The two best arguments against nationalisation today are the Post Office and the nationalised rail companies Network Rail and HS 2.
Both of these  have lost taxpayers a fortune. Both have failed to deliver good service and to achieve the aims set for them by governments.
The Post Office under Labour and Lib Dem Ministers bungled putting in an expensive new computer system. It then blamed its sub postmasters demanding money from them they did not owe and putting many into court and prison. Under Conservative Ministers since 2015 the Post Office has delayed and diluted efforts to correct the record and compensate those falsely accused.
In recent years the Post Office has racked up losses of ÂŁ1400 million plunging the balance sheet into the red . The Post Office is only allowed to trade by its auditors with a Treasury guarantee to pay all the continuing losses. Without a taxpayer guarantee the PO is now bankrupt.
HS2 Ltd has presided  over a massive escalation of costs to build a railway line, and allowed long delays in building the track and ordering the trains. So bad has it been it has resulted in deleting important parts of the original plan whilst we await a new track between Birmingham  and London for a train which was meant to improve connections for the north. If they had stuck to the original budget and timetable we would at least have got a new railway to the north.
Network Rail has presided over colossal losses. It regularly shuts sections of railway down for maintenance at holiday periods when more people might need a train. They do not resurface the main runways  at Heathrow over a bank holiday. It is often the reason for train delays and cancellations with points and signals failures, and with flooded and undermined track.
Network Rail has been slow to introduce digital signalling that would allow more trains to run safely on the same track, knowing exactly where all the other trains are. Its vast rambling property estate is poorly kept, and underdeveloped with often a negative response to ideas to develop station property better.
All 3 of these nationalised companies have paid large salaries and bonuses to senior executives  regardless of the losses and poor performance. There have been many changes of Minister and 3 different governing party governments ( Lab/Coalition/Conservative)  presiding over these companies. How can you argue this has been a good way to run things? Don’t private sector companies like Amazon and Microsoft do things better?
April 3, 2024
Good morning.
So what are the alternatives ? Do we have workable alternatives to the Post Office ?
Who gave HS2 the green light ? This was not a private venture. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s railways, including the underground, were private ventures. All they needed was private capital and permission from the government. It worked then, why was this same tried and tested formula allowed to work for HS2 ?
We have tried all sorts of ways to manage those concerns that provide services, and we so not seem to be able to make them work when, in the past, we had. I suggest governments should learn to do less and demand that those who seek some form of government intervention and spending should be made to go to the Markets. The Markets then could decide if such schemes are profitable or not and price them accordingly. It is how we use to do things before we had politicians who though they were here to act as God on Earth.
April 3, 2024
I tend to dwell on how things âused to beâ.
But reading your comment I suddenly wondered whether the history of our âsuccessâ is just a fabrication.
After allâŠthe wonders of stagecoach and train and loom and Concorde did not persist. They all had inherent problems, many of which ( like âBeggar My Neighbourâ manufacturing ) are now raising their ugly heads.
Are we witnessing over-promoted, over-proud wraiths scrabbling around in the ashes of our civilisation, snatching out handfuls of whatever riches they can?
April 3, 2024
I seem to recollect Teresa Villers gave away about ÂŁ40 million of our taxes because of govt. mess up over franchising. Please Tell us about that JR. Your govt. never seems happier than wasting our taxes.
April 3, 2024
The Post Office was working fine for most of its long history. Incompetent and conniving management, in cahoots with a privately-owned supplier of flawed software, was the cause of the scandal with the postmasters.
Railways got worse after privatisation. A joined-up national service with affordable fares is long gone along with much of the expertise that railways built up over the years.
HS2 was more of a publicly funded major investment than an established industry taken into public ownership. The government let the managers in charge pull the wool over its eyes about the huge overruns against budget.
Instead of nationalised industries we now have governments handing over chunks of what used to be publicly run institutions like prisons, immigration agencies to private sector firms who do the job badly. These are the usual suspects who I wonât name.
April 3, 2024
“The simple transfer of ownership from public to private hands will not necessarily reduce the cost or enhance the quality of services.â
“The other motive was the belief that any service managed by government employees would always be sluggish compared with the innovative dynamism of âbusinessâ
Harvard quoted in ‘The Times’ on ‘failed capitalism’ of Thames Water. Once it was offloaded and The City firms had made their money, politicians thought the job was done. No thought of oversight or greedy investors milking an essential monopoly for all it was worth and ignoring investment. Make money and sell on before it goes pear shaped.
Privatisation seems to have been a triumph of theory over a full plan and due diligence including likely behaviour of private ownership.
April 3, 2024
Peter , we all know and despise those companies, except those getting big back handers. a lot of our government have now become corrupt , money before honour!
April 3, 2024
Mark,
Para.2 EU infrastructure project to link main cities of EU. No matter the cost to UK taxpayer.
What we are seeing is that those in govt. are incapable of governing. They are used to managing directives from EU, most of which go directly to quangos to implement without mention by the press.
Ten years ago we had …..Clegg on TV debating Farage saying there was no intention of having an EU army and there were hardly any EU laws, yet 4,000 remain on statute book that Sunak refuses to scrap. He recently implemented more EU equality legislation into domestic law!
April 4, 2024
HS2 – Part of the TEN-S Network was not mandated by the EU. ie We did not need to build it.
As Sir John says, we should have started in the North of England. Then at least, they would have had some infrastructure built.
April 4, 2024
To go where? As it stands it does not go to London and not go to Birmingham! A fast train across beautiful countryside that was wrecked for a journey that does not start where it should and fails to reach its destination. People should just go to Alton Towers if they want a thrill to go on a fast ride.
