MPs are meant to run the complaints department. Much of the case work is trying to remedy failings in public services. I will be writing a few blogs on some of the reasons there are so many complaints.Many of the Statements and Ā debates are about what to do when things go wrong..
One of the principle causes of complaint is rationing. Key public services have too little capacity, leading to access denied or inadequate service performance Ā or long waits to get the service.
We have fully nationalised roads. All my life we have been kept short of road space by local and national road managers who want to deny or limit access to roads or think it a good idea to allow bad traffic jams. There is still no south coast motorway, the M25 remains too small, the A 303 to the West Country has not been fully dualled, with similar gaps in provision elsewhere in the country. Many Councils now close or limit what roads they do have to make access to towns increasingly difficult.
The NHS dominates healthcare. It has excessively long waiting lists, delays in getting appointments and lets Ā some down who need urgent treatment.
The fully Ā nationalised rail regions have poor records for delays and cancellations to train services. Train travel fails to offer much capacity for freight traffic in ways that could shift loads off the roads.
The heavily regulated and controlled electricity utilities rely more and more on imports as government will not design national security into its over managed system.
The water companies under nationalised ownership and more recently under privatised and regulated ownership have lacked capital and permissions to replace worn out old pipes and put in enough capacity for a rising population.
December 15, 2024
Why do things in the public sector work so badly? Because the Conservatives spent 14 years cutting funding for the public sector and failing to manage the sector competently. And the voters delivered their verdict last July
Reply There was a very large rise in public spending and public sector recruitment in the last four years
December 15, 2024
Lemming. We have recently witnessed the government caving in to the train drivers and doctors for no productivity improvement. Train drivers are so well paid that they no longer work weekends.
As with all monopolies there’s no accountability or sanctions for poor performance.
The government is currently spending 50% of national output very badly and you want to spend even more.
I worked in the power industry. If I worked overtime on Sunday the government took 52% of my earnings, much to pay for people who refuse to work. There isn’t much incentive there.
December 15, 2024
Todays guidance disappeared at 06.01 on posting the comment. Typifying all I said.
December 15, 2024
Every single Prime Minister since Tony Blair are listed on the World Economic Forum as being members. They are all deeply indebted to Klaus Schwab and his OpenSociety foundation for their promotions. They all attended Davos together. This is the UniParty:-
– Kier Starmer
– Rishi Sunak
– Liz Truss
– Boris Johnson
– Theresa May
– George Osborne
– David Cameron
-Gordon-Brown
– Tony Blair
December 15, 2024
Indeed and all with degrees in PPE, Law, History or Geography!
Listen to Laura Kuenssberg interviewing the dire fool Emma Pinchbeck CEO of the committee on climate change a Classic graduate interviewed by a language graduate on energy, climate, engineering, scienceā¦ mainly discussions about her thinking about moving to a heat pump and having bought an electric car (they save no CO2) and eating less meat (this does save CO2) but as CO2 is a net good. The interviewer mentioned Ā£5000 for a typical new heat pump system – more like 10 to 20 times this dear. Cost more to run too and created a huge extra winter electricity demand.
If the BBC wants to discuss Russian history or the finer points of Anglo Saxon Literature I am available. I know nothing on these topics being a maths, physics, engineering, and business chap but, unlike the two above, I will try tp mug up a bit.
December 15, 2024
Or classics for Boris that I missed out. Starmer has a rather poor Physics, Maths Music A level and from a posh school too BBC grades but he is perhaps the worst of the lot given all his many disasters so far like Lammy, Reeves, Cooper Balls, Ed Milibandā¦
December 15, 2024
In order to be invited you might have to demonstrate your lack, like insisting Russia has always been a good example of democracy, and that the literature was all burned by the monks.
December 15, 2024
Yes indeed. How they struggle to understand anything quantitative! Learning the finer points of the Russian Revolution, tundra or Chaucer will never help this country out of the present mess.
We scientists and engineers might struggle to grasp the needs of the so-called desperate Calais-based immigrants, the EU rule-lovers and the home-grown feckless, but we can stitch the numbers and structures together which might help and guide them. But you don’t get to be part of the Establishment via that route.
December 15, 2024
Good morning.
