Labour think nationalisation is a better answer than free enterprise. They are held back from nationalising more by the cost of it. The last Conservative government gave up on making the case for free enterprise and allowed some business to slip back into public ownership. Theyb too went in for back door nationalisation of energy by imposing a network of price controls, windfall taxes and subsidies. Both parties favoured rolling rail nationalisation. Labour nationalised the bulk of the railway when last in government and the Conservatives added some train operating companies as their leases ended. Labour will carry on. Railways are effectively nationalised with government controlling profits, prices, timetables and much else.
Labour will discover all over again that nationalised industries rule governments more than governments run them, There is the doctrine of independent management strangely allied to the reality that when anything goes wrong people and Parliament blame Ministers. Labour inherits a nationalised Post Office that started wrong sending staff to prison on its watch. They now have to find large sums from taxpayers to pay for all the losses and for the compensation owed to staff. Labour will also have to wind down HS 2 as its costs spiral and its ambitions are scaled back because they are ludicrously too dear. Another nationalised industry that devours tax revenue excessively.
What can we expect of Great British Energy? Last year U.K. infrastructure Bank and British Business Bank made losses in the well established nationalised tradition. Why would Great British Energy do anything different? It will be offered the investments the private sector does not rush to buy.
July 24, 2024
Good morning.
When it comes to rail we have to remember that it never started life as a nationalised industry, it was ALL privately financed. After WWII the railways, much like the rest of the country, was in a perilous condition and required much investment. With the brining of the Labour government it set about nationalisation of many industries in the belief that, bigger was better and State control was best. It was a new experiment that was more ideological than practical but seemed the right thing to do given recent events.
No one foresaw the rise of militant unions and the damage they would cause. To resolve this needed a multi pronged approach. First there needed to be legislation to curb the power of the unions. Then there needed to be the de-politicization of the industry by selling it back into private ownership. The problem here lay in the EU and the means by which this sell off was to be conducted.
The end result is, that although many of these rail companies were sold into the Private Sector they were in fact bought up by foreign State owned rail companies such as Deutsche Bahn. Hardly the privatisation many envisaged.
July 24, 2024
Mark, you coul go on to note how successful nationalism works for Health, Education, Arts & Sport provision…
July 24, 2024
When was that Pete? The three you mention are the biggest waste of taxpayers money. The NHS is the most useless organisation in the world— too many nonproductives grazing on the big money and the skilled workers not payed enough – a typical public organisation!
July 24, 2024
I was being facetious. As LL notes below, the list of state operated bodies that work dreadfully is a long one.
July 24, 2024
Irony detection failure.
July 24, 2024
Transport, the Bank of England, university funding and loans…
July 24, 2024
Has anyone worked out how much rail subsidy Dr Beeching has saved us over 60+ years since his much derided cuts? These once people had worked out that Cars and Vans were in general more efficient, went door to door and far cheaper than trains and so stopped using most trains? Self driving cars and taxis will come next.
July 24, 2024
sarcasm.
July 24, 2024
Well done PeteB.
Personally I favour PATRIOTISM before NATIONALISM.
July 24, 2024
Believing that nationalisation will bring improvements is a triumph of hope over experience. Just look at the records.
July 24, 2024
Follow the money and Labours union backers.
July 24, 2024
Like the railway much of the power industry has been bought by foreign government’s. We are effectively subsidising foreign consumers through high energy prices here at home.
The latest round of offshore windmills are being guaranteed over £120 per megawatt hour with constraint payment when they have to be switched off. There is never any mention of fines when they fail to meet their obligations. It’s all loaded against the customer.
Whatever the clowns incharge say, our energy costs are going to rise whilst the rest of the world reduce, particularly America if Trump gets in.
It’s time all subsidies were stopped and let the market decide.
July 24, 2024
Indeed a total scam, fraud, crony capitalism, gross incompetence, corruption… – take you pick
July 24, 2024
If you want to get rich start a crony capitalist business, it you want to get really rich start a religion.
July 24, 2024
‘ It was a new experiment that was more ideological than practical but seemed the right thing to do given recent events.’
You could say exactly the same about the revprivatisation of rail and other nationalised public utilities.
Instead of ‘no one foresaw the rise of militant unions and the damage they would cause’ you could say ‘no one forsaw the rise of ruthless, greedy corporations and the damage they would cause’
The last paragraph about foreign ownership is interesting. A small nod towards the idea that free enterprise is not always what it is cracked up to be. Sometimes protection for an industry is essential.
July 24, 2024
Corporatism is the anthesis of capitalism, and when we speak of ‘privatisation’ we really mean ‘run by capitalist companies’.
We have to sell everything we can to fund all the money the Government gives to other countries and the ‘remittances home’ of the aliens who live in the U.K. but send the money ‘home’. I know what I am talking about. I lived in a foreign country which had draconian exchange control measures. I had to post our capital home to England in cash, wrapped in carbon paper, and with no return address.
July 24, 2024
‘ ‘no one foresaw the rise of militant unions and the damage they would cause’.
I burst out laughing.
ERR.. Print unions way back with closed shops, Motor production – British Leyland / BMC strikes, docks, mining, steel !!
July 24, 2024
‘was in a perilous condition and required much investment’
An apt description of our water companies under privatisation who consider dividends and bosses pay more important than maintaining clean water and rivers and beaches for now and the future. They now want big increases in prices to pay for the dividends they have given away. They should be bankrupted and nationalised at no cost. They should pay a penalty, not be bailed out by the customers. Should never have been privatised in the first place but of course it was, purely for Tory dogma that private always good, nationalised (owned by the people who pay for it) always bad. JR still believes this. It was a con all along, they sold us shares in something we already owned and they ended up in largely in foreign hands as was always foreseeable.
July 24, 2024
Graham
The Water companies were a failing business that required a massive investment before they were privatised.
Indeed one could say they were a Government run basket case, where more investment was required than they would ever get back. But what price do you put o9n health, too much I guess, hence why the government gave them away.
People complain about pollution in Rivers but that is how the system was designed to operate in times of heavy rain when it was designed, it was either that or let it back up into homes and streets.
Short of a complete renewal of all pipework and a redesign of the original system, they will continue to fail for many years yet.
If you want a better service, then the price has to rise for providing it, be it either customers or taxpayers.
The big problem has been its capacity to cope has been overloaded with a growing population and more building, at the same time as its pipework needs a vast amount of replacing.
July 24, 2024
Neglect by successive governments is the reason, not a failure of business. Billions have been syphoned off in divis which could have gone a long way a long time ago to renewing things. They’ve had 30 years to get something done and look at where we are, the worst service in history – how long do you think we should stick with it, 100 years, 200? Proper investment at the proper time is the answer as with most of these things, railways, NHS, etc. Our local hospital is going to be closed down because it was neglected for 20 years of routine maintenance and is now too expensive to refurbish and the patient suffers. Same old same old.
July 24, 2024
Water provision and sewerage and treatment were in dire condition when they were privatised because there had been many decades of underinvestment while in state ownership. It was always easy to defer spending a year, and then another and another because the decay was gradual, with only the occasional burst pipe as a reminder.
Privatisation enabled the start of significant catch-up investment, which was making progress until the EU Water Directives intervened, requiring water rationing rather than adding to supply, and for high cost ways of tackling problems, amplified by imposed environmental neglect that increased flood risk.
Regulation opted to cut spending and impose tight limits based on ZIRP assumptions about funding costs in limiting returns. We should start by repealing the the EU law and replacing it with a more sensible basis for regulation. Ideally we should look to restore something more akin to the early privatised regime so that problems get proper prioritisation.