April 3, 2024
Talking of the Railways, another win for the eco fascists with train making at Derby stopping.
No doubt Alston will find the capacity in France to build the HS2 engines and we can import them.
Another sign of good well paid jobs being created abroad by nut zero.
April 3, 2024
Mark, no doubt the private sector looked but could see no return in running and owning such as HS2. There was money to be made in working for a government vanity project however, so they are. Bottomless government funding (taxation), organised by the scribes. I bet they have already bought a pair of gold plated scissors for a greaseball politician to cut the tape. I can’t wait for the first drivers strike over pay.
April 4, 2024
And that there is where the problem lay. Government calls it ‘investment’ when in TRUTH it is not. It is spending. Investment is when one ‘expects’ a financial return. The Markets could not see it, so did not touch it. Well, at least directly. They probably had a few fingers in the company pies that were building it.
My point about Markets is this. If they will not invest, then it is a sure bet it is a loss maker and that governments should not touch it.
April 3, 2024
HS2 is an EU project – part of the desired Trans-Europe Transport Network of HS rail lines. When we “left” the EU it could and should have been ditched.
April 3, 2024
It should have been blocked from the proposal stage. High speed over approx 90 miles from city centre to city centre, largely on developed countryside requiring 30 miles of tunnels! What bunch of halfwits thought that was viable? Well you know who, and each time another bunch could have, should have, stopped it – but they didn’t! And now bits are chipped off, potentially good extension routes abandoned…Move the terminus out of city centre, push back the operational date yet again. My god who would invest in large scale British infrastructure? Big salaries but no outcome.
April 3, 2024
HS2, To save 30 minutes on one railway journey, what idiot thought that was a good idea! EU.
April 4, 2024
the user might save 30 mins on that train, but what about the issue of getting to the start point, and to the desired end of journey?
April 3, 2024
The government needs a degree of nationalisation for the Post Office, otherwise it wouldn’t be sure whether it could send you and I its tax demands.
Reply Royal Mail is privatised
April 4, 2024
The US Post Office is still nationalised. Apparently you can send a 1st class letter coast to coast (that’s 3,000 miles) for about 65 p. It retained its universal service obligation *and* the monopoly on letter delivery. This should have happened with the UK but some fool didn’t understand how a universal service workS best.
Much of this diatribe against nationalisation would be more coherently phrased as an attack on centralisation. There are lots of examples in business and government of where small is beautiful (and cheaper). The few large organisations I worked in were sclerotic and tyrannical. I couldn’t bear it and ran a SME for the rest of my working life. However, large organisation gain the ear of government and mould things to suit.
Why did the UK over 70 years, especially the past 45, become just about the most centralised country in Europe? See Simon Jenkins’ 2007 book. The local checks and balances were swept away by governments of both parties, suggesting a process of ‘groupthink’ was underway. (‘Devolution’ made sod all difference.) Some of this happened earlier, e.g. a drastic top-down county reorganisation and re-naming in 1974 (aka a waste of taxpayers’ money).
April 3, 2024
HS2 – we were told that changes were regularly ‘forced’ making significant replanning and high cost adjustments.
The emerging cost increases were always vague – nobody seemed to stop and think at Government level that control was lost. Major changes like moving the London terminal out of central London was eye-wateringly shocking. Abandoning the North ‘tuning fork ‘ routes disastrous to public tolerance.
If ever a major infrastructure hit repeated hurdles it was and is this!
Reply Ministerial agreement to changes usually followed another cost overrun and was another attempt to get costs back to original estimates.
April 3, 2024
HS2 should never have happened. In a country this size we don’t need it and of course to make it high speed it would need few stops, which means very few people could have used it or even have afforded it, if the privatised rail prices are anything to go by (and they don’t even need to recover building costs). I doubt any private money would have been put up for it. What we needed was for the neglected parts to be upgraded, which is why so much engineering work is now undertaken at weekends. How else could it be done? The old group think of save a pound today by neglect, only to spend 10 pounds later on to put it right. It is happening right now to our local hospital which they want to close after 25 years of neglect saying its too dear to refurbish.
April 3, 2024
Perhaps we should ask Amazon if they want to build HS2, and if not, why not? They’re making enough money from the UK. In 2010, they enjoyed net sales of $4bn. By 2023, that figure was $33.6bn. So efficient are they that they do their distribution often delivering next day from orders up to 9 pm the evening before! 20 distribution centres. Personally, I prefer to buy in shops, but my husband buys everything online.
How do they choose their British management teams, or do they hire foreign managers? We must look at their hiring models, as ours seem to rot from the top down.
April 3, 2024
Indeed but endless government failures:- the ERM, the EURO, Blairâs evil wars, our virtually useless police on burglary, shoplifting, theft, muggings, assaults, car crime⊠the net harm lockdowns, the net harm Covid Vaccines coerced into people who never needed them, Brown selling of our Gold and his banking crash and botched rescue, Blairs botched devolution, Cameronâs bombing of Libya, road blocking, the Millennium Dome⊠The two largest perhaps are perhaps the dire NHS and the mad Net Zero war on the gas of life.
April 3, 2024
Also the lab leak (hopefully just an accidental leak?), after gain of function experimentation, of the Covid Virus itself. What was the cost of that in ÂŁ trillions? Again funded and directed by Governments as is now very clear.
April 3, 2024
Good to see you are using your degree in hindsight to be 100% accurate plus continued obsession with Covid. Of course itâs true, you said so. How sad.
