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Post by dodgydave on Jul 15, 2023 16:24:06 GMT
In an ideal world then all the utilities would be nationalised.
The real problem is the UK publics attitude to taxation. We want Nordic public services, on US tax levels.
Literally every argument we ever have is pointless till we address this issue, because even if we re-nationalise the same under-funding from previous time will just repeat itself.
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 15, 2023 18:03:45 GMT
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.Yes but what public model?. The UK is the ideal testing ground - in England we have Privatised Water companies, in Wales its not for profit and in Scotland its Nationalised. And what we have found is that all 3 systems are basically the same when it comes to performance and the privatised companies slightly ahead on costs to the customer. So tell us what you want and what the improvement you will be expecting to see - I think you might be in line for some disappointment. wales is ‘not for profit’ because united utilities rose line a phoenix from the ashes of hyder plc, a company driven by the twin disasters waiting to happen that were lust for shareholder profit and hatred of the english I worked freelance for them from 1997 just before tranche 4 gas deregulation to 1999 about a year before the crash and the stories i witnessed you just wouldn’t believe |
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