you are right Dom. At one time I thought all this was conspiracy talk and yet we are seeing big changes coming of which we have no control over. Indeed, it would seem governments are going to control more than ever until we won’t be able to call ourselves a free society.
I see Biden is looking into China and the real source of the Covid pandemic. Even the WHO are being encouraged to look again. I would not be at all surprised if this did come from a lab and the question is was it deliberate or an accident? Far fetched, maybe but who knows what is really going on in the higher echelons.
May 28, 2021
So utterly true.
Do they comply like ordinary workers do?
Accept the wokery rather than lose their jobs?
Can that be right for those who are supposed to represent us?
May 28, 2021
DOM, I doubt the competence of government to pull it off. I suspect an electorate head of steam would build, a la Brexit, and government would find it had backed the wrong horse. The implentation of a freedom agenda would be even more dire than the post brexit fight with the establishment. If politicians cannot see the sense in backing off, that is what it will come to. The first martyr to the cause of freedom should be PC.
May 28, 2021
Indeed.
The under supply of essentials is proportional to the over supply of people – brought to us against the public will by the government.
—–
Face masks are now political and not for public protection. We are being forced to wear them only to save the Tory party and the PM.
The vaccines have brought the death and hospitalisation rates to single and double figures. Why haven’t we banned driving by the same measures ?
“NLA is scared of a little bit of cloth. What a wimp !”
Actually, yes, I am. This is now government oppression plain and simple.
May 28, 2021
My memories of state trading monopolies are very different.
British Rail provided more trains per hour and ran a service until later at night on my local London commuter service.
I did not have to check utility suppliers on a regular basis to see which one was currently the least price gouging.
Water supplies were mostly fine and bills were acceptable. Summer droughts were an occasional issue but no more than today. We did not have constant interruptions to supply, nor did we put up with known leakages within the network.
Supply issues are often a matter of government choice. Road builders cannot take it on themselves to create new fast routes when they want. There is a matter of a planning process first. Rail franchises do not have a long term vision for network development or improvements to the infrastructure. Their task is to provide a service, as agreed with government, so as to maximise profit from the fee they take from the government and fare revenue.
May 28, 2021
I’ve worked for a water authority and the money wasted is astronomical. People claim expenses for so much. No car sharing. All claiming separate expenses for travel etc to the same venue.
May 28, 2021
I was invited to the BBC in London concerning WW2 research I’d been doing and was informed that all expenses would be reimbursed, and ‘please take taxis for all your journeys in London’. I did and later I found my expenses had been inadvertently paid twice. When I told them and asked how I should send one amount back they said ‘don’t bother, no-one will notice, these things are never checked’.
May 28, 2021
Private rail companies are still heavily reliant on 50-year-old trains built by BR.
May 28, 2021
Oh yes!!
Exactly. So right.
I LOVED our utilities.
You put all that so well.šø
May 28, 2021
Peter, were BR in profit on your local service. How full/ empty were the trains.
P3 How did you know you were getting value for money.
P4 Don’t know where you live, but hosepipe bans were de rigeur in my part of England as soon as the rain stopped.
P5 Government do not seem to have a dicernable policy anywhere because they are mostly politically driven and are only good for five years at most. Then the next lot get in and reverse it all. Politicians rarely consult with the electorate, their customers, to ascertain what their expectations are. They prefer imposed top down, with the result that there will be no effectve private transport in 20 years.
May 28, 2021
Agricola,
Yes, our trains into Waterloo were very busy. I donāt have details on British Rail accounting at the time, or the costing for individual routes. I do know that I did not have to check for weekend engineering works and that train services at Christmas, Easter and Bank holidays were not routinely curtailed or replaced with a bus service. Replacement buses are another ruse to boost profits. Keep season ticket holders happy, then run cheaper buses at weekends and avoid high labour charges for overnight maintenance.
Value for money? I just compare what I pay now with what I used to pay.
I used to run sprinklers on the lawns when water was state run. I would not do that now. Though I have resisted water meters as a bad idea in principle.
May 28, 2021
P5 – this is where I think you are going off the rails, Agricola.