April 3, 2024
The vaccine statistics and records are all very clear indeed and across many countries. They knew it was a lab leak after gain of function experiments from the very outset but decided to lie. Nothing to do with âhindsightâ it was very clear even before the new tech. âvaccinesâ, claimed to be safe and 80-90% effective were released that they should never have been give to the healthy young or those who had had Covid already. This as they were not at any real risk from Covid anyway.
April 3, 2024
LL,
â endless government failuresâ. Correct.
April 3, 2024
Indeed failures to run things efficiently, regulate things efficiently or subcontract anything efficiently. Not their money so what do they care?
April 3, 2024
James Cleverly
Secretary of State for the Home Department has gone rather quiet on the huge increase in boat people so far this year. The good weather has not even started yet. A record 5000 for the year so far.
Does he âhave a planâ or is his plan just to shut up and pretend it is not happening?
Much talk of the childcare cost problems but the problem is due to grossly excessive employment taxes and excessive property rents and rate costs (and vast over regulation) for childcare premises. If you work and pay nearly 50% in tax and NI x2 and then employ someone else to care for your child or children (who then pays perhaps 35% of their salary in tax) then the sums mean you might as well not bother, Unless you earn at least three or four times what they do. Even then it is marginal after commuting costs, lack of free time costs etc. Best to look after your own children and save paying all that tax on the circa two salaries, get more in bemefits and have more quality time.
Or just barter perhaps.
Perhaps become an MPs and then you get subsidised child care. Most workers and NHS workers rarely do. They do not even get free parking at work.
April 3, 2024
The plan is to get booted out of office and make as much money as possible.
April 3, 2024
âHS2 Ltd has presided over a massive escalation of costs to build a railway lineâ
Oh I though the HS2 railway line was just the ruse to hose loads of tax payers money into crony capitalists pockets. A project (like the disastrous lockdowns, Covid Vaccines, Millennium Dome, Blairâs wars) supported by nearly all the main parties.
But perhaps I am too cynical but the older I get the more I realise I am usually not quite cynical enough.
April 3, 2024
The older we get LL, the more experienced we get, and that experience gives us more understanding of the lies politicians tell us to further their political and/or financial aims. We need more effective ways to remove the worst ones from office.
April 3, 2024
A start might be to whittle down 650 MPs to 400 and later to maybe 250. Also to close the House of Fools and open a new Second approval Commission to evaluate what ought to happen now without the politics.
No chance of course! Too many vested interests.
April 3, 2024
âNobody is buying into the net zero madness
Thereâs no consensus that climate policy needs to hurt the living standards of ordinary Britonsâ
JOHN REDWOOD in the Telegraph.
There is no consensus among sensible scientists that reducing CO2 is even remotely beneficial, quite the reverse. Even if the project cost nothing rather than the many ÂŁTrillions.
Also:-
Yousafâs âhate crimeâ laws have turned Scotland into a nation of snitches â Stalin would be proud
Allison Pearson
So will the Sunak Government do anything to kill this mad and evil Scottish (and in effect UK law) other than his usual pathetic hot air?
April 3, 2024
He really should do something. And like with so many other things he could.
Apparently ( and I do not perfectly understand this)âŠ.anyone, anywhere in the world can be caught by the Scottish Law and presumably dragged off to a Scottish court. I imagine that would include any perceived hurt caused by politicians or absolutely ANYONE. And there seem no hard and fast rule about what actually constitutes hurt/hate/harm.
April 3, 2024
People surely have a right to hate things if they wish to. You will not change their minds by passing evil laws anyway.
Somethings surely deserve to be hated – like violent criminals people who choose to live of the backs of others or people who take countries into pointless & damaging wars on a pack of lies.
April 3, 2024
Absolutely!
April 3, 2024
“Nobody is buying into the net zero madness”
I think you’ll find most people do buy into it.
April 3, 2024
those that do must be zombies Mike!
April 3, 2024
Very good and forthright JR article in Telegraph. Tide is slowly turning possibly?
I think that this embracing of machines to perform human tasks ( such as taking appointments and sorting out botched orders) is taking an unacceptable toll on everyone.
Nothing works anymore because we are trying to cook soup on a candle with one hand tied behind our backs.
The contortions of buying online in place of going, parking with coins, seeing, buying and taking home are utterly laughable is they werenât so expensive in time, stress and worry.
Not to mention the govt.âs obsession with modelling to turn the world inside out.
We just could NOT nationalise a rice pudding even if we wanted to.
We no longer have the ability to organise.
April 3, 2024
The large online retailer mentioned is now a nightmare to deal with if purchases go wrong.
I no longer buy big ticket items there because if there is a problem it is very difficult to speak to a human.
April 3, 2024
Sales robots need an ineptitude antidote to prevent the spread of their disease.
Before long consumer purchasing enterprise will create an online Customer Robocop to stop, search and strangulate their abysmal sales technique.
April 3, 2024
Lovely!
April 3, 2024
My experience with that retailer is to the contrary I had to return an item yesterday and it couldn’t be easier.. parcel the item, download a QR image, PO counter staff scan the image to produce label and gave me a receipt. There was no postage cost and a courier collection option is also available. The original item cost is refunded directly.
I do buy from other on-line stores as well and returns-refunds are typically not a problem.
April 3, 2024
Arenât you the lucky one!
Just wait until your luck runs out.
Maybe you donât buy very much?
April 4, 2024
I predominantly buy online – perhaps it depends on the type of products.
April 4, 2024
What have you had a problem returning?