July 24, 2024
It wasn’t just militant unions that gave British Rail problems. It was the whole ethos of being a state run industry. The people working in it don’t feel answerable to the customers they’re supposed to serve and there’s no motivation to doing their best. You just get mediocre working.
Anyone working in the railways, if they had a good idea, well they are best advised to keep it to themselves. If it was implemented, they could be sure someone else would take the credit and there would be no advantage to them. Indeed, on the principle everyone hates a smart-arse, it would be in their best interest to say nothing.
Privately owned railways fare no better. Again the workers aren’t answerable to the customers and they will just keep their heads down, do the minimum and hope no one notices their indolence.
How about the railways owned by the customers, with partial shareholding of the employees as well? Has anyone tried that?
July 24, 2024
Dear MarkB,
The same is true of the UK’s nuclear power. Privatised by the British Government then renationalised by the French Government, courtesy of Gordon Brown of “cut-price gold for sale” fame. Perhaps EDF should be branded as Great French Energy.
July 24, 2024
Good Morning,
When essential services, such as rail, no longer work as normal commercial corporations, what is the alternative to public ownership?
The railways started as corporations, went bust, were taken over by government, then ‘partially privatised’, have gone bust again, and now you say public ownership is an error. Well, do we repeat again?
Think again.
Reply They were worse and much dearer when fully nationalised
July 24, 2024
Sir JRs response not a good one. Less worst. Somewhat limited in ambition but typical of politicians. ‘You are going to die but the good news is that it is slower than first thought’
The railways will be a financial stone around our necks however you spin the politics. High fixed running costs plus a bottomless pit of infrastructure needs, repair/upgrade etc against a declining income base.
Economic disaster. At least nationalisation puts it in the category of a social service like buses and we can directly blame government for failures rather than the smoke and mirrors of the Tories.
Reply I am not a politician any more
July 24, 2024
Railways have failed to adapt. As more people choose to work from home, so the number of commuters decline. The rail companies need to adapt their model to replace those who are working from home.
During the day, many trains are running almost empty but, the companies do nothing to attract day trippers.
Even with a railcard, train travel is very expensive. Off peak fares need to come down to encourage us to take day trips into cities and down to the coast etc.
Rail freight is almost non existent. Why not put freight back on the railways?
Successive governments have talked about integrated transport systems, but that’s all it’s been: talk. Let’s do it and make it happen.
July 24, 2024
reply to reply… Politician ‘a person who is professionally involved in politics, (especially) not only as a holder of an elected office.’
What is this blog then?
Reply It is an independent commentary on the economy and government
July 24, 2024
Mickey the critical word is ‘professional’. We actually need to be rid of the professional politicians and go back to the part times of very high quality.
July 24, 2024
They were indeed far worse under full nationalisation. But they were privatised incompetently and regulated incompetently too.
July 24, 2024
“Do not speculate” say the Police and MoD endlessly (this time over the stabbing of a man in uniform in London yesterday).
Speculate is what I do until I get the full facts. I shall speculate as much as I like and resent being told not to.
to speculate verb – form a theory or conjecture about a subject without firm evidence.
If they want us to stop speculating the government, police, MoD… should give us the full facts as soon as they can do and stop lying or hiding things. This on crimes, vaccine harms, Covid 19 lab origins, crime statistics properly broken down, immigration levels and costs, child grooming… and just stop lying to us massaging, lying & hiding the truth.
July 24, 2024
I dispute that. I went to school using British Rail and the underground every day for seven years. I was very rarely late. I commuted into central London for many years, again, rarely had issues. And most people would agree there have been above inflation fare rises for decades – so, how can fares be dearer now?
Reply I used to commute into London by train. Endless stories of delays and cancellations.
July 24, 2024
Edit – how could fares be cheaper now? Most people think rail fares are absurdly expensive now.
July 24, 2024
Mke
Not so expensive if you travel out of commuter hours, and are an expert in Ticket pricing.
Unfortunately many of us do not have the knowledge or time to play around on the internet to get split ticket type prices.
Common-sense would suggest that one ticket to a destination should be cheaper than four, or half a dozen, from different split tickets over the same route. Unfortunately that is not the case most of the time.
Ticketing is far far too complicated for what should be a simple hop on hop off type of service, good grief you even have to book a train time now if planning a journey in advance, and then pay a penalty if you are delayed at your venue.
July 24, 2024
Hi Alan – I’m basing my ticket price observations on people I have seen interviewed on the box after the latest rail fare hike. These are commuters who say their fare has just gone up to some astronomical sum – meaning getting to work is a significant portion of their pay. I don’t use the trains myself any more. Cattle get treated better from what I can make out. Lots of stories of people having their train cancelled and then having to pile on the next one and stand from Edinburgh to London in a sweat box.
July 24, 2024
Compare real-terms prices I.e exclude inflation.
Mike you are a wonderfully lucky person. The only one I know who had no problems using the railways, so, you are a 66million to 1 winner!
I got sick of paying full fares and standing all the way from London to Manchester or Bristol amongst the baggage. And jolting and you were falling over it.
July 24, 2024
Well, I and Peter (comment below) had few issues. None of the hundreds of lads I went to school with, many of whom came from all over West London, had many problems. The simple fact is that in the 1960s and 1970s (which is when I am talking about) the trains were (largely) reliable and, definitely, sensibly priced.
July 24, 2024
Mike Wilson,
Agreed. I also used trains to get to school and trains to commute into Central London. It was a good service. There were more trains per hour and a later service out of London Waterloo.
The fares were also affordable. Internal flights never undercut rail fares.
July 24, 2024
How old are you Peter, were these steam trains? 😂🤣
July 24, 2024
In the late 1950s / early 1960s I used to go train spotting. Local services on the Paddington to Bristol line were generally multiple units. The expresses that thundered past on the outside two rails were usually steam. Some of the expresses were diesel but, boy, the sight, sound and smells of a Hall or County class going through was something else.
July 24, 2024
A little anecdote. I had a few beers after work one evening and, tired but happy, got a train from Paddington. I rang my wife from the station to arrange a pick-up and said ‘I’ll be at West Drayton at 7.30’. I woke with a start as the train pulled into Iver station – one station past my stop. I let loose a silent expletive or two and jumped off the train. I couldn’t believe my luck – a train was arriving on the opposite platform. ‘Great, I’ll only be a few minutes late’, I thought. I legged over to the other platform, jumped on the train feeling very pleased with myself. Hopefully, not too much of a bollocking from the wife for being late. A few minutes later the train pulled into the next station. It should have been West Drayton. I alighted from the train and was very bewildered to find it was Langley – which was the next station in the opposite direction. I thought to myself ‘what the f***?’. I couldn’t work out what the hell had happened. I went into the nearest pub, rang my wife and said; ‘There is something weird going on. I’m in Langley. I can’t work out what is going on.’ Not only was I in the wrong place, I seemed to have lost an hour and a half as it was then past 9 o’clock. She came and picked me up. Even the next morning I couldn’t fathom it. But a friend did. It seems that, tired but happy, I had slept on the train all the way to Slough. There the train turned around after a while and started the return journey to Paddington. When I woke with a start at Iver, if I had just stayed on the train, the next station would have been my destination. Lesson learned. Don’t fall asleep on trains. Still, at least I still had my wallet.
July 24, 2024
You could actually sleep for the night at Guildford and Tonbridge if you missed the last train back. Trains were parked up overnight on the platforms. It was just a question of sneaking back onto one. Comfortable first class carriages on the Tonbridge trains too.
Probably possible to do this at many other stations back in the day.
