Given the enthusiasm of some here I ask why are you in love with nationalisation?
Is it the way the nationalised Post Office treated many of its key staff, sending them to prison on false charges?
Is it the way nationalised HS2 has not controlled costs, extended its delays and more than halved the amount of railway it will deliver?
Is it the way the Bank of England ( Nationalised 1946) has run its activities to send a bill to taxpayers for an OBR forecast of £257 bn for losses on bonds from end 2022 to final liquidation of the portfolio?
Is it the way the state has paid remuneration packages of more than £500,000 a year to the Heads of HS 2, Post Office and Bank for all their losses and mistakes?
Is it the way Network Rail and the Transport department have run timetables, created delays and cancellations and regulated fares for the last two decades of nationalised Network Rail?
Is it the way the Highways Authority handled allowing motorway hard shoulder use as a new lane and their repairs schedules with slow running and lane closures?
Is it the way a nationalised Scunthorpe steel works will probably close both blast furnaces and sack a lot of staff?
Is it the way the government road monopoly keeps us short of road space and delights in restricting its use?
August 2, 2025
I dare say Sir John remembers Bernard Levin’s leading article in The Times, ‘The Gas Man Cometh’ and the Flanders & Swann satire with the same title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1dvAxA9ib0&ab_channel=NancyDeHaven
I see I mentioned them two years ago on Sir John’s diary:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/07/26/nationalisation-versus-privatisation/
August 2, 2025
Privatisation is a bit like getting a Labour government; it’s a last resort when the alternative appears even worse.
For health, should there be profit in a service for those providing it to a person in sudden desperate need? If yes, then why not privatise police and fire services? Ask Americans if they like the cost of their health insurance.
For water, it can be a service for either public or private supply. Whichever works satisfactorily for all interested parties. If it fails in the private sector, then public sector needs to pick up the pieces, or those who want to drink water will have to move elsewhere.
Stop being dogmatic, if private sector can provide the service satisfactorily, good, if not then the state has to take action.
August 2, 2025
Peter Wood
Nobody works for free. The doctors and nurses at A&E sell their skills at greater than subsistence wages so “make a profit”. Do you suggest they aren’t entitled to do so? In which case there will be no service at all.
The same applies to the police and fire services.
August 2, 2025
I dare say Sir John also knows the real reason people support nationalisation – Ideology.
I cannot think of a nationalised body that out-performs a privately owned one but that doesn’t matter to the socialist zealots. It’s a key tool for averaging out (& reducing wealth).
August 2, 2025
It is not just the nationalised ones that are run badly many private companies are run inefficiently due to poor and misguided regulation, restrictive employment laws, appallingly misguided regulators, mad energy policies, dire politically motivated laws on tenancies and employment… many private sector industries are entirely parasitic and just needed to guide you round absurdly onerous tax, employment and other red tape.
Government is a brilliant parasitic job creation service for lawyers, tax planners, HR people, accountants, bat and newt “experts”.
August 2, 2025
Is it the way water used to be provided at a reasonable price by people who were not trying to bleed you dry?
Is it the way rail travel was available at a reasonable price, with a simple fare structure, that people did not have to game to buy an affordable ticket? A fare structure that was not vastly more expensive than other countries?
August 2, 2025
Exactly. Water privatisation has failed miserably. A new way forward is required. If that means re-nationalising, then so be it.
No one is suggesting all failing services should be back under public ownership. Some of us are simply suggesting nationalisation may be best for water and rail.
Reply Rail has been effectively nationalised for 20 years. The water regulator effectively runs the regional monopolies as a bloc, controlling prices, profits, dividends and cap ex.
August 2, 2025
Rail has 28 companies running the rolling stock in England. Only Railtrack (now Network Rail) is “effectively nationalised”
Water is controlled by about 16 different companies in England (
including waste only companies) How is that “nationalised”
Reply Regulators decide prices, profits, capital investment and in case of rail timetables and routes. Several rail regions are fully nationalised with public sector track, signals, stations and trains.
August 2, 2025
You’re floundering Sir JR ……..
August 4, 2025
Your information seems to be out of date Old Albion.
Many tocs are public sector.
Caledonian Sleeper – Scottish rail holdings
Essex Thameside
InterCity East Coast
Northern
ScotRail – Scottish rail holdings
South Eastern
South Western
TransPennine Express
Wales and Borders operated by Transport for Wales.
Then there are Concession holders look them up. eg. DLR Manchester Metrolink…
How much do you think these public companies above will make the taxpayer in profits (dividends)?
August 2, 2025
@Reply – ‘controlling prices’ ? Companies don’t control prices, the market, the consumer controls prices – that’s the ‘big fail’ of loading to escape blame with no, not a single thought to the free-market, a customer lead market. The only ones that pay any of the wages, including the regulators, is the consumer and they have been effectively locked out.
August 2, 2025
Indeed. Plenty of other countries run nationalised water and railways, and do so far more effectively than the privatised equivalents in the UK. Such evidence would suggest that the problem doesn’t lie with nationalisation.
HS2’s problems have stemmed from politicians. Partly a failure to reform a planning system set up to block development of infrastructure by default, and partly down to having the project regularly changed in its scope, usually as a result of some backbencher or other being more interested in personal re-election and pandering to NIMBY constituents than making the right long term decisions for the country.
August 4, 2025
We have much higher costs in the UK.