What did you do to return the item?
My husband buys and returns items for work and home frequently without any problems; perhaps I can get some tips for you.
April 3, 2024
Everhopeful, it is the system and management in the UK that is lacking along with an atrophied government that permits it through ignorance. Just bought a wine cooler from Berlin. First to arrive were the guide as to what to do if things went wrong or we didn’t like the product, then four days later the product arrived. It is now in place in the largely new german kitchen awaiting my culinary efforts. Happy Bunny.
April 3, 2024
Why not hop off there then?
You could live in an entirely German house!
Viel GlĂŒck
April 3, 2024
Bad management, incompetent management, too many managers.
Modern day DEI, adherence to Stonewall and other minority left wing pressure groups.
Politicised Unions.
I’m on the fence with nationalisation/privatisation, but given as how all of the above seems to be the order of the day, I’m not surprised we don’t seem to be able to get efficiency or value for money out of either.
We’ve got people running the country who are middle management at best, with no passion for the country or its people, all of that rubs off on those running our services.
April 3, 2024
Companies today are forced to toe the line on ESG and DEI on pain of losing business from their often larger business customers. It reminds me of East Germany, before the fall of the Berlin wall, where citizens were urged by the Stasi to spy on each other. Pages and pages of Annual Reports are now filled with expressions of dutiful support for these requirements alongside next to nothing on improving business profitability. In the USA there are signs of a backlash. In the UK? Nothing but passive acceptance and assured decline.
April 3, 2024
Spot on Michelle, its the generals not the soldiers, as ever.
April 3, 2024
@Michelle +1 – I agree it is the government and the blob searching for away of signalling a virtue that is the prime hindrance, we have arrived at that from incompetence of those employed refusing to do their job
April 3, 2024
It’s a pointless debate for mere plebs like us who have no sway in how things are designed and constructed. Our function is merely to finance the sometimes incompetence of those who run such behemoths such as the NHS.
I like most politicians couldn’t care less anymore. The heart and soul’s been crushed by a political force that seeks nothing less than total control without responsibility.
Until people learn to vote for moral, decent people to enter into public life then we head towards the edge.
April 3, 2024
A US political pundit is positing that the only way to control AI is to nationalise it.
April 3, 2024
Here’s the problem: You could say: “The best argument against privatisation today are the water companies and the train companies”. It doesn’t much matter which ideology is adopted, if the people setting up and then running the industries are not competent and/or bought off.
April 3, 2024
[Microsoft comment deleted]
The Uk has long lost the ability to manage large projects, whether it be the MoD developing the Ajax tracked vehicle years late or managing the RAF’s Hawk T2 fast jet trainer fleet. The American company Bechtel should have been given the contract to build HS2 – on a fixed price contract
The government has had 14 years to sort out HS2, the Post Office, Network Rail etc – and if anybody wants to see what happens when debt-free public utilities are sold off to private equity on the cheap, they can look at the failed water companies. Sewage is going to be a major issue at the Jan 2025 election
April 3, 2024
A lot of it is talked at every election.
April 3, 2024
Do we remember the changing spec for the carriers? Eventually somebody added up the electronics consumption, and found it couldn’t be met, so an upscaling of generation. Now we have bending prop-shafts!
April 3, 2024
We have a rising list of failures of QUANGO regulators. Ofwat has joined OFGEM, which failed spectacularly to handle the energy crisis and ignored the warnings it was coming. OFCOM has not only been providing a home for a harem of modern Winston Smiths, but has also managed to make a mess of switching off copper landlines, reallocation of radio spectrum (see smart meters, making 3G phones into landfill etc.) etc.. ORR failed to prevent HS2 from descending into a fiasco, and did nothing that shortened the rail strikes of recent months, and has no idea how to cope with a post lockdown world for rail where commuter numbers have fallen. Increasingly, these quangos are driven by government mandates that do not reflect the priorities of ordinary people. Politicians seem to exult in finding new ways to splurge ever greater sums of public money on value destroying projects. Bid a Millenium dome, outdo with PFI then raise to HS2 and now Net Zero.
That has destroyed the value of politics.
April 3, 2024
Yes, Amazon and Microsoft run their businesses better. But that’s because they keep well clear of operating water supplies and public transport. They know how to compete and offer their customers choice in their line of business *which they want*. When I turn on the tap or go to the station, I just want a service, I don’t want to first have to choose between rival operators.
April 3, 2024
I bet you choose your phone service and broadband and electricity and gas suppliers: if there are reasons to pick among those there are similar reasons why competition in water would also work. Maybe your dentist if you have private provision. Your optician, your supermarket, your car and where you fill it and have it serviced. If you are doing a longer journey you will weigh the pros and cons of rail, air, ship/ferry, driving yourself. In London do you walk,cycle, go by bus, tube/rail, Uber or black cab (I assume car is out unless you are on expenses)?
April 4, 2024
What are those reasons and why in your view haven’t we seen them applied in the last 35 years?
April 3, 2024
Nothing wrong with Nationalisation in theory, the problem is it does not work in practice because those in charge make political decisions, not commercial ones, add to that politicians (with a few exceptions) complete lack of big business experience, man management skills, and financial knowhow, is it any wonder it fails.
Add to the above a crazy and expensive management system, which I assume makes the everyday decisions, which is distanced from Ministers, but does not seem to take any of the responsibility or blame for their own decisions, is it any wonder nothing works.
Add to all of the above a guaranteed high reward/salary/pension/bonus, with no penalty or blame for failure or incompetence, and you end up with what we have got !