July 24, 2024
When I moved to Richmond I chose there partly because it offered the alternatives of Overground, Underground and in extremis bus or even taxi to get to and from central London. I was immediately faced with signalmen’s strikes that shut all the rail options and clogged the alternatives with traffic and hopeless undercapacity on the buses for months. Public transport to airports was very slow and didn’t allow catching an early flight.
July 24, 2024
reply to reply…yes and I saw you a few times on the way to Wokingham, I travelled further.
Sometimes I got on at Waterloo, others Clapham. A distressed crowd was normal waiting for a late platform to Reading and then the crowd surged. Not pretty.
July 24, 2024
I’m talking about the 1960s and 1970s. Things were okay then. Occasional strike, admittedly. I could count on one hand the number of times a train delay caused me to be late for school in 7 years. After you had privatised in 1994 admittedly it went downhill a lot then.
Reply I’m talking about BR in 1970s and 1980 s
July 24, 2024
Tube was often running when trains were on strike and vice versa. So you could switch between them. Parking near stations was a lot easier then too.
In the Great Storm of 1987, when much public transport was not running, the firm paid for taxis.
July 24, 2024
JR, reply: Villers lost £43 million on one franchise when in charge! Is that good management? When private taxpayer subsidise but they share holders got profits. Not good.
I note protests in Ireland forcibly stopped. Govt. Was warned by its advisors not to force mass immigration upon the people and stop them having any say locally where they would be housed!
Sounds like Rayner’s plan to stop any local objection and forced mass immigration across the country. Let us hope this will cause civil disobedience to oust Labour.
July 24, 2024
+1 but It might well I suspect.
July 24, 2024
Hope,
Perhaps Irish protesters may take note of the effectiveness of Loyalist protesters in dealing with asylum seekers in Northern Ireland?
Perhaps Irish protesters will in future work with the big criminal gangs to resolve the issue? Like drug dealing used to be tackled when the IRA looked to keeping their neighbourhoods clean, as well as pursuing a war.
Political violence will inevitably increase.
July 24, 2024
Reply yo reply. Worse and Dearer? You are joking of course. I travelled from East Anglia to London daily for many years during the seventies and the service was reliable.
July 24, 2024
Agreed, also the fares were comprehensible. And at most stations there were staff around to assist and advise.
July 24, 2024
Normal train fairs seems to be about £1 a mile with about another £1 a mile in tax payer subsidy with little tax on this. A full car is about 1/20 of this per person mile goes door to door (so fewer miles too). Plus the car pays load of tax in to government. Yet the government still think trains are more efficient and more CO2 efficient – this is total drivel in general when staff, track maint., average occupancy, ticketing, end connections are considered.
July 24, 2024
“Labour think nationalisation is a better answer than free enterprise” – awww bless.
What will Labour do when it runs out of other people’s money?
July 24, 2024
Borrow and pass the bill to future generations. Just like the Not-a-Conservative-Party has been doing.
July 24, 2024
Borrow, piss down the drain, give to crony capitalists, mates, net zero scammers or criminals and pass the bill on to future generations!
July 24, 2024
LL,
Drains make a reappearance in your posts. A one time certainty for players of Lifelogic bingo. Now relegated behind Covid, net zero. ‘X is surely right in today’s Telegraph’ etc.
July 24, 2024
They’ve not run out of money yet, they’re coming for your savings and pension!
Government increased the national debt last quarter, and with higher, wasteful spending in Labour’s plans, they will borrow more and tax more. With increased borrowing so the cost of borrowing will also increase, which means inflation will increase. We’re heading for a disaster.
July 24, 2024
‘Fix the roof when the sun shines’, Labour are going to have to do it in the rain, or not at all.
July 24, 2024
Which will be very soon indeed as all their policies (except relaxing planning) are anti-growth. Higher tax rates from the current position will raise less tax revenue not more in the long run. It will merely encourage rich and hard working people to leave or live on benefits & cheat the system, go black market or criminal.
July 24, 2024
What will they do ?
Raise taxes even more, or borrow in your name. All Governments have done the same for decades.
July 24, 2024
An argument nobly put. However to the best of my extensive rail knowledge the only rail operator brought under govt control was GNER into East Coast Trains at the time. That was in addition to the Railtrack debacle of course where privatised maintenance companies were simply cutting corners and necessitated the creation of a state owned infrastructure company Network Rail.
The reality is sadly that private industry cannot be trusted to behave responsibly when given control of critical state assets. The results are everywhere.. assisted by watchdogs unfit for purpose and a govt that was more interested in big business than the consumer – it is without doubt that the privatisation programme over the past 35 years has been a disaster.
Reply There was no need to nationalise Railtrack. There were bad safety problems and crashes under nationalisation.
July 24, 2024
The reality is that the public and political sectors cannot be trusted to behave responsibly when they take control of critical state assets either.
Why is that?
What can be done?
July 24, 2024
@Dixie
Yep.
A business benefits from speedy accountability and incentivisation (reward or dismissal).
Nationalisation and the involvement of politicians and bureaucrats is generally not a good idea.
However, this is more difficult where a critical business is lossmaking and needs regular taxpayer money.
In the interest of accountability maybe there should therefore be full public transparency of:
*finances and
*the amount of taxpayer money paid (say) each month and
*the reasons for decisions
July 24, 2024
Interesting view. Would that be why the NHS achieves so much better health outcomes than all those countries around the world which rely on private operators – the Nordic countries, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia etc etc?
July 24, 2024
I take it that you a jesting, Richard. NHS having a good outcome — Nah!
Never !!
July 24, 2024
Well spotted
July 24, 2024
Over generalisation. Our telecoms industry has been held back for decades by the dead hand of BTs monopoly and public sector culture plus pension liabilities overhang.
Your so called reality conveniently overlooks the vast level of under investment whilst in government hands. Water/gas and of course the railways, utterly disgraceful. We have been running budget deficits for decades so where is the money going to come from?
So no investment or the demands of private capital? Yes regulators should have been more demanding but, whoops they are public sector, hardly a good advertisement and if they are too demanding capital does not come.
Finally their track record, no pun intended, of large project management is appalling so let’s give them more to waste?
July 24, 2024
AJ,
Correct. Chancers cutting corners and focussed primarily on making big money – leaving passengers and government to foot the bill.
Coupled with the complete destruction of the amassed knowledge of those who worked in the industry all their lives.
Out goes full training and a sense of being a railwayman, with the idea of how a countrywide system should be properly run.
In come niche markets – there for the short term focussed on huge government subsidies and ‘make hay while the sun shines’.
July 24, 2024
And government employees don’t cut corners? They takes their wages whether the job is done or not and the Government carry the can.
In a capitalist world the company delivers or it is liable for the costs of failure.
That’s the difference.
Authority married (shackled) to Responsibility = delivery at the right price.
Anything else = failure, bankruptcy and starvation.
July 24, 2024
LA,
In the current rail set up companies are NOT liable for the cost of failure. They take a big subsidy. They may deliver a substandard service.
If the government wishes to get rid of them, they often find there no other franchisees to replace them. All the companies know this, so they are not bothered by failure. If it doesn’t suit they may pack it in anyway. Aviva in Wales did just that.
Government has little back up when rail firms down tools. All the old railway expertise is long gone now. We don’t even manufacture the rolling stock anymore.
July 24, 2024
“The last Conservative government gave up on making the case for free enterprise…….”
These words summarise the problem. The last Conservative government was not a Conservative government. It should be little wonder that so many people gave up voting for them.