Political Parties have agendas/manifestos, politicians at whatever level consult with their electorates at election times, and hold surgeries and receive correspondence – and different sectors of their electorate (according to their needs or wants or political views) will have VERY different and often conflicting expectations.
May 28, 2021
How about forcing the MOD to get the 3 support ships built in Britain.
May 28, 2021
Ian Wragg
Hear hear.
2 in England 1 in Scotland if they must
May 28, 2021
1 in N.IRELAND !
May 28, 2021
Today wind supplying 1.63% at peak demand 0.63 GW.
Boris wants to quadruple wind capacity at ruinous cost which on a day like today would give us 6%.
Can someone explain the stupidity of building more windmills.
May 28, 2021
Also most no engineers or physicists in parliament alas. Mainly lawyers, PPE types and led by classicist (taking orders from a Theatre Studies lass). Mad virtue signalling at tax payers expense.
May 28, 2021
I agree with all of this , but what have we got? A Government that brings back British Rail throws borrowed money at every problem and shuts the border to competition replacing it with some laughable fairy tale about buccaneering Britain (or something ) . Corporation tax up ..of all things !!
I have always thought that in his heart of hearts Sir John cannot have so entirely abandoned the principles that animated the Thatcher period but when the Conservative Party decided to abandon the City the University educated and rely on the “left-ish behind ” certain things followed
Protectionism intervention , high debts and ,soon enough high tax. Free Market Liberals, like myself , who who admired George Osborne and console ourselves with David Gauke have nowhere to go.
May 28, 2021
We are all ultimately fallen beings whether in private or private sector. Society ultimately has to be challenged and inspired, whether they believe in God or not, to live lives based on Judaeo-Christianity / the best of Greco-Roman world. Values such as Modesty of Character, Tough + Soft Love, Love of Family, Work Ethic, Patriotism and Public Duty, and so on. And ultimately this can only takes place in areas such as Education, the Arts, the Media and so on. Politics has a role to play but limited. Politicians are not exclusively Prophets, Priests and Kings. We ALL are from one degree to another. The burden and wonderful challenge falls on all of us wherever we are in society – and which is why, also, Conservatism should be present in every area of our society / civilisation (not just in or focused only on politics / economic policy, important as these are).
May 28, 2021
+1
May 28, 2021
Ed M,
This is fairly wide ranging. However, I do think that the public service outlook was stronger in days gone by. The people at the top on councils, health authorities etc were not paid the huge salaries that are the norm these days. It was generally accepted that job security in these posts meant they did not warrant top dollar remuneration.
Nowadays they seem to have it both ways. Croneyism is more evident too. A charmed circle of failures moving from one well paid role to another.
May 28, 2021
@Peter,
I agree with you, sir
May 28, 2021
..btw continuing in this navel gazing mode , the assumption seems to be that the young are left wing and so support the Labour Party . In have Nieces and Nephews in their 20s and chatting to them whilst they consider the Conservative Party for old people who read the Express , they are highly motivated demand choice and have almost nothing in common with the dank old socialism of the British left.
May 28, 2021
Thank The Lord for that!
Hope they are a good deal right of the tories?
May 28, 2021
The young right-wing keep their mouths shut if they know what is good for them. Just nod and agree with their ‘highly motivated’ friends. The Conservative parties biggest mistake is that they allow the left to tell repeated lies about schooling, access to higher education, funding of higher education, funding of the NHS, increased treatments by the NHS, extra longevity because we have an NHS thank goodness all while the conservatives have as Andy keeps pointing out been in power for much longer periods. They allow their right-wing supporters to be pilloried, undefended, and unprotected from vicious assumptions about what type of person you are.
May 28, 2021
I can guarantee you – people who read the Express aren’t getting their desires met either.
And if you want woke-ism then vote Tory. There is plenty of it now after 11 years.
June 1, 2021
The Express is a strange paper 25% made up of stories about Megan and Harry and 25% about the Monarchy and how it is struggling. Makes me wonder what the owner’s agenda is.
May 28, 2021
If I may I want to go off topic although my comments do refer to state spending so may be relevant in the bigger picture.