From 2022 Euronews: The average gross monthly earnings of train drivers as adjusted for PPS ranged from €1,206 in Bulgaria to €4,392 in the UK in 2021. They were above €2,500 in Denmark, Germany and France.
British train drivers are the best paid in Europe by a staggering amount. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/12/23/train-strikes-the…
It’s quite ironic that many of the franchisees were given to EU foreign ownership.
August 2, 2025
Flanders and Swan ‘A song of patriotic prejudice’ would chime with some posters on here. They may not regard it as satire though.
August 2, 2025
There’s a hole in my budget, dear Starner, dear Starmer…
August 2, 2025
I’m afraid to say that it is a trait of the British to look to the state first whenever they are confronted by anything difficult or challenging.
August 2, 2025
Well the state has brainwashed them to think this so as to increase their power. They rig the markets with taxes, regulations and subsidies to for examples:- kill private education, force us to pay for the BBC, rig housing, transport, universities, energy… to kill private provision and leave most people virtually no choice but the state provision. A total disaster this is too.
August 2, 2025
So what negative day to day effect do these actually have on a boat owning property developer with no alternatives offered, I suggest you live a good life.
These things annoy me occasionally when I think of them but knowing one’s brain always takes the negative view ask myself what actual impact there is on my day to day life which is in reality very little and use positive self talk (used in sports psychology a lot) to ensure a positive outlook.
We are a nation of moaners. I feel sorry for people that do it incessantly.
August 2, 2025
Is it the way nationalised steel and coal used to provide employment for whole areas, while its disappearance has led to impoverishment and expensive imports of these products for the national as a whole?
August 2, 2025
I don’t think the ‘market’ in private rent has been rigged, other than by rapacious landlords.
August 2, 2025
Rigged all over the place with social housing for some but not others, non tax deduction of interest, proposed rent and deposit controls, absurd planning restrictions, absurd OTT building regs. 5 year tax payer funded deals for illegal migrants, hotels taken over… It damaged supply and hurts both tenants and landlords hugely!
August 3, 2025
Don’t cry for landlords – rents keep rising year after year way above inflation even when they spend nothing on their properties. It’s the tenants that suffer not you. Why don’t you get out of it if things are so bad for you? The renters have no such choice.
August 2, 2025
LL, ++++ Precision Bombing on targets that matter
August 2, 2025
Transport is mostly private, so is energy, and universities think they are.
August 2, 2025
Well both are hugely rigged vast over taxation of road transport or huge subsidies for trains, trams and many buses. With energy even more so subsidies for the un-reliables mean it is essentially government controlled, over taxation of the on demand energy and a rigged market to make gas provide backup and now we have GB energy what ever this is going to be!
August 2, 2025
And huge profits too. That’s what public-private partnership means.
August 2, 2025
Universities are a special private ….they’re most certainly not public, but in the main funded by the taxpayer
August 3, 2025
With 150,000 Chinese “students” in our universities with, BTW access to UK research and data, it is not surprising to find that UK academia is very China friendly.
August 4, 2025
The vast majority of universities in the UK are government financed, with only five private British universities.
August 2, 2025
That certainly seems to be the case Barry
After WW2 successive governments have in true socialist fashion convinced people they know best. In the past it was possible to understand this as politicians did generally work for the good of Britain. It is since Heath and Bliar that government has had its own agenda. Margaret Thatcher was an outlier in as much as she believed in Britain.
Wr have now reached the culmination of deceit where the country can see we are being shafted by bad actors. 2TK and Hermer being the leaders.
The whole blob has to be dismantled before any semblance of justice can be restored.
Farage might not have all the answers but he’s a better bet than the scum we have now.
August 2, 2025
Sir John,
What features of privatisation first attracted you to it?
Was it the subsequent deindustrialisation of large areas of the UK? (Coalfields in the North and Wales and Scotland. Steelworks too?)
Policy interventions to lure businesses and make the area productive again ?
Depressing new landscapes – landscapes: a big Tesco, shabby newbuild housing and a waste incineration plant – if planners can get it past the local residents?
Distribution depots & call centres?
Or just let the area decline and people move elsewhere?
Reply It was the way it brought in billions of new capital and ideas, allowed more people to be shareholders,saved jobs, transformed our telecoms and led to the dash for gas out of coal in electricity and the development if cleaner North Sea gas to replace town gas.
August 3, 2025
That was all yesteryear – what of now?
August 4, 2025
John, what % of UK ISAs and Bank savings are invested in these ex public industries in the UK?
Reply I do not know. Universities Pension Fund UK has a big position in water.
August 2, 2025
Peter. the failure is also due to the politicians thinking they know how best to run a business, when they have absolutely no business, financial, management, experience themselves, but still impose their thoughts on those who do with crass legislation, regulation and taxes.
August 2, 2025
Is it the way the NHS has such poor health outcome relative the the money spent?
Is it the way government controlled health and other bodies gave us the lunacy of lockdowns and net harm ineffective and dangerous covid vaccines?
Is it the way the fire service moronically told people to stay in & sent people back to their flats at Grenfell Tower. Having first clad it in flammable insulation at vast cost just to save trivial amounts of energy?
Is it the wonderful output of the propaganda outfit the BBC?
Is it the quality of out virtual monopoly state schools?
August 2, 2025
The largely worthless degrees in often worthless subject that you can buy for circa £60,000 with soft taxpayer loans and three plus years of your time. But if you want a loan of £60K to do something useful it is often impossible to find!
August 2, 2025
The BMA controls the number of Doctors allowed to be trained each year ‘because there is a shortage of places’.