July 24, 2024
Indeed they only sounded slightly Conservative before the last five elections. Promising to limit immigration, cut taxes, grow the economy & cut red tape, They did the complete reverse after all four elections. Cast iron Dave even pretended to be an EUsceptic and low tax at heart Conservative. Osborne promised us IHT thresholds of £1M each it is still £325k now worth circa £200k (itvis more like $10m in the USA.
Nationalisation will be a disaster, but then as we see with the banks, water, energy, the NHS, NHS dentistry, vaccine regulation/MRHA… government regulators are dire at their jobs too. They cannot even sensible regulate things let alone run things. Look to at all the duff nearly worthless degrees people get into £50k of debt for.
Almost everything Labour are pushing will be a disaster for growth and for the economy.
Net Zero and climate alarmism perhaps the biggest one. But the Conservative and Labour both idiotically did promise this economic and pointless vandalism in their manifesto’s.
July 24, 2024
Other government regulatory failures:- Equitable life, the banking crash/RBS/Natwest, Tesco, Water, BR, Energy & Net Zero, Trains, Buses, Energy regulation, the NHS, the FCA, HS2, Millennium Dome, Test and Trace, our rather dire legal system… They can neither run things not competently regulate thinks. Vast levels of of waste, crony capitalism, corruption, incompetence, indifference…
July 24, 2024
Only slightly Conservative just before elections serial liars in their 5 manifestos. Yet they expected us to vote for them yet again!
July 24, 2024
A Conservative government. A much over used cliche.
July 24, 2024
Only Thatcher was really a Conservative in my lifetime and even she made very many errors. From Heath to Sunak all the rest have been truly appalling soft tax to death socialists in essence. Even Thatcher fell for the ERM/Euro and Climate Alarmist Scam, close loads of excellent Grammar schools and left the NHS unreformed.
July 24, 2024
Heath was elected on a pure, unadulterated Conservative Manifesto.
There were always many many true Conservatives in the House, including the DUP members.
How things have changed.
July 24, 2024
The last Tory govt was obsessed to close down national security manufacturing and jobs moving them east to hostile China who wants to dominate the world! Lammy off to increase mass immigration from coal fired power India where son in law Sunak left off! Absolutely no difference in Tory Labour parties.
July 24, 2024
Agreed, and Cleverly promises to put aside the fratricidal divisions and ‘unite the party’.
Well he can’t. I’m not uniting with the globalists and anti-conservatives at any price.
July 25, 2024
Formidable intelligent lady, good luck.
July 24, 2024
Suella Braverman has said parties should “come together in the spirit of compassion and common sense” as she called for an end to the two-child benefit cap. The new Labour Government has faced pressure from charities, opposition parties and some backbenchers to abolish the limit. I tend to agree with Suella and indeed John McDonnell and Corbyn on something for once.
I do not think many people are deterred from more children by this rule and once borne it is not right to punich the children. So much other fat that can go to pay for it. It is not that expensive.
July 24, 2024
In my opinion, It is the attraction of the welfare state that brings all the trash to our shores.
It all should stop, lets get back to the basics, earn any money — no hand outs. If you dont earn it then do without! OR go find some other mugs to squeeze
July 24, 2024
You want to give more money to the foreigners who don’t work at all. Impoverishing our own people so they can’t afford any children at all?
July 24, 2024
The NHS shows what happens in nationalised industries – poor service, strikes and political posturing by the unions, wasteful spending, a proliferation of purely administrative jobs, lack of accountability, run for the benefit of the employees not the users, innovation and productivity stifled, and the Government gets all the blame. But I think each generation needs to find all this out for themselves in practice so the next 5-10 years of Labour provide that opportunity with rail (and the bus companies ?) particularly.
July 24, 2024
“ Braverman said the cap was pushing more children ‘into relative poverty’ and the Conservatives should be ‘proudly … the party of family’. Suella Braverman has said parties should “come together in the spirit of compassion and common sense” as she called for an end to the two-child benefit cap.” I agree few are deterred from having more children by this nasty rule & it is affordable. So much other fat to be cut.
So I find myself on the side of Braverman, Corbyn and John McDonnell. Lord Blunket as usual is wrong. It is affordable and quite wrong to punish these children – it is not their fault.
Blunket
July 24, 2024
I disagree with all that , I firmly believe in sink or swim! If you have to struggle for a living , it will stop you wasting income.
July 24, 2024
The evidence and statistics suggest that the lack of support for the third child etc. has had almost no effect in deterring women from having them compared to the situation before this came in. It seems there are about 1.5 million for them now that get no support. So you just end up punishing the innocent children. If it did deter significantly that might be rather different. Far better things to save money on so much fat in Government is available to be cut.
July 24, 2024
As a consumer the frustration is with monopolies in any form whether it is the rubbish service and high costs of governments or rubbish quality of foods from supermarkets. This is exacerbated by allowing foreign commercial or government interests to take over UK companies and corporations who have even less loyalty to UK customers and taxpayers than UK interests, which is clearly at a very low level.
July 24, 2024
I second all that Dixie!
July 24, 2024
The railways are a 19th century means for transporting people from A to B. Their structure doesn’t work well for transporting people in the 21st century where fewer people just want to go from A to B. They need to go from A to F, or M or Q … ie not a direct journey from one town to another. The only circumstances where the A to B journey still applied was the daily commute but the Government blew that up with the Covid tyranny and working from home.
Whether nationalised or privatised, the railway is never going to make a profit if the business model is based on transporting people. It needs to become a freight transit system to reduce the number of HGVs on the roads. That means building regional freight transit hubs.
EU political priorities in the form of HS2 have cost us £billions to build a train line intended to transport relatively few people at speed, which had no prospect of ever making a profit. The truncated version, from Nearly-Birmingham to Not-Quite-London is a pointless face-saver. It should have been scrapped completely and the Government could and should have spent that money modernising and improving the network to carry freight, including automating it to reduce the salary costs.
But the “war on the car” and trying to force people off the roads rather than HGVs takes priority with the Westminster Uni-Party. So whether it’s privatised or nationalised, the railway will never make a profit and why would a private business want to take on a railway which will never make a profit?
July 24, 2024
It is down to the management ability and mindset of those working in an industry as to whether it works or not. Then you have to combine it with what happens if mindset and management get it wrong. Privatised industry goes bust and ceases to trade. Nationalised industry runs to government with a begging bowl and gets deeper into the red. The other burden on nationalised industry is that politicians control the business plan and very few of them can run a pissup in a brewery.
UK politicians come in two categories. Those that, mid to end career feel obligated to contribute to society as a payback for their success, and those best described as career politicians who have never tested themselves in the real world. In our Parliament the latter category are in the overwhelming majority. Ask yourselves, are individuals who aspire to £85,000 pa plus perks and expenses fit to run a national enterprise, having failed or even tried to run anything comparable in the real world of private enterprise. I would back the “Pimlico Plumbers” creator against ” Uni, Gopher, or Union Motormouth to MP any day. Being an MP is like the golf handicap system, it gives the also rans the illusion they can play golf. Okay for golf, but useless for running the country or a nationalised industry. Real golfers disdain handicaps and can earn millions.
I concede that possibly, in other parts of the world, with a totally different mindset, a nationalised industry may work well. Japanese railways are, from a customers standpoint, a superb service. What they really cost the taxpayer I know not, but for customer satisfaction they are untouchable, and the japanese are justifiably proud of their railways. They seem to mix private with nationalised in a seemless way, but that is the japanese, not the british. Our talents lie in other directions, but the little people of government fail to recognise this and stiffle enterprise in any form in the UK, resulting in the expensive dump we live in.
July 24, 2024
Another day and 20 entries moderated from the “Oracle”. Just a touch less than 30% of everything moderated to date. Time for yet another meaningless missive on shortness,
relevance, and frequency.
