Some industries better nationalised than privatised?

[sasguru]

I can think of 2, maybe 3:

1. Post Office. Once the envy of the world, hugely reliable. After privatisation, as we all know, rubbish.

2. British Gas as was. Can't remember any problems with this. Not to mention the current blatant profiteering.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2...6-13276715_ITM

3. British Rail. Surely rail travel deteriorated hugely after privatisation?

[lilelvis2000]

Post Office or Royal Mail? Royal Mail is waaaaay behind on technology. Is this because it was a monopoly?

My wife's divi would suffer if BG were nationalised. If gas prices were kept artifically low..it would mean either tax increases or reduction of services. Plus would we work extra hard to insulate our homes and reduce consumption otherwise?

Rail sucks privitised...but its because of the way it was done. The franchises are too short and can easily be taken away if a provider has a bad patch. There is little incentive to invest. take Nortern Rail...crap carriages. crap lines...its basically crap. And needs a £6 per passenger subsidy to survive!

TV Licences??? Time to go? Discuss. (Hijack attempt)

[Diver]

Post Office or Royal Mail? Royal Mail is waaaaay behind on technology. Is this because it was a monopoly?

My wife's divi would suffer if BG were nationalised. If gas prices were kept artifically low..it would mean either tax increases or reduction of services. Plus would we work extra hard to insulate our homes and reduce consumption otherwise?

Rail sucks privitised...but its because of the way it was done. The franchises are too short and can easily be taken away if a provider has a bad patch. There is little incentive to invest. take Nortern Rail...crap carriages. crap lines...its basically crap. And needs a £6 per passenger subsidy to survive!

TV Licences??? Time to go? Discuss. (Hijack attempt)

Why do we bother with TV Licenses?
I watch more online than the telly

[TykeMerc]

Why do we bother with TV Licenses?
I watch more online than the telly

Because it's a legal requirement.

I don't agree with the TV tax either, but until some Government is willing to change the way the BBc is funded we're stuck with it.

[Diver]

Because it's a legal requirement.

I don't agree with the TV tax either, but until some Government is willing to change the way the BBc is funded we're stuck with it.

Bunch of self serving leeches at the BBC

[HairyArsedBloke]

Nationalised ‘industries’ – military, police, inland revenue, central bank. That’s about it.

TV License – I think that it’s cheep i.e. a tenner a month subscription. However, the BBC needs to be cut back. BBC TV 1, Radio 1, 2 should be privatised for starters.

[s2budd]

Some industries better nationalised than privatised?

British Rail - Yep privitisation on the cheap. It does not work due to the size of the investment required and the state of the current train lines. Bring the whole lot back into public ownership and put shed loads of cash into the infrastructure. Oh they've already done that Oh well

Royal Mail - I can't see how this can be private and work well.

BBC - Great. No adverts ! I've never understood the Sky model of charging and showing adverts it just seems a bit of a con to me. Live the BBC.

[thunderlizard]

Anything with a single monolithic infrastructure and where the concept of 'added value' is crazy. Gas, water, electricity and rail for sure.

Healthcare too. That doesn't fit in with my rule above, but for moral reasons.

Post office, probably.
Haulage, probably not.
And having a nationalised travel agents in from 1948-1972 (you can thank Wikipedia for the accuracy of my dates) was just plain mad.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

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BBC - Great. No adverts ! I've never understood the Sky model of charging and showing adverts it just seems a bit of a con to me. Live the BBC.

I am glad I'm not the only one who thinks this - Rupert Murdoch is certainly a genius at ripping us off though, getting us* to pay for stuff twice - and there are more adverts on Sky than ITV C4 etc - he must've taken lessons from Mrs T or vice versa.

Actually, there are good and bad private and state-owned outfits. Rail is a mess but there are a lot more people travelling by rail and some things have improved in some areas. My memories of British Rail are not in any way fond ones.

Likewise, getting a phone put in by the GPO (or a fault repaired) was a nightmare. At first the privatised monopoly run by BT delivered improvements, but then now they are (IMHO) abusing their position in the market place.

Just as it makes me laugh that some people will always argue (for example) Labour = scum Tories = fabulous as if it was really that simple, the idea that any form of ownership is automatically better doesn't wash in most cases.

That said, obvious candidates for stuff that has to run from taxes like Defence and the Police have been mentioned and I tend to agree - but of course that doesn't mean they can't buy in services from private outfits.

Many of the state run industries in this country would have had a better reputation if successive governments of both parties hadn't starved them of investment and plundered their incomes. It was a stroke of genius for Thatcher to sell us so much stuff we'd already paid for and anyone moaning about gas prices and profiteering now better not have voted for her.

In practice, unfortunately, we didn't always get the benefits of privatisation - in reality many of the "privatisations" were simply replacing a state monopoly with a private one, but it was a fabulous stealthy way to raise cash without seeming to put up taxes.


*Mrs PSB actually, as I refuse to

[Peoplesoft bloke]

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TV License – ....

Licence - have a look at it if you like.