The striking Doctors need to take the better paid jobs they say they can get all over the world. Because there is a surfeit of Doctors, ‘prices’ should fall and standards should improve.
But the state stops all that happening.
August 2, 2025
So now they want to limit civil service intern places to the working class? Can be not just hire the best people for the jobs please?
Intelligence (the many different types) are highly heritable as can be seen from twin and sibling studies. So this makes about as much sense as saying football apprenticeships must only take on children whose parents and grand parents were never professional sports people!
August 2, 2025
Studies suggest Intelligence heritability (many different types of intelligence) is in the region of 50%-80% as indeed are many physical and other characteristics.
August 2, 2025
Interested to see in the small print that their definition of working class explicitly includes the train drivers who are on £80,000 a year.
August 2, 2025
But not doctors on circa £35k gross and with £100k of student debt and £7k PA interest on this debt!
August 2, 2025
Surely that is illegal, discriminationatory?
Can’t the state keep its own laws?
This causes anxiety and distress – the key phrase that gets jail time for people guilty of causing same.
August 2, 2025
Well take the water industry – we know that we as taxpayers are going to have to bail out the private companies like Thames Water running it anyway so they might as well be state owned in the first place. Same for the train operators. And how come we even had to bail out RBS with taxpayer’s money ? If the taxpayer is on the hook for these companies they should control them directly.
August 2, 2025
You don’t need to bail them out. You just have a robust regulator that stipulates how customer’s water bills are spent. They go on providing water, treating sewage, maintaining the network first. Debt interest payments are lower on the list.
If a creditor calls in the debt, the regulator comes after them as new owners of the infrastructure and responsibility to operate the service.
August 2, 2025
Why have a regulator at all ? Just nationalise them.
August 2, 2025
Very well said Sir John. I am also curious why nationalisation is the go-to solution whenever something goes wrong. How about fixing the problem instead? For example, should we have nationalised the banking sector after the credit crunch? Should we have nationalised the petroleum industry after the 2021 fuel shortage crisis? Should BP have been renationalised after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? Should we nationalise the automotive sector given the recent car finance failings?
Often the issues are with deficient regulation and / or company mismanagement. Regulators need to oversee the market, ensure it is functioning well and anticipate issues. Company malpractice needs to be deterred by the law and there has to be stiff penalties for serious breaches. They are the solutions – not nationalisation.
August 2, 2025
Spot on. I think it’s also worth mentioning that managements are subject to shareholder and sometimes regulator approval. So Miliband as the sole member of NESO gets the management that supports his net zero approach in the nationalised body that plans and runs our energy systems day to day.: it is not at all independent.
But we also have back door regulation through major institutional shareholders such as pension and hedge funds and the banking sector. Mark Carney used the latter to try to make ESG and DIE approaches compulsory if businesses were to be funded. Green hedge fund managers have made large fortunes by voting in managements that will follow these diktats regardless of the benefit for customers or employees and the longer term health of the business. They have colluded with government and regulators to rig markets.
August 2, 2025
It is not nationalisation as a way of running a business that is inherantly wrong, other counties seem to have greater success, it is the quality of the people employed to do it and the failure of government in having a long term business plan.
Government is abysmally ignorant of what they ar trying to achieve, even when dealing with private industry. Energy is the worst classic example. In the form of coal, oil, and gas, the cost of extracting it, give or take, is much the same around the World. UK government manages, through sheer incompetence and political zealotry, to deliver it at 3 or 4 times the price of energy extracted in the USA. Even our host has failed repearedly to shed light on the government business plan that manages such a UK economical disaster. My conclusion is that UK governance, both political and civil none elected, is not fit for purpose.
August 2, 2025
Correct, your last statement becomes more and more obvious if only the electorate in polls, local and national would wake up and persuade much more qualified people to want to ‘make a difference’. For so long that misused phrase has allowed mediocre and shockingly hopeless zealots to take over positions of power.
August 2, 2025
Bang on. All the problems John cites can be tracked back to incompetent politicians who allow such things to happen to nationalised entities. They could be efficient, but because politicians want to stick their oar in on the wrong things they just are’nt. They are mostly just lazy as well as incompetent and don’t want to get involved in anything that looks like hard work or maybe a bit unpopular.
Reply The politicians are usually ineffectual and told they must not intervene. It is usually lamentable and overpaid top management that does the damage
August 2, 2025
Reply to Reply
You are correct in what you say. I would go further. The power that once rested in Parliament has been systematically leeched away during our time in the EU and the rule of Blair. The so called Supreme Court, the ECHR and UN dictats we pay homage to havs effectively gelded Parliament. The proliferatikn of unelected quangos and the politisation of the Civil Service only add to the demise of democracy. The police have adopted a pick and mix approach to crime, egged on by a useless Home Office.
Nigel has taken on a major challenge.
August 2, 2025
He has no appetite for a challenge.
August 2, 2025
Good morning.
Nothing attracts me to Nationalisation. Nationalisation of private business (ie competition) does not, and will never, work ! But I can tell the difference between and State sanctioned monopoly and a natural monopoly, and know that ideology should not dominate commonsense.
August 2, 2025
Yeah, great service we are getting from power, water, railways et al.
August 2, 2025
I have mentioned this before. The State own the infrastructure and franchise out the running of it. You negotiate terms and conditions that ensure that the business is properly run with the Franchise having a either a fixed fee for running it or, a maximum percentage of profit.