A very, very expensive mess.
April 4, 2024
Alan, “politicians (with a few exceptions) complete lack of big business experience, man management skills, and financial knowhow,” we are told Hunt was a businessman. He ran his own educational publishing business, which was sold in a multimillion-pound deal. He also set up a charity to help AIDS orphans in Africa. We are told he is quite savvy at investing in seven buy-to-let flats.
The Independent article I read said he had extended an ÂŁ11bn a year tax break to businesses and this year gave a 4% national insurance cut to make work pay. Would he pass as one of the exceptions?
April 3, 2024
This article makes me laugh. The Post Office and HS2 are lambasted – but the government are blameless! How much of the increased cost of HS2 was caused by our literally insane planning system. As for the Post Office – youâre the government – run it. Who needs it? Towns with no banks – fair enough, there is a public, or social, need. Why do you have to consider it runs at a loss? Surely it is a cost. Just as running a school is a cost. You donât say the nationalised schools run at a loss. Or the NHS. But you pick on the Post Office – a service which no-one would provide on a commercial basis.
Under privatisation we have:
A national grid without the investment necessary for the transition to net zero.
Power generation that relies on imported energy – gas, wood chips and electricity
Water companies that are dumping sewage into our rivers and seas
Gas production falling and reliance on imports
A fibre broadband rollout that is taking forever.
These privatised utilities are a good advert for nationalisation.
April 4, 2024
Mike, “It is important to note that starting a post office requires a significant investment of time, money, and resources, so careful planning and preparation are key to success. However, with the right support and planning, starting a post office in the UK can be a valuable and profitable business opportunity.” PDQ Funding “The Post Office covers all costs related to buying and installing equipment, and training staff â as long as your business plan is realistic and promising. To do this, the company invests up to ÂŁ45,000 on a match-funding basis for ‘main’ branches”
They retain 18% of the price of a Special delivery and 16% for First Class parcels. The average franchise owner 2023 earns around ÂŁ35,895. âThe Local model in particular is most profitable when the retail and Post Office functions can be combined using the same staff,â
Typical business model
47% handling post/collecting parcels
30% banking facilities
13% collect benefit
7% pay bills
3% buy stamps
64% of post office owners fear that more services will go on-line and affect their business. source retailattack
April 3, 2024
Both the Post Office and Network Rail operate in a shrinking market place thanks to Email and Covid/WFH. Both are ultimately controlled, legislated for, and financed by here today gone tomorrow governments who are ideologically driven with zero management ability. With the track record they carry, politicians in government along with their civil service and quangos, could not run anything nationalised or private. They totally screw up anything nationalised and interfere negatively when trying to tax, legislate and control the private sector.
There is nothing inherantly wrong with nationalisation. A mixture of it and private companies run japanese railways superbly well. Go there and experiece it. You would return disgusted and ashamed at railway performance in the UK. It is the quality of the leadership that is lacking and constrained by politics that is the UK problem. If you disagree, think back and acknowledge, that it was the japanese and an american academic who taught us how to run the car industry.
I would add briefly that if Amazon ran the postal service we would have one. I note that the political charlaton, who presided over the crime against sub postmasters, is now on his soapbox, pontificating on the ills of this government, in the hope of re-election and power. I am sure you would agree that he and his like should not be allowed to run Wokingham.
We need a total re-think on how we run public services devoid of politics. An examination of how other counties do things with success, followed by adoption in the UK is a suggested way forward. You could start with the NHS.
It has just occured to me that you will not be around to do anything by the end of the year, just another bunch of political chancers
April 4, 2024
Perhaps the independent post office franchises could sell to Amazon to make the local postal store a duo unit, saving economies of scale. However, I did read that they pay the post offices from a 2021 deal for taking in their returns and handling clients who want to pick up.
April 4, 2024
“Both the Post Office and Network Rail operate in a shrinking market place” – On the contrary with a major shift to on-line buying I would have thought the opportunities for rail freight and parcel/packet delivery are exploding
April 3, 2024
The government doesnât have to own the UK to control it. It can regulate, without exposing taxpayers to such immense risk of cost and failure. Let business create what is good and needed according to user demand. Governments setting up organisations attempting to do better than what businesses already excel at simply canât compete; except in achieving national records for maximum loss and waste.
April 3, 2024
Once again a one eyed stance seeking to absolve this wretched government.
Just look how the telecoms industry has been hampered/fragmented across Europe by politicians and regulators with the U.K. slavishly following Brussels plus the dead hand if BT to the extent our international competitiveness is a joke.
There was never a business case for HS2 indeed the opposite was covered up/ignored because it was a political stunt, a bribe to the North. Post Covid you didnât have the courage to scrap it.
Post Office a basket case. A massive public sector overhang in terms of culture and completely unsuited senior management, no doubt employed to meet diversity targets etc. you only had to see how Vennels got her gong and a job in Whitehall post scandal to realise it was the usual public sector merry go round.
And in the interests of balance how many bonuses do your Ministers sign off across the Civil Service despite appalling performance?
As for the Amazons of this world politicians and regulators see them as too successful and spend much of their lives thinking how to nobble them. Regular failed efforts to boost high streets as an example.
Maybe some honesty Sir JR about the effect of your One Nation group not only making you unelectable but also responsible for the high tax/high government interference culture we have at present.
April 3, 2024
Carillion, RBS, HBOS, Toy R Us, Woolworths. Public sector is not the only large organisation with poor management.
Perhaps the answer is in ore executive and non-executive accountability. Skin in the game concentrates minds.