We have friends living in Japan, several regions are under a state of emergency lockdown due to Covid. Iām informed there are weekly demonstrations to postpone the Olympics until next year.
A growing majority in Japan want the games to be scheduled in 2022.
I hope this Gov is keeping an eye on this because what happens if the games are postponed until 2022?.
This will have a direct impact on the Commonwealth games, countries will not want to compete in 2 games in the same year and the Olympics will be the priority.
I guess you can see where Iām going with this and the massive infrastructure etc.
Iām interested to read the responses.
May 28, 2021
David Brown
What better marker to highlight that once ags6we have a case of pissing before our flies are open.
We are investing vast sums to prepare for the Commonwealth Games without any thought into when they might take place. One would have thought that somebody would have thought “Ummm hang on a minute here” but we don’t do that, no thoughts on actions and consequences. This country is riddled with vanity projects like this. Who is payer. Never? Not the taxpayers again?
May 28, 2021
Another big problem with nationalised industries is they become heavily unionised, and the workers adopt an entitlement to their employment, and the state owes them job security, high wage and a subsidised final salary pension. They aren’t there to benefit the customers, who think they are there to provide a service.
May 28, 2021
Well said, and we cannot leave the NHS out of that summary of failing state monoliths overburdened with government interference.
The government should have realised by now that if they create quangos and give them powers, that trying to micro-manage them doesn’t work. They should be given freedom to invest in their own areas of activity, and only restrained when they reach thresholds of bad service.
Once again we come down to how government should operate. It is elected governments that have given us the most pain, over too many decades, and the system, designed for an earlier age, is failing us in too many ways.
It’s not only the HoL’s that needs redefining, it’s the whole subject of democratic government.
May 28, 2021
I think you missed off healthcare there John.
We need some honest politicians prepared to be critical of the national religion the NHS.
May 28, 2021
Iain Gill
Honest politicians.
They are there more than a few of them all banished to the back benches . Not many I grant you but they are there.
Placed where they can do as little upset as possible. Like it or not the standard of the majority of MPs is abysmal whatever side of the house they sit on.
May 28, 2021
You mention too few new roads to help traffic flow John, and you are correct, but for years we had a deliberate obstruction plan set out to reduce speed and traffic flow in the form of Humps, chicanes, deliberate road narrowing for cycle paths, emission Zones, congestion zones, yellow lines, red lines, and more recently actual road closures, or unworkable one way systems.
Then for years we have had non/poor maintenance where small pot holes were allowed to get larger, road resurfacing periods were extended, utility works seemed to be carried out at will, making good of any work (reinstatement) was poor, so the whole structure ended up as a patchwork surface of poor quality, which now rips up tyres, wrecks suspension and in general leads to an uncomfortable ride for all concerned, as well as being less safe in general.
Many roads are now suffering from the actual collapse of the substrate or base layer which simple resurfacing will not cure !
May 28, 2021
Due to the above we now have a very real problem with trying to upgrade most of our existing roads to an acceptable standard, if indeed that is the will.
Is such a plan in place, no, the government it would seem would rather take away the safety hard shoulder on Motorways, convert that space to an extra live lane, fence in traffic so that it cannot escape in an emergency, (even if the verge is flat) and put in tiny so called refuge areas at over one mile apart, and then actually call that action “Smart” !
May 28, 2021
The short comings you set out are not divinely pre-ordained. They are mainly the decisions of inadequate politicians who set these things up and appoint buddies to run them regardless of knowledge or experience. The constant see-sawing between Labour and Conservative governments led to this situation with many crackpot ideologies being tried out on the population, such as health and education reforms which seem forever to be in flux – never a good overall solution reached by a consensus of knowledge and experience, just political ideology from both left and right with the hope that somewhere, sometime, things might turn out right. Money is wasted on a colossal scale whilst essential, less sexy things like road maintenance and school building and repair go by the wayside. The obvious one is HS2, which very few of the public want but they get it foisted on them anyway. Politicians do not generally like items where they cannot go to an opening ceremony and wave a flag and have their picture taken.
May 28, 2021
graham1946
+1
May 28, 2021
No better example than the BBC.