What Nationalised Monopolies need is good management and a realistic investment structure. This is how much it is going to cost to run and maintain plus fee. You then charge the consumer. If the management can find savings here and there for no loss in service then they get to keep the extra. That way you incentivise productivity without overcharging the consumer.
If the Franchise breaks terms and conditions, either they are fined or, have their franchise removed.
You will be surprised at the number of high street businesses who operate on this model. AND IT WORKS !!
August 4, 2025
Actually we’ve never had a water problem with delivery to our home? Water quality is very good. Whether the water company is private or public (as they are in Scotland and Wales) they put sewage into the sea. Who are the people profiting from Scottish Water? Do they return a dividend to the Scottish or UK government?
August 2, 2025
I am not attracted to nationalisation at all just as I am not attracted to any commercial monopoly.
And there are numerous examples of abusive commercial behaviours and not just by ex-public bodies and corporations to parallel the public sector examples you give.
In the case of water it has been a one way journey to an abusive monopoly where there was no attempt to ensure proper safeguards for delivery of good service and prevent asset stripping. Reversing this position will be even more very, very expensive for the taxpayer and customer.
PS It would appear that the financial group involved in driving Thames Water into debt has been acquiring strong positions in our gas infrastructure. Another bleeding edge demonstration of UK governing and regulatory excellence at work.
It would be laughable if the utter incompetence, indifference and ergo-maniacal disloyalty of our governing classes weren’t so expensive and damaging to the interests of the ordinary citizen.
Reply That is why I opposed allowing foreign takeovers of key utilities,, proposed ways of introducing competition into them and took a strong pro competition line with the private sector when Competition Minister.
August 2, 2025
Reply – Reply
Unfortunately John they only listened to half of your suggestions, hence the reason we are now in the expensive and failing situation we are.
Nationalisation can be good and provide security if it is run effectively and sensibly by the State as other countries have shown, unfortunately our Government seems incapable of running anything in even a half reasonable manner, mainly because our politicians do not have the commercial, management or financial skills to do so, but also lack the ability to employ those who do.
August 2, 2025
Sir John, seems like most of the things you oppose get done anyway. Don’t you get tired of p….ing in the wind?
August 2, 2025
The same group were responsible for extracting large dividends and leaving Midlands Expressway a.k.a. M6 Toll bankrupt. Frankly I was astonished to see OFGEM and NESO engaging with them given their track record around the globe. We can only expect similar treatment with billoayers on the hook. Miliband probably regards it as part of his project to make gas more costly.
Reply If private capital provides a new road or tunnel then goes bust it relieves taxpayers of any extra costs and we still have use of the asset
August 2, 2025
To reply – indeed if whatever they build had a value. HS2 alas funded by the government cost perhaps about 10X the value of it when finished if it ever does get finished! By which time we will have driverless taxis and cars that will be cheaper and go directly door to door at any time!
August 2, 2025
Opposed foreign ownership ? So you’re not a supporter of the free market after all ? So you’re a supporter of some sort of highly-regulated pseudo free-market where the taxpayer get the bill in the end ?
August 3, 2025
There is no “free” market as in all participants must follow the same rules and abusers get punished.
The free market does not and has never existed.
August 2, 2025
dixie : “It would be laughable if the utter incompetence, indifference and ergo-maniacal disloyalty of our governing classes weren’t so expensive and damaging to the interests of the ordinary citizen.”
To quote Gus O’Donnell, a Cabinet Secretary, who said in 2011: “When I was at the Treasury I argued for the most open door possible to immigration … I think it’s my job to maximise global welfare not national welfare”.
August 3, 2025
Thanks for finding that quote
August 2, 2025
Sir John most of use understand that the Post Office failure of it’s staff was a Government Minister failure being advised by a private IT company.
The main problem with Nationalisation is Government political interference by people who do not no much,if anything, about how to run a utility.
We can not trust Government or private enterprise to work for the sole benefit of the tax payer/consumer of the basics of modern life.
One needs investment to establish and maintain utilities which are physical networks now, and for maximum efficiency, manage by just one company.
Who owns this company is the question.
If we look at the first public electricty supply in Godelming in 1881 the local council was involved with a private contractor to run the wiring for the street lights. The bulbs were supplied by a private company.
A joint public private involvement is the answer today but Government is accountable for the supply of the basics of life which must not be able to be influenced by non- UK companies or organisations.
PS. in the past the Post Office owned the phones and the mail. A profitable phone service could have kept postage costs down.
Privatisation seeks to reduce staff required and their wages. However if the State needs to then feed and house the unemployed up go the taxes.
Is it better to have a few more employees than absolutly required and the product a bit more expensive but the tax you pay is lower ?
Reply It was not Ministers but expensive CEO s who wrecked the PO with a bad computer scheme an£ false criminal charges. Ministers were ineffective and refused to intervene when I and a few other MP s told them this was a disaster.
The errors in utility privatisation were a) Blair decision to allow foreign takeovers which the Conservatives had prevented b) failure of both governments to allow sufficient competition.
August 2, 2025
The State also subsidises poor pay with in work benefits. If a company cannot afford its employees it should not exist, but that doesn’t apply to most, they just seem to game the system for increased profits, dividends and bonuses.
August 2, 2025
Also a vast failure of the Criminal Justice system – merely the fact that there were so many prosecutions of new previously untainted people was sufficient to show the cases we very likely to be unsound! Also the fact that it was legally hard to challenge the system in a similar way to not being allowed to challenge speed camera’s accuracy.
