technodup":1nd5rrf0 said:
Neil":1nd5rrf0 said:
Now fair enough, if they actually created the infrastructure in the first place - but they didn't - it was public and sold off, and always at bargain basement prices.
Railways were private enterprises first so that's not strictly true.
So? They were nationalised. They were a public asset - and if there was some private investment at first, no doubt they were paid for their efforts.
technodup":1nd5rrf0 said:
Neil":1nd5rrf0 said:
In most of the examples of privatisation, it hasn't been for the good of the consumer - that's just the lie that won't die
Vote for Milliband then, he wants to take us back to the 70s.
When you could have a phone, but it had to be black and you might get it fitted in a month or two. When you could get a cooker but you had to get it from the gas board(!). When you could fly Glasgow to London but it was BA or the highway. Easy to slag off the era, but if only we could fast forward and see what the UK would be like if none of these privatisations happened. It wouldn't be anything like today, for sure.
For most major enterprises government has a role in the conception, e.g. funding research or development of a technology. But as for getting a decent product to the consumer at the right price? That's a competitive game all day long. Would we be having this debate here and now, on mobile phones, on broadband, reliably for next to nothing if the government ran these services?
Strawman - I'm not suggesting that nothing is fair game for privatisation, or that all privatisation has been for the wrong reasons. I think it's been shit-ily implemented, though, the public have been given the shaft, and successive governments have been making hay whilst selling England by the pound.
Products - true products - then no issue, really. The phone situation - albeit leeching off much of the infrastructure that was publicly funded - but all the same, I see the sense.
Water, rail - I think has been a con predicated on political dogma.
Gas and electric - well if I'm honest, I think the public has had a crappy deal out of it all, and whilst I'm not hugely objecting, I'm not getting the benefits, given there's always got to be some regulation anyways.
Health, police, fire - I think much of it is at jeopardy from politico fvckwits that believe that they know better, and that the market and capitalism always knows best. a) for services, it doesn't (not that there can't be lessons learnt, or bits leveraged 2) they don't ever truly do it for the publics' benefit anyways.
technodup":1nd5rrf0 said:
I'd be happy if the government said we'll sell off everything we have except one thing, (inevitably the NHS), and we'll make it the best service in the world. Not just claim it but actually improve outcomes all over it. I can't remember who said it, (Cameron?) but one PM said they would do less, better. If only someone would.
Any of the politicians in recent times convinced you they have the savvy to make that call?
I'm calling it as bollocks - profiteering bollocks. It's all been done for economy stimulus reasons, than any true benefit, either in service, or cost, to the public.
And I'll repeat, that's not to say there's no merit in any of it - eg phones / BT - that side of things, whilst I have reservations about the way in which it has been done, I do think the public has realised benefit from some aspects of privatisation.