July 24, 2024
It strikes me that no commercial enterprise would ever have created a national grid that would take power from power stations to EVERY house in every town, village, hamlet and lane in the country. Same for gas, water and telephone. Whether you pay a private or nationalised organisation seems to make little difference. The private company needs profits for shareholders and the nationalised organisation is never efficient. The common denominator is government which seems to be incapable of managing the process.
July 24, 2024
To generalise – “Commercial enterprise would ever have created a national coverage service that would tbe delivered to EVERY house in every town, village, hamlet and lane in the country.”
Except they have in telephone plus mobile, TV, radio and internet services.
In the case of mobile services and the internet the coverage is effectively planet wide.
Private transport also relies on a national grid of fuel supply that was created by the private sector.
What of the canals?
You don’t need government to do things at national and greater scale, just the right motivation.
July 24, 2024
British Telecom was nationalised when it put a phone line into every house that wanted one. TV was over air. The internet until recently ran over the phone lines. Even now, fibre is a slow roll out and if you are up a country lane on your own you’ll never get it. Mobile just needs masts, not a cable to every house. Radio was over air.
July 25, 2024
To pick on one point mobile does not “just need masts” it required a backhaul network to be built, usually cable/fibre based, with connections to a network of specialised telecoms switches and systems. The prime mover for these networks varied by country.
To say no commercial organisation would ever (or has ever) build at national or greater scale coverage is false.
July 24, 2024
You don’t know that the Royal Mail did this? Indeed they had 3 deliveries a day to every home in the land. You could post cream! It arrived fresh and intact.
You don’t know any facts, that’s why you are so confused.
Did you know that before the NHS was established most healthcare in the U.K. was free of charge? On top of that the quality of the medical care was unequalled on earth. We invented plastic surgery, we undertook complex operations for TB and kept the patients in hospital sometime for years to convalesce. All free of charge.
You need to try reading a bit.
July 24, 2024
When Dixie wrote: “would (n)ever have created a national coverage service that would be delivered to EVERY house in every town, village, hamlet and lane in the country”, he was responding to my post about the delivery of gas, phone, water and electricity services. He did not mean a nationwide delivery service of, for example, letters or parcels. As an aside, Evri do the parcel thing very well.
July 25, 2024
You are mistaken – I was referring to large scale service delivery where power is a specific instance.
July 24, 2024
Another nationalised basket case the NHS.
Wes Streeting said that junior doctors made a “reasonable case” that their pay had not kept up in line with inflation, but said that their request for a 35% uplift was not affordable.
Indeed it has fallen be 35% in real terms, taxes nave risen and interest on student debts have too.
Even if junior had a 35% pay increase from £35,000 gross they would still not have enough to live on and rent a small room in London. This as so many have student debt of circa £100k and interest on this of £7k PA. Do the simple maths Wes. Most could easily fine jobs in the city or law on double the pay! Most like the job but they do need to have enough to live on and repay the student debt.
July 24, 2024
@ Lifelogic “…their request for a 35% uplift was not affordable” – perhaps Streeting would not be saying that were funding available from doing away with all child benefit?
July 24, 2024
Of course it is. Sack the presenters on their massive salaries at the BBC and pay the junior doctors properly. Get rid of the House of Lords and pay the junior doctors properly. One could go on, but you know as well as I do that the government wastes half the money they get off us.
July 24, 2024
The privatised water/sewage dumping industry is a great success, right? Some industries would definitely be better off back in public ownership
July 24, 2024
If Ofwat had done its job properly, the privatised water/sewerage system might have been better managed.
It hasn’t helped by the EU effectively banning the creation of new reservoirs for 30 years as our population was artificially grown by well over 10 million people
July 24, 2024
Not true, the EU Water Directive never prevented the UK from building dams. Internal UK (absence of) decisions did.
How do you explain that Austria could recently build the Limberg and the Kopswerk reservoirs, Switzerland its Ruppoldingen power plant?
And what of the water hydropower and reservoir developments in Austria, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Romania these last 30 years (publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu 2023 ‘Hydropower and pumped hydropower storage in the European Union’, JRC134918, 83pp, look at Fig.5 p.19).
As so many here you have been swallowing ‘the EU prevents us to do this’ mantra when, under various colours of UK government, UK politics/economics-based decisions resulted in the slow/negligible development of infrastructure.
July 24, 2024
Not all are equal in the EU. For instance it did not shut down the rolling mills in Spain etc. It shut down ours (by allocating a quota that was impossible to deliver – too small and you can’t stop and start a rolling mill) the same strategy was used against British fishermen. Their allocation was insufficient to keep the boat at sea. So they had to seek their tiny quota. Our milk quota forced farmers to pour milk down the drain and we had to import to satisfy demand.
Did you not know this?
Did you really think that the U.K. was on equal terms with the ‘favoured core’?
July 24, 2024
+1
July 24, 2024
Do you have any evidence, or a link, for that?
July 24, 2024
Or perhaps better still with just some competent government regulation. If Gov. are so grossly incompetent at regulation why do you think they could run it better and self regulate? Look at the NHS!
July 24, 2024
Britain has ‘private’ railway companies which receive enormous taxpayer subsidies. In the 2022/23 financial year, for example, the foreign companies owning South Western Trains, Avanti West Coast, Thameslink, and other rail franchises paid their shareholders a combined £69.5m in dividends in 2022-23, despite receiving hundreds of millions in government subsidy. If they’re privately owned, why are they state-supported? If they’re nationalised, why are they distributing profits to shareholders?
July 24, 2024
@ Hat man – You have a point although it could be said that the capital that funds the railway companies were it borrowings from banks would see equivalent interest paid. Were public funds to replace in future the private equity provided now, then, if properly accounted for, amounts closely matching the present dividends ought to be charged as interest by the Exchequer. Recall that the market in which the railway companies operate is controlled in nearly all aspects by the government so the rewards that equity might hope for normally from acting in a free market are largely or wholly denied to it.
July 24, 2024
It was reported this March that Firstgroup shares were up 57% over the past year. £67 million was paid out to shareholders. (Firstgroup jointly owns Avanti.) I wonder about the equity ‘rewards’ that you say the company’s dividend-clippers are being deprived of.
Are you aware that in January an internal Avanti presentation reportedly described how ‘the Treasury and Department for Transport supported the firm with taxpayers’ money, provided third-party suppliers and inspections, and then paid Avanti fees on top’? (Guardian 16th Jan. 2-24)
I don’t get the impression that railway company managers are complaining about not operating in a free market.
July 24, 2024
Nationalised industries are notorious loss makers because their political masters are unwilling/afraid to let them go bust. They are all too ready to prop up their loss making with other people’s cash forcibly raised through taxation. A loss making private business can survive only if it has cash reserves in hand to cover the losses or can persuade shareholders to risk paying in new cash to fund continuing operations. Such new funding is often dependent on radical restructuring and a change in management. It is the discipline of the market place versus political fudge. I doubt that the new, politically driven venture such as Great British Energy will fare any better especially as it will be pouring cash into inherently expensive means of generating energy.
July 24, 2024
I remember the wonderful Lee Kuan Yew who built Singapore on the legacy left by UK when it withdrew from the Far East in 1966/7. I wonder if a similar figure might ever arise in British politics. Rebuilding is certainly required but too many seem not to know it. The UK’s political elites still seem to believe the UK would be better governed by foreigners. They may well be right. But not, please, the unaccountable anti-democratic EU. Perhaps a military coup for a fixed term of five years.