August 2, 2025
Yesterday, in a troubling development, POTUS Trump announced that he has despatched additional SSBN “to the appropriate areas” in response to yet more nuclear threats from the war criminal Putin’s lickspittle, the deranged alcoholic Dimitri Medvedev.
Medvedev is regularly instructed to make nuclear threats against the West in attempts to delay or prevent the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine. In this, he had a measure of success – Biden was terrified of them.
Last week, Putin ordered the barbaric missile attack on a maternity hospital in Kyiv, then denied that it was deliberate. Tell that to the bereaved parents of babies who were killed and maimed
POTUS Trump has – at last – seen through Russian lies and now recognises that it’s Putin who is the problem. Regime change in Russia should now be the prime objective of Trump’s diplomacy. Don’t forget that Putin has already shipped in thousands of N Korean conscripts, in a direct challenge to the possibility of NATO boots on the ground.
Given Trump’s unpredictability, Putin’s ability to run rings round him and the fact that Trump’s inner circle consists of MAGA sycophants, the Ukraine crisis may suddenly explode into something really serious this summer.
August 2, 2025
I’m afraid Trump has been told by the neo-cons that Russia is losing.
Hard lessons ahead.
British personnel taken prisoner (named) and they will be tried – they were in British uniform with all the accompanying details for firing our missiles.
I think they might have been working out of what was a maternity hospital.
August 2, 2025
The Post Office is a government crime fiefdom and no one dared to think of privatising it, all the filthy secrets would come out, it had to stay nationalised. The entire computer industry knew for 40 years Post Office IT was in trouble but run by a vicious secretive management. The main guilt here lies with HM Treasury and Parliament. You knew and chose not to think and lacked the guts to tackle. No good blaming the place holders.
HS2 got into trouble because you relied on consultants. Well known that consultants put up credible people to get the job then put in wet-behind-the-ears folk to deliver reports the-customer-wants-to-hear. Deliberate naiviety on the part of HM Treasury and Parliament. The construction industry is vicious and venal and well supplied with accountants and lawyers – they saw you coming a mile off. Deliberate naivety again.
Motorways are expensive to build and even more expensive to widen. How many times has the M25 (and the rest) been widened? Smart Motorways were a daft idea sold to a deliberately naive government desperate not to do the job properly. Any credibly technologist knew static vehicle detection on a wet dark morning was unreliable and worthless. The idea was a non runner but looked good to politicians desperate for a ‘cheap’ way out. Cheap politically – not seizing back gardens etc etc.
I am sure Tim Slessor’s book ‘Lying in State’ is in the HoC library, have every MP take a day out and read. Then declare the next minister or Civil Servant to tell an untruth will be thrown to the wolves and card marked ‘never work for the public again’.
Reply As an MP I voted No to HS 2 and spoke against the Post Office conduct
August 2, 2025
A question for you, SJR: Why did Margaret Thatcher refuse to nationalise the railways? You knew her quite well.
Reply I proposed the privatisation programme to her. Rail was not so easy to do as telecoms, electricity, gas and water. We had disagreements about how it could be done which Major tried to sort out when he took over. I lost the argument over keeping track and trains together.
August 2, 2025
Reply to reply: I wonder why she thought it wasn’t ‘so easy’, and didn’t do it. Perhaps she thought the British wouldn’t tolerate paying for the most expensive rail affairs in Europe. She seems to have got that bit wrong, unfortunately, but she was right in her refusal to privatise.
Reply I advised to leave it and do easier ones which she agreed. She did not express a view on rail privatisation. I was then on the Ministerial working group under Major to make a rail privatisation proposal, where I lost the argument to keep track and trains together. The EU wanted them separated.
August 2, 2025
… ‘rail fares’, sorry.
August 2, 2025
Typically to make a point and I am afraid I don’t think it’s a very mature list, you blame the system as ever a political stance.
What’s the common denominator. People. It’s not the system, it’s the culture, poor management, leadership etc and where did that come from?
Total failure at a political level probably for ever from Secretary’s of State and their Ministers washing their hands of any operational responsibility deferring to a zero performance managed civil service, buck passing, mediocrity etc.
As an example budget allocation. The only measure of success, has the money been spent? Zero smart objectives. Give the NHS another lump, don’t demand or agree increased outputs.
We constantly read of frustration and getting things done at cabinet level from all administrations but nothing changes.
I suggest if politicians could be bothered to actually drive change through their Mandarins we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Blame an inanimate system, being honest about why it fails, too close to home.
Reply So you agree a theoretically politically driven system runs things badly. I rest my case!
August 2, 2025
Sir John, there is nothing wrong with nationalisation that a dose of private sector competition based disciplines could not put right.
The first influence would be those who make business destroying mistakes get fired.
Under that first and most basic change most of those running the nationalised activities would have been released many years ago.
August 2, 2025
I think there needs to be a distinction between pragmatic nationalisation and dogmatic nationalisation.
In theory, anything that requires a network (shared by many people/things) would be better socialised e.g. rail/water suppy, or at least the trunked part of it needs to be socialised.
Anything that does not require the co-operation that a network needs e.g. a car or steel manufacturer, should remain a private business.
Nationalisation of networks is not wrong in theory but does go wrong because of terrible management. Only when government starts firing poorly performing bosses will things improve.
Government should go nowhere near private business. That is the kiss of death.