To answer today’s question is simple. Supply and demand. And the fact that we have allowed demand to outstrip supply by not planning for it. Just let millions come and access it and it will “sort itself out” seems to be the current mantra.
December 15, 2024
Why do they run so badly? Well yes the extra demand from millions of migrants who
largely do not pay in is part of it blame. But it is not their money they are wasting and not they who benefit from any value purchased. They care not the cost nor the value received.
Then we have vested interests, corruption and group think lunacy like HS2, diversity, woke lunacy & net zeroā¦
December 15, 2024
Is it just us who can’t run nationalised industry? I’m trying to put a brave face on it, since we seem to be stuck with a large nationalised/regulated sector.
I can give one example of a very good nationalised service: the Austrian railways. A bit expensive to use, and lord knows how much taxpayers’ money was put into it, but the service was great. Remarkably punctual and clean. Last year my 230 mile, 4.5hr journeys from Vienna to a tiny rural stop in the Tirol cost Ā£25-Ā£50, depending on how far in advance I bought the ticket. Lots of tiny rural stations and a good regular service between them and the local towns (maybe just 2 carriages, but enough always to sit down). They ran come snow or shine. Staff helpful.
December 15, 2024
My German friend was trying to make a point the other day when she sent me details of European nations railway performances and Deutsche Bahn was middle table and listed as “mediocre.” I replied and said that result was pretty good ….. ours is dire and costs twice as much.
December 15, 2024
There’s a different attitude. If there is corruption at the top, it’s at least hidden rather than reported through to the masses. We have the worst of both worlds here, with cronies in the public sector rotating with fatcats in the private sector.
The workers, at least in Switzerland, work to routine. Not so much flexi-this that and the other, though that is changing. People expect a job for life in something like the railways but in return they follow the rules.
December 15, 2024
SJR, you say water was privatised ‘more recently’. It was 35 years ago. You suggest that they have failed to replace leaking water pipes because of a lack of capital. But in 2022-2023, England’s water firms made Ā£1.7bn in pre-tax profits, up 82% since 2018/2019. Those firms have chosen to pay vast sums in dividends rather than invest sufficient money in upgrading infrastructure. At that same time they have imposed large billing increases on the public. By all means criticise waste in state-run businesses, but I do not see the point of trying to assimilate private sector price-gouging and under-investment to an incompetently run public sector.
Reply The privatised monopolies were subject to price controls by the state. I lost the argument to have competition to control behaviours. If you turn to private capital you need yo allow dividends and interest payments. If they had stayed nationalised taxpayers would have yet bigger bills for interest on extra state debt.
December 15, 2024
The way they were set up and were poorly regulated resulted in the problems we have now. The government cannot run thing directly, are dire at subcontracting things like HS2, road maintenanceā¦ and dire at regulating things too.
December 15, 2024
reply to reply. but private investments which include available share trading, should not expect dividends on badly run loss making activities which antagonise its customers. Nor should investors be burdened with unrealistic loan interest payments. Both ripe for manipulation.
December 15, 2024
Reply to reply
1. A state run monopoly was swapped to, effectively, a private monopoly, where the public HAS TO PAY. The investment houses couldn’t believe their luck!
2. Good management is available in both private and public sectors, it is not selective.
3. Under public ownership there’d be no cash drain to shareholders, management being equally competent, either services should be better or costs lower.
December 15, 2024
Notice the report Fred Kite has established his committee inside Head Office, to work out the plan to return to the Socialist Republic of Europe. Will the Tory PCP make any objection — do they even care?
December 15, 2024
” Ahh, Russia – all them cornfields and ballet in the evening” (Fred Kite) – but there won’t be any cornfields under Starmer, just the men in tights…
December 15, 2024
The reason the Public service is so incapable pf satisfying the public’s demand for ‘good’ services, is because there is no incentive in the system, for them to do so.
Equally there is no disincentive in the system either. When was a Public servant last fired for overseeing a poor department service?
Too many useless service performances are rewarded with early full paid pensions, or a Knighthood, or Peerage.
Why do they need to be any good at their jbs when they know the payoffs are guaranteed?
December 15, 2024
Rationing is partly to blame for the public sector crisis. We simply need to drastically reduce iummigration.
However, there is also the failure to replace poor management and lazy people.
All of the above is the fault of all governments throughout the 21st century.