HS2 is one of the seven wonders of the modern world – one wonders Why?
April 3, 2024
You meant to write horrors instead of wonders, didn’t you!
April 3, 2024
HS2 was allowed to massively escalate costs and continually under-deliver by successive Government Ministers. They should have insisted the company stick to the original budget and as soon as it announced it wasn’t possible the project should have been scrapped.
In November 2019 Johnson had the opportunity AND the majority to pull the plug on the White Elephant (an EU project, which is why it was previously considered sacrosanct) but he didn’t. Money continued to be poured down the drain and now we’re paying ÂŁ70 billion for a railway between Not Quite London and Nearly Birmingham!
Amazon and Microsoft were created by Americans and run by Americans. Perhaps we should get some Americans to run the Post Office and Thames Water because the British no longer seem capable of running anything efficiently.
April 3, 2024
Yes, nearly Birmingham. Isn’t the Birmingham end outside the city centre. And, yes, Old Oak Common – I used to do a gig in a pub there many years ago. Always happy to get out with the van, gear and body intact. Awful, slum dump. Like lots of London.
April 3, 2024
you should be ducking the complaints in shame.
April 4, 2024
The project should never have been approved. You can do the numbers on the back of an envelope to show that it could never pay for itself. Say 20 trains a day each way, with an average of 300 passengers and a fare of ÂŁ100 between London and Birmingham one way is annual revenue of 20x2x300x100x365 or ÂŁ438m. Allow say 25% of that to cover operating and maintenance cost, and we are left with about ÂŁ330m. Assume project financing at 5% amortised over 50 years gives a capital charge of about 5.5% ÂŁ330m/0.055 gives a maximum acceptable capital cost of ÂŁ6bn. Tweak the numbers to taste.
I think the M40 was built for under ÂŁ5m a mile, or say ÂŁ500m in total. It carries far more traffic than HS2 ever will (over 100,000 vehicles a day in the busiest stretches) because it is convenient for many different routes, and even inflated to today’s prices it is obviously a benefit.
April 3, 2024
The problem is that people do not trust the regulators and watchdogs put in charge of these utility companies.
There needs to be objective measures of what makes a good regulator.
People think the regulators are not given enough power and stuffed with political appointees.
April 3, 2024
âAll 3 of these nationalised companies have paid large salaries and bonuses to senior executives regardless of the losses and poor performance.â
It actually doesnât matter whether these large bureaucracies are nationalised or privatised because theyâre always run by the same elite group who are even rewarded with another similar job when they fail miserably evidencing that failure is a deliberate policy.
Robert Conquestâs 2nd and 3rd laws of politics :
– âAny organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.â
– âThe simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it led by a cabal of its enemies.â
The CPP, having also been captured, have naturally made no attempt to change this elite clique of PM Blairâs appointed far left elites. As a result nothing now works properly by design.
April 3, 2024
Time for public sector DB pensions to go and those being paid out to be stopped.
The failure to conserve the system which can support this has brought us to an economic emergency and it is iniquitous that lowly paid private sector workers should be taxed to oblivion to pay for something that they cannot possibly afford themselves.
April 3, 2024
Yes, agree 100%.
Gordon Brown destroyed private workers pensions, whilst protecting the pensions of public workers, including MPs.
April 3, 2024
The majority of the public sector final salary schemes ended years ago. Most staff are very low paid. ONS figures from 2021 show the average full-time worker – Administrative Officer (AO) only earned ÂŁ21,204 per year before deductions. Maybe you should look at MP’s pay and pension where the basic annual salary from 1 April 2024 is ÂŁ91,346 plus expenses and they can get a full pension after 10 years of service.
Reply How come a full pension after 10 years. I think MPs need to contribute more than that.
April 3, 2024
It is VERY important for MPs to have a decent pension and a wonderful pension – to attract the high quality of people we need to run the country. It’s working very well, so far.
April 3, 2024
thats why they mostly avoiding everything, waiting for the 10 year pension!
April 3, 2024
Amazon and Microsoft sort of have real competition that keeps the management on it toes, if the blink they can lose millions. Although they are both close to being private monopolies because the so-called authorities keep allowing them to buy up their competition so they have less competition â that was never the point of a âfree marketâ
April 3, 2024
I can get pretty much anything I want from John Lewis and can use Apple or Linux to do my computing.
April 4, 2024
Yes I use Linux which very cost effective and efficient compared with the commercially lobbied huge licence fees charged by multinationals. Linux runs the majority of the web servers and supercomputers for this very reason.
Even the BBC have been using it for decades.
However politicians think unless it’s expensive it must not be the best there is……
April 3, 2024
The Post Office struggles on many fronts, the wrong people in charge seems to be the prime disconnect. Then you have the situation of the Minister awarded the position of âmanagementâ seems to think itâs a joke, just more money no responsibility. Their it is Government to blame we are all suffering from the blind leading the blind. The latest announcement of a new recruit is someone without experience of what it takes to run a large organization. Overall the feeling is that Government only attracts friends of friends from their own circle or the âBlobsâ. The bad choice of Government as regards the PO is that they allowed competition of sorts. The competition instead of being a universal delivery system were permitted to pick the lucrative high density delivery areas that for the PO funded the universal complete delivery. So for the PO compelled to be a complete system by its charter became excluded from the profitable areas.
April 3, 2024
One of the things that really infuriates me about Network Rail is the quantity of scrap track metal that one sees lying along and beside the railway line. Surely there must be a market for this – particularly as we are now, for climate change related reasons, ceasing to smelt steel from iron ore and using electric arc furnaces to melt and purify existing steel.
