Nationalisation for and against

Depends on why you want Nationalisation. If it is better service for the customer then you might as well not waste your time.

However if it is just a principle that core sectors of the economy should be in State hands then you could have a valid argument in favour.

Certain sectors of the economy are natural monopolies in which prioritising shareholder returns over the public interest and effective operation can be counter-productive. Power generation and distribution is one of them, railways another. Probably all utilities in fact.

Nobody would dream of privatising the armed forces, would they? But then perhaps some extreme fundamentalist neo-liberals just might.

I think the argument for nationalisation of some things is best argued by viewing the economics of the direct run railway company that had to take over when virgin / stagecoach (??) threw tbe franchise on the old LNER line back. I know the horrors of the British Rail plastic cheese sandwich but that was down to state disinterest.

Right now the french energy companies are screwing us in order to give the french a huge discount on the price of their energy bills. And our trains are owned and run by the nationalised industries of other countries, most of whom hate us

There is an argument that steelmaking should never have been allowed out of state hands.

That is not universally true in my experience. Since being privatised, local bus fares in Plymouth have rocketed, reliability has  plummeted and routes have been slashed. Public transport worked much better here when owned by the council.

Postal services have greatly increased in cost and deteriorated sharply in service. My friend sent me a birthday card by first class post from her home town 25 miles away. It took six days to get here. Walking 5 miles a day then setting up camp each night, I could have made the journey faster. 

The privatised railways are an obvious disaster compared to what we had before, which might well have been rubbish but has clearly gotten a lot worse since.

And for water we are paying a lot more for a lot less too.

Privatisation is a massive failure. We need to do what most other western economies do successfully for such services and adopt a public model that works.

I'm frankly surprised that a capitalist stalwart like yourself would want to swell the ranks of us taxpayer-funded public sector workers.

After all, we mainly get paid for pushing a pen around in some office while imagining ourselves to be hard workers. 😉

When we're not on strike of course.

I remember sending a postcard from Scotland to a friend in England pre privatisation of the Royal Mail.

It took a month to reach its destination.

I'd hoped that the Royal Mail might have improved a bit now.