July 24, 2024
And John James Cowperthwaite
Former Financial Secretary of Hong Kong
July 25, 2024
+1
He is my economic guru :o)
He left the Hong Kong Chinese to just ‘get on with it’
July 24, 2024
The National Audit Office has confirmed that the fossil fuel industry’s carbon capture and storage scam – involving government subsidy of an eye-watering £630m – has been wasted; the technology is years from working
Unbelievably, the last government had intended to put £20bn into this unproven scheme and the NAO has now confirmed that even larger sums will be needed. CCS is supposed to strip CO2 emissions from power stations and factories that burn fossil fuels
In practice, however, no-one has succeeded in developing a full-scale operating CCS system – partly because of engineering problems but also because of the huge costs, as vast amounts of additional energy are needed to extract, compress and transport the CO2.
The fossil fuel industry’s attempt to soak up taxpayers money for this blatant scam is designed to divert money that could be invested in more renewables. Labour should scrap it
July 24, 2024
Yes, what a huge waste of money. And all because climate zealots like you, SG, insisted on burdening us with your eco-lunacy, and succeeded in capturing successive governments to get what you wanted.
July 24, 2024
Indeed Carbon (CO2 actually) capture is a scam. This as there is no point at all in wasting money capturing net good CO2 plant tree and crop food. The technology can work but it wastes loads of the energy and costs a fortune for zero benefit.
July 24, 2024
We are agreed SG – carbon capture is a complete waste of money. We differ on the reason why though.
July 24, 2024
Do you have a plan for the transition to net zero. I’d love to hear it. So would our politicians. They don’t have one.
July 24, 2024
SG :
You’re absolutely right! CC(U)S doesn’t work! However, the only reason for its requirement is to provide a hydrocarbon fuelled back-up for renewables!
Without some form of storage (50 TWhrs (electrical) according to the Royal Society’s Large-Scale Electricity Storage’ report) electricity from renewables would be chaotically intermittent. So the plan is either to make CC(U)S work using gas (whilst Labour intend to close down our own supply of gas) or use hydrogen as a means of storage. Again, the Royal Society’s report calculates that this will double the price of the electricity from renewables.
[The cost of batteries for 50 TWhrs (electrical) is about £20 trillion.]
The current price of gas generated electricity is £50-£60/MWhr. The price offered for the next CfD contracts are £88/MWhr for onshore wind, £100/MWhr for fixed offshore wind, and for floating offshore wind, recommended by SKS at his GB Energy speech in Scotland, £242/MWhr.
July 24, 2024
I agree that Carbon Capture and Storage is still a long way from successful implementation SG
Governments are over excited at it’s potential.
But many big companies investing in this area have nothing to do with fossil fuel companies.
This link shows the top ten
I don’t see any obvious names.
https://www.blackridgeresearch.com/blog/list-of-global-top-carbon-capture-ccs-ccus-companies-equipment-makers-manufacturers-suppliers-in-the-world
July 24, 2024
HRH King Charles is known to be enamoured of the green persuasion. Solar panels have now been fitted to the roof of Windsor Castle for the first time, as part of a royal eco-drive that will also turn the state cars fully electric.
Roof-mounted photovoltaic panels have been installed on the Lord Chamberlain’s Upper Store as part of a project to replace its old, leaking lead roof.
The King’s state Bentleys will also be converted to biofuel this year, with a view to one day being replaced with fully electric alternatives.
These progressive nature-positive measures, which include replacing gas lanterns with electrical fittings and using sustainable aviation fuel for the Royal Family’s helicopters, are part of a long-term sustainability initiative by the King. If only his NIMBY subjects were equally enamoured of renewable energy
July 24, 2024
If my household budget had increased by £46 Million SG – I might consider converting my car to bio-fuel too.
I might even buy a helicopter as well. I wonder if my local Tesco would let me build a helipad in the car park?
July 24, 2024
And that’s to go along with two new solar powered helicopters…
July 24, 2024
The King is fortunate to have access to substantial funds that he can waste on green vanity projects. An indulgence that only the very rich can afford. Meanwhile the Royal Flight will doubtless account for most if he’s travel miles.
July 24, 2024
Let’s put one of his own wind farms in the garden of Buck House, Highgrove and Balmoral. Some high voltage cables across the roofs of his homes. Some mass housing for asylum seekers at the bottom of his driveways. He did not seem to like having a foreigner living in close proximity – poor Meghan! Then I will be prepared to concede that HM is not a NIMBY.
July 24, 2024
Many of King Charles’s ‘NIMBY’ subjects, as you call them, SG, can’t afford to carry out these virtue-signalling actions, or anything like them. Still, they’ll no doubt be pleased to hear the royal Bentleys (plural, I note) will be powered by biofuel grown where food could have been grown. They may be among the 1.3 million people on council waiting lists, who don’t have any say about whether there are solar panels are over their heads or not, as long as they can get a roof over their heads at all. They may be wondering why nearly the same number of (il)legal migrants came to live in this country last year. Others may wonder who got the 231,000 new houses built last year, and who we actually needed them for. They’re your NIMBYs, I suppose.
July 24, 2024
It also helps that HM’s eco-farm and farm shop is staffed by volunteers. A group of Welsh Farmers went on a visit. HM was instructing them on how to run a farm, they said it would be a lot easier if they had no employment costs, also HM (then the PoW)had a single Welsh Black. That ruffled a few feathers.
July 24, 2024
Thank you! Just when I needed a good laugh, you provided it. Merci.
July 24, 2024
SG :
The subsidies given to wealthy people for green toys such as evs, solar panels and heat pumps should be called Sheriff of Nottingham subsidies as they are taxing the poor to subsidise the wealthy.
July 24, 2024
Sir John
The Health Service
Steel
Motor Industry
Coal
Rail
And so on and so on. All great and good companies until they were Nationalised by Labour
Then look at the successful majors in all these spheres all hailing from outside the UK, most are in private hands if not still with the original family that created them. You could also call them infinitely more dynamic and successful than their UK counterparts.
Government is incredibly rubbish at running business, they can’t even control, create real results from those entities under their management that they hand our taxpayer money too.
July 24, 2024
Sir John
Racheal Reeves is pushing for Laws to ensure the OBR is in charge of Government spending going forward, the aim being to remove those we elect from managing the country. Ensuring MP’s and the HoC becomes a redundant facility. She feels the OBR are the best at it with their infallible track record.(sarc)
So Great British Energy? Where is the OBR report? A spend for political nonsense reason of £8.3 Billion must surely have been evaluated by the best brains the State has to offer. £8.3 Billion of tax payer money that she has to now steal from the taxpayer. £8.3 Billion that has to be removed from the economy, from circulation.
Germany started a similar project in 2010 so far they have spent 0.5 trillion Euros (£420 Billion) on renewable energy plants, i.e. wind turbines, solar panels etc. This has reduced their consumption of fossil fuels from 79.6% to 79.3%, (0.3% saving at a cost of £420 Billion) according to the international energy Authority. – So what will just £8.3 Billion achieve?
July 24, 2024
She has her eyes firmly on our pension savings, will probably offer some tax relief if you purchase “bonds” in Great British Energy.
July 24, 2024
We need to elect the members of the OBR. They need to be personally liable for losses.
July 24, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – its a hidey hole, for the failed. How often has the OBR been correct? The ONS, The BoE? But yes, anywhere the taxpayers money flows should be democratically run by us all, either a Minister is 100% responsible and accountable for the results or the electorate is directly responsible. That is all Quangos, everything with their hand out, even the BBC that gets to tax us by Parliamentary Laws even when we are not interested in their output.
July 24, 2024
Stop watching live TV. Then you tell the Beeb you are send no more cheques.