April 3, 2024
This is an exceptionally shrewd move. As our ability to produce steel is now gone (UNBELIEVABLE!), the scrap steel is going to get a lot more valuable.
April 3, 2024
HS2 appears to have been imposed on the UK Government by the EU. It serves no natural infrastructure purpose. Hence the reason all the contracts and standards are external and not what the UK needs or requires. Trying to build a system on 100-year-old technology is the same as remaining analogue in a digital World.
As it is not a modern system that is being introduced but a system dictated from those, we canât vote for and we canât hold to account it was always going to be a disaster. Itâs a disaster those in government are personally prepared to accept as it chimes well with them in allowing the EU to control our country and democracy.
Sir John, as you have inferred previously just upgrade the controls for the whole rail networks would increase the capacity by more than what HS2 can hope to bring and in all probability at less cost. People mustnât lose sight the rest of the networks still has to have these delayed upgrades
April 3, 2024
As soon as some nutter said: ‘We need a 13 mile tunnel to get out of West London’ – the politicians should have said; ‘Nah, we’ll improve signalling and capacity on the existing lines for one ten millionth of the cost.’
April 3, 2024
Sir John
To really sum up todayâs thoughts, we have a Conservative Government that refuses to manage, refuses to be Conservative. All the situation could be overcome if only we had a real government in power.
I note elsewhere even some real conservatives have had enough of the CCHQ and this Conservative Government ensuring those that get to infiltrate the party are Left Wing Socialist instead of center ground people wishing to serve the country. There has been calls in the media for local party members to deselect these Socialist. I hope they succeed, we need our party back
Instead of having a Conservative in Government we have a continuation of the Blair/Brown New Labour project that seeks destruction of the very fabric of UK Society. All the while this CCHQ and Conservative Government are choosing the candidates there will not be a change. Candidate selection should be an exclusive local affair
April 3, 2024
….. It regularly shuts sections of railway down for maintenance at holiday periods…..
As a business with an essential shutdown period, why would you schedule it when your regular and commuter customers need it in favour of those who might only use it once a year?
Reply The balance of demand now 5 day a week commuting has largely gone often produces better demand on a holiday date
April 3, 2024
In the Guardian today on Network Rail “The taxpayer-funded body plans to send key operational staff to its new âweather academyâ to make them âamateur meteorologistsâ, allowing them to interpret forecasts and make better operational decisions”.
Why don’t they just use professional meteorologists like the rest of us? My granny’s bunion would probably have told them as much as they might guess for themselves.
April 3, 2024
Here’s an age old argument against nationalization of anything.
Government is the worst, most corrupt, most inefficient manager of anything on the planet. No government policy, project or legislation succeeds in it’s stated intent. The only things governments are good at are theft, war and stiflling the productive. The people that enter politics are either already or will become corrupt, dishonest, power crazed and idiotic. Government can only exist by threats of force, bribery and brain washing. Government is based on evil.
April 3, 2024
Why not say what you mean? And, what’s the alternative? Putin? The bloke that runs China?
April 3, 2024
MW :
Weâre on the path to Putin & Xi. Thatâs what the economy destroying unilateral Net Zero, the social, cohesion and nation destroying mass immigration (legal and illegal) and all the cultural revolution destroying freedom of speech is all about. We already have a uniparty Parliament.
April 4, 2024
Des
Much is wrong in government yet some of your criticism, such as âevilâ extends into extreme.
If we oppose the bad operators and support the good ones with every vote we cast circumstances should improve.
April 3, 2024
I fully agree that nationalised industries do not work ; their operations see themselves as individual deciders and bosses – answerable only to themselves ; also the system of vague tier management prevents sacking and discipline . If central government is short of management experience the knock-on effect goes all the way down the line .
April 3, 2024
SirJ Iâve just read your piece on net-zero in conservative-home today https://conservativehome.com/2024/04/03/john-redwood-net-zero-advocates-cant-avoid-the-cost-and-a-lack-of-consumer-confidence/
Are you trying to lose the whip âŠ.(net-zero is just the tool to nationalise industry and control the people)
April 4, 2024
at least Sir John might then realise he backed the wrong horse!
April 3, 2024
On 1 March 2020 nationalised Northern Trains took over all the services operated by Arriva Rail North.
Arriva used to sometimes offer a ticket at 50p (ÂŁ1 return) for the fabulous journey from Leeds to Carlisle via the Ribblehead viaduct. Nationalised Northern DOUBLED the price to ÂŁ1 each way, Wot a rip-off!!!
Well worth it though, complete with semaphore signals and old-style station signboards.
April 3, 2024
Sir John,
Much or what you suggest on privatization offloading responsibility appears to have more to do with Government being rubbish at running anything on a day-to-day basis even themselves. Where it is disingenuous is the problems, it creates for the consumer those forced by blackmail to buy from a wayward private monopoly â they are left without choice. Look at Thames Water customers, so the high dividends can be maintained the gun is held to their head âpay upâ or at the extreme go to prison. They could of course move to another area, but even with the water turned off they are still required to pay. Did any Thames Water customer choose who would be their sole and only supplier and on what terms they could be held to ransom.
Systems that deny access to competition are against the free market, burdening the consumer because governments canât manage should not be a consumer problem.
You will say there is a regulator, the consumer will come back to you and say what regulator? If there has to be a regulator of private business the system is flawed. What we have to date is government appointees that are not up to the job, primarily because the government is not up to the job. Logic then suggests either the regulator is chosen by the consumer being able to vote for them or a Minister takes charge and is held accountable and responsible â all self-defeating.