Is that ripped wide open for a fire sale?
Has it ever been? If not, does that prove it to be of immense use to, or to have great control over, the govt.?
We owned the public utilities.
And oh boy, when they were sold off they did they make some people rich.
So were they really such basket cases?
We have all been sold off and now we have no country worth mentioning.
May 28, 2021
Everhopeful
Who owns all these old nationalised industries now?
Says it all really.
May 28, 2021
+1
May 28, 2021
In what way, if you please, is the BBC a monopoly or anything like one?
May 28, 2021
It has a guaranteed income from a government.
It doesn’t need to make its customers happy.
And legally enforcement to pay a fee for those who want to watch live TV
May 28, 2021
+1
May 28, 2021
It is grossly unfair competition to others and it is a vile, left wing, climate alarmist, big state propaganda outfit.
May 29, 2021
It often seemed to lose out in the bidding contests for sporting rights with Sky etc.
How could a monopoly lose?
May 29, 2021
They had the money MiC
But they had different priorities.p
May 30, 2021
You may want to watch programming from ITV or a host of free-to-air channels -but the Government insist you pay about Ā£160 per annum to the BBC you may never watch – how is that reasonable?
May 28, 2021
“State trading monopolies often serve us badly”
Sir John – that is a very mild headline. But seeing we are trying to be polite, it is clear they serve us badly and they cost us a fortune!
The only plus side is they allow ministers(only ministers and their chums) to stroke their egos’ line up future employment and get to say ‘look at me how wonderful I am’.
Beside inefficiency and cost it is also a corrupting influence on politics and those in receipt of taxpayer money. The worst that can happen to those that defraud the taxpayer by this method is that there will be a public enquiry – also costing the taxpayer.
A win-win for the Political class more taxpayer money down the drain for everyone else.
May 28, 2021
As taxpayers we could all rationalise the State providing investment with a defined(not a flimsy political speak return) that goes on to fund the next project. Building a solid future not an ever growing ‘Ponzi’ Scheme.
There is a desperate need to break the cycle that the taxpayer is the Bank. Government needs to keep clear of saying ‘Government Money’ until they actually have some.
May 28, 2021
Good grief!
During the Great Imprisonment supermarkets saw no need to supply long standing customers with food! Were taps ever dry? Even in 1976?
Private companies now act as if they are arms of the state. ( Thatās happened before).
And, for some, a hot summer is an absolute NIGHTMARE thanks to buy to let/ general bad behaviour of the dumbed down.
Unusable garden, windows that canāt be opened.
Great!
May 28, 2021
The theory is great. But this does not always work in practice.
We had a hosepipe ban where I live a few summers ago. Our water company has been privatised for years.
My local trains are run by a private company. Theyāre old, slow, dirty, unreliable and I still have to buy a paper ticket to travel. Also nearby is the tube network – run by state operator TFL. Bright, clean, efficient, reliable trains and I can just tap and go. The state is definitely better than the private here.
The worst hospital experience I ever had was at a private hospital in the United States – when I hurt myself while away. It was an appalling experience. In contrast when I suddenly developed appendicitis the NHS hospital which treated me was brilliant.
I am no lover of the state. Particularly not at the moment. But it is far too simplistic to say state is always bad and private is always good.
Some private companies are good. Some are not. Some state services are good. Some are not.
May 28, 2021
very odd Andy – you changed your tune with ‘it is far too simplistic to say state is always bad ‘ -you normally can’t find anything pleasant to say about our State and services.
May 28, 2021
My God. I agree with you Andy.
May 28, 2021
@ Andy – Some private companies are good. Some are not. Some state services are good. Some are not.
Yes but in the private sector it is not for very long – they go bust or get taken over. In the state sector they can go on and on and on parasitically feeding off the tax payer.
May 28, 2021
As with most things in the UK we are plagued with double speak from what each day appears to be a corrupt Political Class/Elite.
With soundbite phrases and jingoisms that are repeatedly used that are just misinformation. Things like ‘Government Money’ – meaning what will they take from the taxpayer, ‘Government Investment’ – meaning what will they take from the taxpayer, ‘Levelling Up’ – meaning what will they take from the taxpayer. Followed by many more ‘stupid’ phrases.