We need to shine a light into the hide holes and demand accountability – we want to propose and vote for the members of same.
If Parliament does not want the Authority or Responsibility, that’s OK. We can put a cap on members of the Govt. and civil servants, the whole Treasury team has been made redundant for a start. Let’s sack ‘em.
We need democratic control of those who exercise our Sovereignty.
I suggest JR as Chairman of the OBR for a start. The forecasts would improve no end, and therefore also the budget. He would effectively be the Chancellor.
I’m beginning to warm to this.
July 25, 2024
Lynn,
It’s not just live TV it’s also live steaming, so if I want to watch the Post Office Enquiry live on YouTube I need to pay the BBC – That’s just wrong…
July 24, 2024
What can we expect of Great British Energy?
Answer:
A huge burden on the British taxpayer.
Fraud on the British people.
Higher energy bills.
Cronyism with high-paying jobs for politician’s friends and family.
Railroading their plans against the wishes of local communities.
July 24, 2024
@Christine – then look who they put in charge! £83 Billion of our tax pounds to do what he likes with.
July 24, 2024
correction £8.3 billion
July 24, 2024
I expect you can add in reduced pension returns on the forced purchase of bonds they issue.
July 24, 2024
Yep, yesterday they could only ask if you wanted a ‘smart-meter’ …tomorrow they demand that you have a ‘smart-meter’
July 24, 2024
Next time you want to buy a SMART device, REMEMBER the device is not the product YOU are. Forget SMART METERS
July 25, 2024
+1
July 24, 2024
“Why would Great British Energy do anything different?”
Great British Energy gives PM Starmer total power, a frightening prospect when in the hands of a PM whom we know puts ideology above everything else as we saw when answering a question as to whether or not he would use private medicine.
So PM Starmer will ensure that our electricity is decarbonised by 2030 as threatened even if it means applying the Conservative’s policy of explosively demolishing hydrocarbon fuelled power plants and leaving us with third world insufficient, expensive and chaotically intermittent electricity.
As I write the 30 GW of installed wind power is producing 1.1 GW of power, 3.6% of demand.
July 24, 2024
@Original Richard – Germany has been at it since 2010, they have spent £420 Billion (14 years at it) and reduced hydrocarbons by just 0.3%. So £83 Billion and 6 years? In the meantime we ramp up imports and increase World Hydrocarbons significantly, while ensuring money is removed from the UK and the UK can’t earn to replace its exported wealth.
Now Germany is waking up to the situation that all there wind power is able to be controlled externally and remotely by China – they make the kit with the embedded controls.
July 24, 2024
This from the MsM so take it which ever way you want – Ms Reeves is expected to lay out the results of a review of the government books, she could warn there is a black hole of £50billion in the finances, paving the way for tax increases.
Yet she has already committed without her compulsory OBR review to spend £83Billion on a nothing event to keep the Miliband quiet – this is followed up with Sadiq Khans demanding that the ‘UK taxpayer’ gives him £25Billion to pay for his election promises… where is the opposition, where is the questioning
July 24, 2024
IB :
I have to say I do not recognise the £83bn figure you’re quoting. I thought that Labour were promising to spend £28bn/year but this was reduced to just £8.3bn to be put into GB Energy?
Not that these figures are anywhere near sufficient if we are to have abundant and reliable electricity based upon renewables. The figure is more like £1tn to pay for all the wind turbines, solar panels, upgrades to both the national and all the local grids and, according to the Royal Society’s ‘Large-Scale Electricity Storage’ report, 50 TWhrs (electrical) of storage. Note that this 50 TWhrs is 200 times the figure that the National Grid ESO have put in their 2024 Future Energy Scenario for 2050.
BTW, 25% of Germany’s electricity is produced using coal, in fact lignite, considered the most polluting of energy sources. Gas is 15%.
July 24, 2024
I would love to know how that is proposed to be achieved. To store 50 TWhrs of energy in, for example, 100kw car batteries, you would need 500 million of them.
July 24, 2024
@Original Richard – you are correct £8.3 Billion. Looks like I have repeated that mistake elsewhere. Then again Germany with out any legal requirement has spent £420 Billion and hardly changed a thing so the prospect of £8.3 Billion doing anything other than wreck the economy is wishful thinking.
Yes Germany is using its own resources were it can, not being forced to import and create more World pollution than necessary. Having an economy means it has a future – the UK has exported its future.
The amusing bit re Germany is the VW Group is proud to own its own coal fired power stations, so VW, Audi, Porsche sending us our electric cars made with coal as its energy source along with installed Chinese batteries, says a lot about the rest of the Worlds attitude to NetZero – Then again Germany does not have any Law that imposes NetZero on its Industry and its People
July 24, 2024
National resources/assets (minerals, rivers, fossil fuels etc), National services (medical, defence, teaching, policing etc), National infrastructures (transport, energy, road network etc)
Rather than argue the pros/cons of each ‘item’ I’d like to see a comprehensive list, party by party, of things to nationalise and the policy behind that decision
July 24, 2024
If something is a national asset i.e coal, gas, river etc it can be said that they belong to everyone, the indigenous people collectively, and should therefore be managed collectively ….the rest i.e services, infrastructure etc are political
July 24, 2024
No, I would say
Anyone who feels like it can come here (plenty of empty housing, plenty more room in the sweatbox), so, by definition, anything that is in this country – coal, gas, the rivers etc. – belongs to everyone in the world.
July 24, 2024
You know ‘your stuff’, Sir John. It’s usually a great delight to read your opinions backed by the details. And when it’s not a delight, it’s always room for thought…very important to have from you.
July 24, 2024
+1
July 24, 2024
When the railways were privatised the new “owners” got rid of anyone who actually knew how to run a railway!
They even prevented old railmen from going back to visit their erstwhile workplaces.
Escorted from the premises!
July 24, 2024
Labour just do not learn from past mistakes, which brings us to the actual definition of insanity, and that is to keep on doing the same thing always expecting a better or different result.
Socialism is about everyone and everything being equal but at the lowest possible common denominator. Only the socialist elite are allowed the luxury.
By nationalisation of the railways and anything else they can start to destroy, labour desire that only the elite should use luxury travel, like jets and cars, while the rest of us will have to do with a clapped out rail infrastructure run on union times.
Nationalised concerns, like the NHS, will grow into white elephants, forever soaking up and demanding more and more cash just to keep going. With Labour’s record on incompetent application of such schemes you can bet the whole thing will fall apart badly at some time.
Let’s face it, nationalisation will do nothing to improve service or availability of service.
July 24, 2024
Bryan Harris – strange isn’t it, the NHS is the easiest of all the Nationalised Industries to privatise. GP’s Consultants etc are already self employed able to work where they like, the get contract work from the NHS but are no classed as employees. Local GP Practises are privately run and contracted by the NHS for their Services. Hospitals offer services to both the NHS and Private Insurance. The only disconnect is the chasing the money element, if we owned our NI Contributions we would be buying the service we needed – yes contributions would have to rise and a few other nuances would be needed. Essentially everything is just sitting there, where would that leave those that hadn’t contributed that invade the country, in boats etc, just to enjoy the freedoms others pay for?
July 24, 2024
Good points Ian B
The NHS has not evolved in any way – time we saw some innovation
July 25, 2024
Ian
NIC Just goes into the general tax pot, it is not invested in either the NHS or pensions. Bit you make a very good point regarding that ‘we should be in control of OUR money’ and not the government.