When market completion cannot be the arbiter of a service it all comes back down to the only rational method is for the taxpayer to retain full ownership and all the day-to-day running etc. is handled a time limited contract – well away from government.
Make no mistake whether it is Thames Water, the Rail Operators they are using the consumer as the bait for blackmail to get their way because the consumer canât walk, cant choose a different route.
Reply No need to get cross with me. I have always advocated introducing competition. I agree there are problems with regulated private monopolies, though less severe than nationalised monopolies
April 3, 2024
@Reply – I am sorry you saw my comments as anger with you personally. I am simply deeply disappointed that those that achieve positions to do things seem to be incapable for the task, I recognize you are not in that position. What appears to be happening is nothing more than what we now call the âsignaling of a virtueâ, to line up a âlook at meâ position in time for the next election as opposed to really doing anything. This Conservative Government(14 years on) is simply refusing to manage anything and look at the mess we have got.
Privatizing to the maximum to keep government at more than arms length from those that âdoâ is always right. But there is a caveat, when there is no natural competition as the leveler there has to be another way, otherwise all that is happening is that government is dumping the problem, the very big problem on a captive consumer â that is unreasonable, un-fair and frankly government cop out. The regulators have proved to be inadequate; and we have to recognize it is the same government that appoints them and should be responsible and accountable â but they try to make people believe it is not them. So, Sir John it is not you, itâs the immovable incompetent people that have found their way to the top table.
My preference is for these ânone competitiveâ bodies having the assets remaining taxpayer owned, and all activities that these entities need to achieve being done by time limited competitive contracts. That removes some of the hassle when some of them screw up and they will, they just lose their contract.
A free market requires and must have competition it is the only thing that drives advancement, a monopoly is just that a monopoly and is anti free market, anti competitive. Monopolies have to be tightly controlled and accountable, the government is always that controller they cant fob it off to save face
April 3, 2024
Are the Post Office losses set aside for compensation payouts, or is each PO losing money? There are 11,684 Post Offices (11,567 independent franchisees – so it is not 100% nationalised). Are they individually profitable?
Averaging ÂŁ120k losses per PO? The Post Office parcel drop-off (not the RM, the standard delivery service) is excellent. Do they retain enough profit for that work? Which part of the operation is losing money if not just an offset for Horizon? Are they losing money because more passports and other services that they used to do are being done online?
Reply The losses are in the nationalised company after whatever credits it earns from franchises.
April 3, 2024
I was inside network rail when Boris Johnson’s brother was a government minister responsible for rail. He came to visit the big office in Milton Keynes. He was spun a lot of obvious nonsense about how good their performance was, which he accepted at face value. He gave glowing quotes to the internal newspaper and industry press about how great network rail was, and how happy the government were with them. This is routine. You cannot slag off network rail when all the signals the government ever gives are positive endorsements.
If I was rail minister it would take me half a day to make some obvious changes.
But the same goes for the NHS, the financial ombudsman service, and an endless list of public sector services which are crapper than a crap thing in crap land.
The political class have got to change their approach.
April 3, 2024
+1
April 3, 2024
Toss the mantra ‘ Don’t rock the boat’ into the waste bin.
April 3, 2024
I am now reading that Ed Davey, he who presides over the LibDems, if you can recall, he who ran the Post Office while they took money under false pretenses from innocent sub post masters. Many were sent to jail on his watch.
Well he now wants to ban the sale of UK arms to Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel who are fighting our battle against terrorism against Iran and their proxies, Hamas, Hezbolla, and the anti shipping rabble in Yemen. Effectively he has aligned himself with Middle East terrorism, not a problem for a Lib /Dumb snake oil salesman. They may be failing the electorate of Wokingham, but what Davey is busy selling is far more dangerous. He typifies what the governance of the UK does not need.
April 3, 2024
A,
“Israel who are fighting our battle against terrorism against Iran and their proxies, Hamas, Hezbolla, and the anti shipping rabble in Yemen.”
No they are not! They had the neocons starting wars in the Middle East for Israel’s own strategic interests.
Maybe it’s time for regime change in Israel itself. Not that it will ever be pursued of course.
April 4, 2024
Correct.It’s all about “from the Nile to the Euphrates” not “from the river to the sea.”
Why do the media not mention that?I think we know the answer.
April 3, 2024
And Thames Water are the argument against privatisation because the taxpayer will have to bail them out too.
April 3, 2024
Indeed, proof that ‘Nationalisation’, i.e. under Public Sector control and management, does not work and costs us taxpayers each and every single time it is enforced.
We need a new leader with a government who is prepared to involve the infinitely more efficient Private Sector, to take over many of these ‘white elephants’ so that we, the electorate, can see a return on our “investments”. For once.
Bring back some of Maggie’s policies, ones that made Britain Great again.
April 3, 2024
The answers are obvious.We need nationalised companies who do not drain resource,who are not allowed to drain resource and furthermore not backed by private concerns happy to see the demise of a countrie’s power.
April 3, 2024
Country,s power
April 3, 2024
Again, you say this as though it is practical. It is NOT. If people like you talk as though storage is practical, all hope is lost. You need to disabuse âthemâ that is is possible or practical.
April 4, 2024
Giving support to those who do not support the UK yet live off the UK has been the downfall of this country.
Do the government understand that if you give power away then you are not in charge .The swindling and Twisting which continues has demoted UK skills for lesser ability and puts them as bosses by the selling off of services.And you want to know why everything has gone pear shaped.