Reply No evidence government runs networks well or that networks are natural monopolies. Aviation and buses require network services but run on competing companies, as do telecoms and broadband services.
August 2, 2025
The Network for Aeroplanes is air. It manages itself albeit there is control of the planes that fly in it.
Telecoms requires a very light weight network in terms of the material required to get the transported item from A to B. In fact it can be run completely wireless, out of the air like aeroplanes. Both are technology from the 20th Century, not the 19th as is Gas, Water, Electricity and Rail requiring heavy metal and plant to get from A to B.
Buses run on the ground. Roads are just a covering of the ground for a smoother ride developing from the days of the horse drawn carriage. It is true we have a road network but this does allow for want of a better description unrestricted operation from A to B by multiple users independent of each other. Is road technology in the same sense as Telecoms, Oil, Water, Electricity and rail transport ? A telecoms network is more like a road network which can support packets of data or voice which can travel independently of each other from A to B. The same is not true of Water, Gas, and Electricity. What goes in at A does not come out at B.
But if any network is made up different organisation and You are not getting from A to B who do you call if there is a problem ? Not my bit is at fault Guv.
For efficient operation Networks need to be run by just one organisation. Be it private or public owned (by tax payer)
August 2, 2025
There is some need for rules for common access for networks, whether pipes or wires or radio beams or roads etc., and rules that help to decide on what repairs and maintenance and new investment is undertaken. Alongside there need to be agreements on how the various costs are paid for. When you sign up for utility supply or buy a car you are subject to these rules to a significant degree. But you and other consumers have no real say in what the rules are or what they set out to accomplish or the basis on which you are charged. That is all in the hands of regulators in our present systems. They get to dictate that a new wind farm in Scotland must be connected and that you will pay for that, which roads get improved or are worsened with humps and potholes, which frequencies mobile phones maupy use (withi plixations for rollout availability, privacy etc).,
Even at the local level abuse of monopoly is rife. I recall a councillor who had a fresh set of traffic lights installed that gave priority to traffic from the side road where he lived. I suspect that fresh surface dressing for a road near me that was completely resurfaced only a couple of years ago (having previously been left for decades) is the result of a councillor influencing priorities for personal benefit.
We need to return to the customer being king, and the arbiter on the basis of competitive frameworks. I would not mind so much if greens wanted to pay to connect a wind farm in Scotland: i find it objectionable that they want me to help fund their folly.
August 2, 2025
Sir John, my understanding is if a utility is nationalised then it is the Governments reponibility if things go wrong. Are not minsters the Government? Individual MP’s are not the Government which may not take their opinion as what to do in the circumstances.
If the Post Office was a private company then you could blame the CEO
Who selected and paid for the computer scheme ? It was introduced in 1999 by the labour government. It was in order to automate accounting for local Post Offices.
There seems to have been not much detected fraud up to this point and things working fine. One assumes local accounting and a return to some central point and local computers in use before 1999.
Looks like another HS2 project. The real problem is the Government’s lack of ability to manage technology and choose the right people to do it on behalf of the tax payer. This seems to apply to all Political Parties we have had in power so far.
August 2, 2025
Difficult to be in favour of privatisation and competition but against ‘foreign’ ownership. How do you define it? Is a London-based infrastructure fund with an international team and investors from around the world ‘British’ or ‘foreign’? Is a UK HQ, perhaps even UK-listed, company British or foreign if for example over 50% of the shares are owned by foreign investors, and/or the top management are not UK nationals?
Many countries including the UK have introduced new FDI approval regs. Even the golden share concept (unwisely abandoned by Blair I think) becomes difficult if you want competition and allow the break-up of a monopoly into component parts – does each part get a golden share
Reply. golden share prevents any foreign shareholder having a controlling interest.
August 2, 2025
Definition of the word foreign is unclear
August 2, 2025
foreign= the investment money comes from outside the UK.
August 2, 2025
Water is the very worst example of privatisation.
I certainly don’t prefer a nationalised water industry, my criticism is of the government ministers who allowed the owners to load up the businesses with debt to enable them to extract billions in dividends. This was a disastrous failure of oversight. It is probably even worse today with no business experience whatsoever in the cabinet.
We have a business secretary who lied about being a solicitor and a Chancellor who falsified her own CV and fiddled her expenses, yet both remain in post. That demonstrated all too clearly the appalling standard of ethics that Starmer finds acceptable.
August 2, 2025
Ethics in the judiciary and among barristers? Do me a favour!
August 2, 2025
MT :
For the sake of democracy the head of the CPS should never become an MP, let alone a PM.
August 3, 2025
And no human rights lawyer should ever be allowed anywhere near politics !
August 4, 2025
Well I do not agree with that, I do know a couple of fairly ethical and sensible lawyers.
But then again in the field of medicine look at for example the different rates for cesarian sections by country depending on the financial rerurns. They seem to be able to justify it to themselves if there is a few thousand more in fees. Probably too few in the UK amd too many in lots of other places. Also the vaccines experts who failed so spectacularly with the net harm, ineffective and multiple Covid Vaccines even for people with zero need of them due to age or already having had Covid!
Lots of “oh yes Mr X you have a solid 90% chance of winning” but this invariably comes down to about 50/50 by the time it actually gets close to a hearing!