We never as taxpayers get value for money, because the misinformation is that it doesn’t matter when someone else pays. The State never identifies and praise their Bank – the taxpayer
Then when it comes back to responsibility and accountability we get ‘it was within the rules’ there will be a Public Enquiry and so on. What they cant see it is they the Politicians that are becoming the corrupters of Society. It is they that are undermining democracy and the rule of law. They refuse to challenge misconceptions and dissention as they themselves are daily involved in the same disinformation. You could even reason that it is the Politicians are the cause of things elsewhere falling apart.
While I guess there is at least 25% of the HoC there to serve the people and understand the meaning, they need to get noisier fight this status quo attitude and be the defenders of democracy. Democracy in action is more important than anything else and far ahead of ‘ego’. The HoC is there to hold the administration to account, all the time they keep quiet for political expediency they are destroying their very purpose. The HoC is becoming to have the same Validity as part of the political purpose as the HoL
May 28, 2021
When a new estate is built with 1000 homes who pays for all the water connections, pipes, and sewerage pipes, does the water company contribute, or do they just collect the water rates after they are built?
What are they expected to do with all this extra revenue just take profit or are they expected to improve local water pressure which has dipped since all the new homes have been built?
We have a horrendous pump station and what I assume are sewerage tanks built right on the front road metal guarded spikes creating a proper eyesore and it shouldn’t have been allowed, they’ve reduced the height of the silver spikes but it is still not good enough it is not on an industrial estate. Recently a rather large leak caused a slurry flood and most of the brooks are full to brimming due to water displacement caused by all the extra building.
May 28, 2021
Nowadays Itās not just monopolies but cartels which are the problem.
These are the heavily regulated sectors where only a few companies operate in a cosy relationship where they all share EXACTLY THE SAME REGULATIONS WHICH THEY MAINLY WRITE THEMSELVES, technology, credentials, market, costs etc etc where there is no point in innovation and every incentive to beat each other at ājustā meeting the standards at the lowest cost.
You can always tell when you are dealing with a cartel. Just try phoning one up. If it takes more than 4 minutes to talk to a human being, youāve been cart-elled.
May 28, 2021
I’ve never really been aware of Ofgem, Ofwat, Ofcom etc.
Until I read yesterday a new suggested Chair had been refused and I thought well who is on the committee that chooses, its a shame the public can’t vote on a tv show format and each Chair make their case to us about what they will do.
I read on that Ofcom received 967 BBC complaints in 6 months last year, 959 were re-directed because people hadn’t complained to the BBC first. So only 8 were dealt with by Ofcom – all 8 found no issues that warranted further investigation! Just how many complaints that these ‘Of…’ companies received are investigated each year per member of staff I wonder and found to be upheld – if none or hardly any then close them down and save the waste.
May 28, 2021
Sir John,
The BBC wallows in complacency, knowing they can charge enough to suit them and not feeling any great need to improve or change.
May 28, 2021
OFF TOPIC – but perhaps the biggest single ‘hot potato’ which should bring down the Government.
Boris Johnson has expressed “full confidence” in Health Secretary Matt Hancock over claims he lied about protecting care homes from Covid. Dominic Cummings says Mr Hancock misled the PM in March 2020 by promising that all residents in England discharged from hospital would be tested.
The PM’s former aide says this led to thousands of needless deaths.
Mr Hancock has denied lying but said he had been clear that it would take time to build testing capacity. “My recollection of events is that I committed to delivering that testing for people going from hospital into care homes when we could do it,” he told a Downing Street press conference on Thursday. “I then went away and built the testing capacityā¦ and then delivered on the commitment that I made.”
I haven’t come across anybody that thinks Care Home to Hospital , and vice-versa was all done using PCR test to prove negative and therefore safety. The number of rampant spreading of the coronavirus between them was recognised at the time – thousands got infected, and thousands died as a result.
Any denial is as bad as holocaust denial, in my opinion.