July 25, 2024
@Mark B – I was more than aware of the NI situation. Governments meddle, distort and spin. It was needed to exists as a compulsion so there could be no opt-out, it could have even been a private paid in scheme. But the subterfuge played out by governments is just them denying its purpose when it suits them and compounding the situation for short term gain. Hence its an illegal Ponzi schemes that the instigators have to keep kicking into the long grass to absolve themselves from. One day they will get real
July 24, 2024
Be great to see Cambridge (and then Oxford and the two connected by great train service) developed as the world’s second Silicon Valley – with an iconic, red double-decker train to the city, underground for much of the way, and super fast (with beautiful iconic train station at Cambridge and platform area in the London station), and a delightful experience all around (compared to my friends and family who have to travel to the City in London in a trail like a cattle truck and really expensive with lots of delays and really slow).
Reply There plans for an improved rail link and a better road but it all takes a long time in the UK
July 24, 2024
REPLY to REPLY -I thought there was a rail link between both towns MANY years ago.Why do as DJT does CUT REGULATION and all the BS.
July 24, 2024
Depressing isn’t it. We just keep going around in nationalised circles.
Maybe privatisation should start at the top. Perhaps if we elected a management company to run the UK rather than various factions of the Globalist Uni-Party we could break out of the nationalisation death spiral.
Could the Reform UK Party Limited offer a solution?
July 24, 2024
I think you will find that labour want use inrollment pension for their infrastructure projects which is about 1 trillion pounds, bit of a gamble I wwould say with other peoples money.
July 25, 2024
Difficult to believe as the total money in UK pension funds is £1.12 tn in private sector DBH (Defined Benefits and Hybrids) plus £0.74 tn in private section DC (Defined Contribution) + public sector DBH.
So a total of £1.86 tn. And Labour would take £1 tn out of that?
statista.com 2024 ‘Market value of pension plans in the United Kingdom from December 2019 to
July 24, 2024
My fear is the use of the workplace pension schemes of private sector workers, no guarantees on their pension returns; they are already performing badly, often put people’s money into low-return green investments and the public just doesn’t understand what a pittance their 5% loss of income is going to buy them at retirement.
I hope one of the first pension schemes to invest in labour’s nationalised green energy company is Labour MP pensions with the guaranteed income element removed.
July 24, 2024
MPs of all colours are in the same pension scheme called PCPF (Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund).
And similarly there is no rail industry trade union pension fund. There is a Railways Pension Scheme with some trade unionists in the Board of Trustees, that’s all.
July 25, 2024
Thank you for providing the name of the pension schemes that I feel should be the first two to invest in Labour’s pipe dream Energy company and nationalised railway, they should be more co-operative with skin in the games they are playing, their own pensions, all those Tory MPs and other none socialist party MPs can remain invested in other more diverse portfolios.
The linked defined benefits need to be removed from both schemes with no taxpayer bail out if they get it wrong they take the hit personally.
July 24, 2024
Why don’t the labour trade unions in the rail industry use their investment funds and their pensioner’s funds to buy up franchises? Invest in themselves. Take the risks and rewards or losses themselves.
July 24, 2024
A-TRACY – a very good point. But they will NEVER do that because it is THEIR money. They like spending OTHERS money.
July 24, 2024
Maybe…I put this forward tentatively, prepared for loud “NOs”
But just MAYBE the NHS and BR etc were treated with affection because of the social credit still extant from the discovery of “patriotism”? Act of Union, many wars etc. All very convenient but swallowed by the nation in general.
It was the good old “true British sprit”, “stiff upper lip”,happy to suffer rain, discomfort and delays and injury for our lovely country.
And we believed we had won two World Wars!!
A country run on lies and empty promises.
And then of course having wrung out the very last drop of blood…the powers that be …sold it all off!
And in true democratic spirit NOBODY EVER ASKED US!
July 24, 2024
Labour are the party of big government.
The Education Secretary mentioned the current dearth of modern foreign languages studied in the Britain so I looked in my English to French dictionary for the translation of the British Labour Party and it came up with “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”.
July 24, 2024
Labour’s progressive, open borders Home Office has a new term ‘Irregular Migration’ to describe illegal immigration. It’s now the decriminalization of criminal activity. This is akin to ‘mental health issues’. Most can now see through this woke bullshit propaganda. We’ve got five years of these lies.
July 24, 2024
Illegal Migration Act 2023
The Illegal Migration Act changes the law so that those who arrive in the UK illegally will not be able to stay here and will instead be detained and then promptly removed, either to their home country or a safe third country
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/illegal-migration-bill
MEANINGLESS
July 24, 2024
So, lets nationalise everything, cause multiple bankruptcies so everything is just handed over. Then the taxpayer has to find billions to reward the staff with high wages for failure. What is it? – above inflation rises not come into work, gold plated pensions paid by others.
‘Sir Keir Starmer declared the “crisis” in the UK’s public finances was “more severe” than he had expected.’- ‘In his first Prime Minister’s Questions since entering No 10, the Labour leader claimed there was “failure absolutely everywhere” in Whitehall after 14 years of the Tories being in power.’
He and his team had full access to the books before the election and didn’t raise questions in the HoC. His answer is to grow the State and waste more taxpayer money. £83 Billion on a Miliband ‘nothing to show here’ project, £25 Billion to reward Khan for getting elected with uncosted promises (Strange the London electorate voted for his big spend, now everyone elsewhere is expected to pay for it – but not them)
Sunak/Hunt knew they were opening doors for Labour to continue their job of trashing the UK, Starmer and Reeves are just rubbed their hands with glee – it was a gift they couldn’t have contrived on their own.
Now what is called the Conservatives are serving up continuity replacements to lead the Party – more of the same paints a bleak position for the UK.
July 24, 2024
I have commented before that there is another option for the railways and that is to abandon the dead husk of what was once a great industry.
Choose the best routes, turn them into roads and dedicate those routes to freight and bus/coach routes. The benefits are:
Easing of congestion on existing road network.
ALL journeys whether coach, HGV or car are continuous from start to finish.
The law of demand and supply will ensure efficiency.
No Unions!
The elimination of billions in tax payer funded subsidies.
The ‘tragic’ loss of a QUANGO or two.
July 24, 2024
BOF :
Agreed.
July 24, 2024
Nationalisation is a moot point as net-zero is the new nationalisation
July 24, 2024
Oh no. Net Zero is Genocide.
July 24, 2024
George Galloway eloquently put it, two cheeks of the same rear…
* The fake conservatives of your ex-party –> defacto –> need renaming “consocialists”.
* Why? Higher personal taxes & IHT (fiscal drag), CGT allowance cut by 75%. Corporation tax 19–>25%
* Unfettered immigration legal and illegal, net +800k pa. With no housing nor infrastructure solutions!
* The above are not actions of a truly conservative government.
After 14 years of tory rule the NHS is now broken, trust me I have experienced it 1st hand 3 times in April 2024, it’s abjectly 3rd world.
It is despicable and was utterly unnecessary.
July 24, 2024
As I have stated previously on this site nationalisation and ‘public ownership’ are inherently flawed concepts because without either competition or personal financial incentives for success most people are just very inefficient at work -so the workforce in a nationalised industry or the public sector in general just perform very badly. That is why I am even against the seemingly forever fashionable notion of a ‘mixed economy’ and instead favour a near maximally privately run economy with as small a public sector as is reasonably feasible.
July 25, 2024
Geoffrey
The first question I think one must ask is; “Is there any competition or, are we just creating another monopoly, either State or Privately owned ?”
I have long argued on this site that, the water industry should be State owned. It is a vital part of our civilization with which we cannot do without. Same to with energy.
Perhaps we need to look at things from another perspective. State ownership of assets, but privately run and / or run as a Employee Ownership Trust.