August 2, 2025
Sir John
I am not aware of anyone that could support actual nationalisation . The only support comes from political animals that have no experience and want to shout out ‘look-at-me’. Its ego and personal self-esteem that is the handicap. All know evidence is nationalisation fails. What do they say ‘repeating past mistakes will only produce the same mistake’
The fundamental reason it doesn’t work in the UK is it as it has been demonstrated time and time again no one in the UK, its Legislator or the ‘Blob’ it runs, has shown how they can make things work better than those that do the job, the work. Again, its ego and personal self-esteem that is the handicap.
There is an argument that certain monopolies need political control. But political control is beyond the capability of those that we pay and have empowered. As it is the Taxpayer that pays the bills, and it is Government that takes the money then dishes it out they (the government) have overall control and management of the spend, so they get to dictate outcomes. Just to remind everyone the BoE, OBR, ONS, and many more Quangos all need paying, it is government that oversees managing what these entities get paid for. All Government fails.
They keep proving they only know how to fail – ego and personal self-esteem that is the handicap
Not only has government got a record of failure, it has repeatedly demonstrated that it has an inability to nationalise then manage. They fail to define purpose, other than personal ego and personal self-esteem.
Reply The Treasury had repeatedly failed to control heavy losses and cost explosions as with HS 2 so it ends up cutting capital spend instead.
August 2, 2025
@Reply – the same old answer from ‘me’ on everything, is who manages the Treasury, who pays those mangers of the treasury and for the Treasury itself? No one is taking responsibility for anything.
With HS2 you have to ask who created the contract for the Build, if they are still in position why?
August 2, 2025
@Reply – I 100% agree there should be no such thing as nationalisation, but the privatisation model with the benefit of ‘hindsight’ fell at the first hurdle, it missed completely the idea completely of a consumer driven market, which is in essence what is intended by the free market independent company. It instead just swapped a government monopoly into being another monopoly able to ‘blackmail’ government and the consumer. The entities created were just to large, to cumbersome and for the most part led by private equity asset strippers, they don’t serve their customers or the country. They wouldn’t survive if they had to work in what we call the market place
August 2, 2025
It was known many parties insisted on replanning various aspects of HS2 causing delays, further planning/consultation/Gov approvals…..the worst possible mission creep. So eventually the opposite had to happen, instead of expansion for the better solution, contraction was decided on to reduce costs and TRY to deliver to some promises.
August 2, 2025
The twin question is privatisation, how did that work out? Outfits are dumped onto a sort of pseudo market place because government want to shed their responsibility and the demand they have created for an ever-increasing take from the taxpayer and the failure to deliver. Just part good, the fail no thought given to the consequences just as with nationalisation in the first place.
Services, goods etc their supply and delivery only happen effectively is the output is consumer/customer led. No one else can produce the result that those that pay everyone’s wages can. The bit constantly forgotten is the bill payer. To many free-loaders with their eyes on the next election and not what they are empowered and paid to do.
Sir John – you missed from your list of great fails, the UK Car Industry. After the war the UK car industry was the 2nd largest in the World and the Worlds Largest exporter. earning massive revenue to that helped rebuild the nation. All good until a spiteful Government Nationalised it, then massive decline, no management. Again they forgot those that paid the wages, the customer. Today there is not a single UK owned car manufacturer.
The Government, its departments don’t, because they can’t buy British, even the King recently announced has to order himself a German car and a Geely Chinese vehicle. So UK wealth has to be exported never to return to prop-up other regimes .
August 2, 2025
The goal of Conservatism is to create a happy, peaceful, unified nation, overall, with both a strong economy and culture (‘culture’ in general sense with strong culture helping too create strong economy but also to reduce costs to tax payer for strong culture aids strong mental and physical health and wellbeing in general).
Reducing taxation must be a powerful Conservative instinct but mustn’t be ideological. Ditto for privatisation. If one over-focuses on these, they become ideological as opposed to pragmatic.
A true Conservative is always PRAGMATIC (like a business entrepreneur) never ideological (like a socialist or autocrat or bureaucrat).
August 2, 2025
Also, a strong Conservative Leader is like the CEO of a successful high tech company with high quality brands that he exports abroad. As opposed to just being a Finance Director whose goal is just cut spending.
A CEO’s approach is to be strict on spending. He listens to the Finance Director for sure. But doesn’t allow the Finance Director to run the company! For being a successful CEO of such a company also requires CREATIVITY, a VISION, uniting people, getting the most out of them, also INVESTMENT (R&D).
So a successful Conservative Leader always considers how to help entrepreneurs and people in business in general – not just tax breaks but also investing in infrastructure, skills training, and much more – like the US government investing indirectly and directly to help Silicon Valley take off.
The Tories back in 80’s focused North Sea Oil on helping the consumer and financial markets. They did good job. But failed to invest enough in the High Tech industry in the Cambridge area and creating the world’s second Silicon Valley (and related to this a car industry – in the north – to match the Germans – and manufacturing in general).
August 2, 2025
I’m not in love with re-nationalisation. However, I see it as the only solution to the water industry crisis, which has an appalling record of mismanagement and exploitation of their customers.
With regard to the rest of the privatised public monopolies, what’s done is done. Some did ok, some failed miserably. But considering the safety of the public, the lack of protection for the environment and our inability to attract foreign tourists (with their hard currency) to our sewage contaminated beaches, water privatisation has been an absolute disaster.
If the water industry was re-nationalised without compensation and the debt written off, the income from the customers could be used to build new reservoirs, replace the Victorian pipes and sewers, build new treatment plant and secure the nation’s potable water supplies. They would quickly become profitable.
Too bad for the private equity firms who have led us to this disgraceful situation.