May 28, 2021
Yet I have read elsewhere today that an analysis has been done of England’s NHS to Care Home transfers and the results demonstrate that virtually all of the dead suffered serious co-morbidities and were infected by Care Home staff being inevitable carriers, just as NHS staff could be, and no doubt were. Had the transfer not been done, to be fair, far more of those newly and severely infected would have died without hospital capacity for treatment.
Perhaps the NHS and PHE under Jeremy Hunt should have been better prepared for a pandemic, rather than recommendations for such an event being brushed aside?
May 28, 2021
100% agree
May 28, 2021
You can’t just keep building roads to accommodate more and more cars. The cars are not on the road for the sake of it, they are going somewhere, and the only way of parking them all is to demolish the attraction they are going to. I live in a road of terraced houses in which life is made increasingly difficult by a rising number of multi-car households. As long as public transport can be decoupled from the cars, jams at least provide a way of regulating the desirability of car usage. Of course it goes without saying that the mass immigration beloved by our politicians results in more cars.
May 28, 2021
Dear Sir John as an Economist should should be able to show us evidence in regard to cost then and now to justify what you say. I have yet to see anyone provide actual facts and figures to show that Private run National utilities are any more cost effective than State owned ( tax payer owned with Politicians at arms length from the undertaking).
The Water companies do not actually make water. You neglect to mention the population increase and the problem that is presenting to all our utilities. Perhaps a better understanding of Engineering may help your opinion which sounds more like dogma than a factually presented case.
Private run utilities avoid investment to increase capacity for future projections and just in case capacity.
Your favorite example which you often use is the Telephone Industry and the choice of phone. Even before Mrs T. The system was being modernized at a great pace but all this behind the scenes of you can only attach this phone to the network. Our telephone exchange technology was not behind the Americans. In my early years I was working on fully digital exchanges. The only thing that Mrs T gave the public was a wider choice in home phones.
May 28, 2021
So what is the future for roads? This article implies roads will be privatised, and of course we will then pay per mile to use them.
Now, someone needs to take a long hard look at what on Earth is going on with roads. The budget is spent largely on impeding driving and creating congestion. The lengths of road works with no-one working on them are a standing joke. It certainly needs tackling in a big way.
But selling them to foreign corporations who then bill us per mile is not the answer.
May 28, 2021
We all remember the bad old days when the only telephones available to the public were those with dialing, supplied and installed by the Post Office and made by GEC, a company whose Chairman would be a senior ex-Tory minister. When the government agreed to fund the development of System X, the companies originally involved were GEC, STC, Plessey and the Post Office, itself. GEC, of course was the company whose MD refused to undertake any R&D unless funded by the taxpayer or to transact with the taxpayer unless it was on the basis of a cost plus contract on which GEC would insist all components had been made in-house.
GEC took over most of our electronic and electrical industry with Tories cheering on the sidelines. Inevitably, GEC went bust and its constituent companies fell into foreign hands.
What is the point in there being three private companies manufacturing telephonic equipment if the government does not insist that they compete and do their own R&D? System X was in advance of its time from an initiative of the Post Office which was also in advance of its time when it proposed to extend Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) and rip out the rest of the copper wire thirty years ago.
The history of industry in this country is as much to do with government ineptitude as the public, private dichotomy.
May 28, 2021
off topic.
Lord Geidt’s report found that Mr Hancock had properly declared a financial interest when he took a 20% stake in the company but had not declared the link with his sister prior to that, when the firm had been awarded a place on a list of NHS suppliers.
But Lord Geidt concluded that Mr Hancock’s “earlier failure to declare the interest was as a result of his lack of knowledge and in no way deliberate, and therefore, in technical terms, a minor breach of the ministerial code”. He said Mr Hancock had “acted properly and honestly in promptly” declaring his financial interest.
Oh! That’s alright then…
May 28, 2021
BBC reporting ā āThe works on the flat, overseen by the PM’s fiancĆ©e Carrie Symonds, are thought to have cost around Ā£90,000ā
Is anybody else concerned that a person not employed nor elected nor commissioned by the government can make interior design alterations to a government building?
May 28, 2021
forgot to add – God Bless America and the Office of the First Lady