Reply If you confiscate assets from peoples pension and insurance funds you will find it difficult to get future investment and you will have poorer pensioners to subsidise.
August 2, 2025
‘ If you confiscate assets from peoples pension and insurance funds you will find it difficult to get future investment and you will have poorer pensioners to subsidise.’ – good point.
I don’t think we’re rich enough as a nation (yet) to fix the problem of water.
I think we need to focus on wealth creation in general / building up our economy and then returning to water (else trying to fix water problem could take up too much of politicians’ time).
August 2, 2025
To reply indeed – and if you confiscate from Farmers, Landlords, small business, high energy using businesses with IHT, net zero rip off energy and all the new rules coming in to rob these people!
August 2, 2025
“If you confiscate assets from peoples pension and insurance funds” Uh ? The Canadian pension fund stupid enough to invest in Thames Water has written the value of their investment down to zero, no confiscation involved. Thames Water is effectively bankrupt, the investors have lost all their money unless (as will happen) the taxpayer bails them out.
August 2, 2025
Isn’t most of the problem down to regulators being a paper tiger? Frightened to get tough and incur issues from ‘friends in high places’ so little pressure over the many years to deliver better, cheaper, technology and respect.
August 2, 2025
Confiscate without compensation…SG…what on Earth…
Let’s say you have a million pounds worth of shares or land or property or any other assets legitimately and legally aquired…and I come along and take those from you.
With my gun…metaphorically.
Does that make it OK for you?
I have watched and read this blog for very many years.
Your post SG is the most shocking and extreme post there has ever been on here.
That someone who is a UK citizen would expose these words…amazing.
Neither liberal
Nor democratic.
August 2, 2025
I sugest we need to move away from the blunt tool of economic ideology that has not always served consumers & taxpayers well – Thames Water springs to mind on the one hand and the National Coal Board on the other.
What we seem to have is more like corporatism (private/foreign ownership with state regulation) rather than pure capitalism. Add to the mix the local authorities that have strayed way beyond their brief into ideological posturing (trans lobby, climate change etc) and you end up with the unhappy situation we find ourselves in today.
One size fits all is not a good way to run our national security and mission-critical infrastructure. A root and branch study of what does and does not work for each type of service and in similar contexts to the UK might be a good starting point.
If we are to promote private ownership, we need to think how to keep things out of the hands of hostile foreign players and ensure that the regulators are up to the job.
August 2, 2025
In 1975, I moved to a new house on a new housing estate (New Ash Green, Kent) and waited almost 2 years for a phone to be installed. A month after it arrived, it was converted to a ‘party line’. There are probably millions who have no idea what a party line is. Oh the joys of nationalisation!
Nearly a decade later, I was extremely fortunate to play a small part in the privatisation.
August 2, 2025
Indeed – a shared line…..these days I’d pity anybody sharing with us, the better half talks for at a least an hour a time with daughters, friends and at least 10 minutes booking anything.
August 2, 2025
Did the Developer notified the local telephone region that an Estate was being built in good time to upgrade the cable network from the exchange ?
Did the local Region tell you why you had to wait two years for a phone ?
How long were you on a party line for?
I am not suggesting a Nationalised phone company should not have provided you a better service, but it not always the case it is just that it is Nationalised. A private company may have had the same problems in providing a service to your estate which may have been built many miles from the Telephone Exchange.
As the name suggests two phones share a pair of copper wires and there is no voice privacy. But the phones have there own number and can be rung like a normal phone. You have to press a button to make a call rather than just lifting the handset. It’s a way of increasing cable capacity but not ideal for the phone user. But better than no phone at all (at the time).
August 3, 2025
After privatisation of BT and the introduction of competition from C&W these issues magically disappeared.
August 2, 2025
JR has forgotten the sensitive way in which the GPO rationed postwar requests for phone lines by simply refusing them, the Electricity and Gas Boards ignored new customers by deliberately cutting them off on the phone, and the Coal Board behaved as if coal was a rare earth found only on Mars.
August 3, 2025
Not sure if you are are commenting on JR or JMcD. I was born just after the war growing up in London and did not experience the short comings of the Nationalised industries a those who did not live in populated areas.
But would seem a bit strange if the GPO had the exchange equipment and lines just to refuse service for no reason.
Most people had to use call boxes as home phones not that common unless provide by your employer in the late 1960’s
I have to admit to starting my working life in the Post Office(BT) and the only customer issue was lack of phone style choice at that time. Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) was being rolled out which was a big advance. Things were progressing to a better phone service.
August 3, 2025
If electoral prospects will be harmed politicians will not take hard decisions. That’s why it took until 2019, a period of 50 years after the election of Margaret Thatcher, for the so-called red wall constituencies to vote Tory. The electorate has a long and unforgiving memory. That’s why this government is not going to be able to get a grip on the public finances. There are too many vested interests on which it depends electorally.
August 3, 2025
“Given the enthusiasm of some here I ask why are you in love with nationalisation?”
Because it enables the state’s elites to eventually own and control everything. The history of the last century shows the result very clearly.
August 3, 2025
PS : Ed Miliband has refused to publish details of the net zero cooperation deal he has signed with China. CAGW is a communist hoax to sabotage our energy and industrial capacity and hence our economy and national security. Do not believe that the CCC, DESNZ, Ofgem , the PM and Ed Miliband do not know or understand what they are doing to the country.
August 5, 2025
It’s something to do with national identity and loyalty.