#privatisation

From an economic perspective, privatisation has been both a triumph and a disaster, depending on which end of the telescope you are viewing it from. Research highlights that in the 25 years following privatisation, water bills have risen by 40 percent in real terms for essentially the same service. Since the rail industry was privatised, some rail fares have increased by more than 200 percent in real terms, while season tickets have increased between 55 and 80 percent. And speaking of public transport, deregulation of bus services outside of London has seen fares increase by 35 percent and services butchered, creating a social disaster in places. At the same time, the various former nationalised industries have paid out at least £193 billion in dividends to shareholders, with the privatised water companies paying out £83 billion alone. And on top of all this, food prices roughly doubled between 1990 and 2020, and continue to outstrip inflation — food producers are not immune to increased energy costs and the like — while wages, in real terms, have largely been stagnant for the best part of 20 years. Put simply, life’s basics have become eye-wateringly expensive while at the same time, people’s pay has flatlined. And when you have a service-based, consumerist economy that depends on people having disposable income, this presents a huge problem and is an often overlooked factor in the decline of our high streets and town centres. It is no surprise that people search out cheap stuff on the internet, and the use of apps like Vinted continue to grow. Sometimes, big ideas are needed to solve big problems. And what we’re talking about with the cost of living crisis is a big problem. So what is the big idea to address it? While there has been talk about universal basic income — and it should come as no surprise that some of the tech bros have embraced the idea — you wonder if the scale of the challenge would make universal basic income unaffordable, while to some, the concept may come across as feeling a little undignified. Of course, putting money into people’s pockets is no bad thing. But there is another way, there is an alternative: make life’s basics more affordable and more efficient, in the form of universal basic services.

Un rapport parlementaire très attendu, mais aussitôt controversé, propose une refonte en profondeur de l’audiovisuel public français, avec la fermeture de plusieurs chaînes et une réduction budgétaire d’un milliard d’euros. Publié mardi, ce document de 69 recommandations a déclenché une vive polémique politique, opposant le rapporteur, le député Charles Alloncle, à la présidente de France…

बिलासपुर में एनएफआईआर के तीन दिवसीय वार्षिक अधिवेशन में उठी पुरानी पेंशन बहाली और निजीकरण रोकने की मांग यूनियन की प्रमुख मांगें: बैठक में यूनियन ने कई महत्वपूर्ण मांगें रखीं, जिनमें शामिल हैं: एलडीसी को ओपन टू ऑल किया जाए रेलवे का निजीकरण बंद किया जाए 8वें वेतन आयोग की रिपोर्ट शीघ्र जारी की जाए न्यूनतम वेतन के आधार पर वेतन निर्धारण किया जाए टिकट चेकिंग स्टाफ को रनिंग स्टाफ का दर्जा दिया…

Under the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), as the economic historian Arthur Downing points out, generation, transmission and system operation were integrated within a single organisation that planned the network. Large power stations were linked by a national grid and run as one system, delivering decades of efficiency gains and falling electricity prices. Electricity abundance in Britain did not emerge because the state withdrew. It emerged because the state created institutions capable of coordinating a complex industry. Britain built its first national electricity grid in seven years. Today some transmission projects take double that just to get planning approval and grid connection. Building the infrastructure for the low-carbon transition requires institutional capacity – not simply deregulation. Seen by Margaret Thatcher as a relic, the CEGB was broken up and privatised in 1989. Labour warned that prices would rise. They did. The “privatisation premium”, according to an analysis by the Common Wealth thinktank, sees almost a quarter of the average household energy bill – roughly £450 – flow today into corporate profits. Other essential services are similarly hit. Nearly 30% of a water bill in the English privatised system goes to shareholder returns and paying debt. By contrast, publicly owned Scottish Water spends 10% of revenue on borrowing costs. These costs are not primarily the price of pipes, power stations or grids. They reflect financing and ownership. Public utilities borrowed close to the government rate. Private firms must also reward shareholders – raising the cost of capital that lands up in household bills. Over 30 to 40 years, the cost difference adds up to billions. Privatisation fragmented Britain’s electricity system, replacing integrated planning with firms, regulators and markets. Yet infrastructure networks depend on knowledge built over decades by engineers in laboratories and operators. When those institutions disappear, much of that capability disappears with them. Britain now faces a choice: rebuild the capacity to coordinate the grid – or watch technologies like BYD’s arrive elsewhere.

The theme here is the lack of investment, no matter how disastrous the consequences. The main water treatment works in the capital is “on its last legs”, said the chair of the Independent Water Commission, Jon Cunliffe, last summer, while publishing his review for the government of the water industry. Just one major fault at the 60-year-old plant, operated by Thames Water, and “millions of Londoners [would be] without running water”, forcing mass evacuations and the army to go on standby, says the FT. Just how badly the privatised water industry has trashed our waterways is well known. You can’t step in the same river twice, said Heraclitus, but he has been outbid by ecologists who advise that, you know what, you might not want to step in any river in England once. Much less covered is the prospect of parts of the country running out of water entirely, yet government officials and ministers accept it is looming, especially for London and along the east of England. Add some extra responsibility, by all means, to climate breakdown and the sprawl of housing, but 30-plus years of running the water industry for excessive returns has left us badly exposed. Keir Starmer dreams of AI superpower status, while our ever-distracted media offers hot-and-cold running updates on the Beckhams alongside 24/7 Trumpvision. Yet the UK is lurching into a future that, when you stop to think about it, is both more alarming and remarkable: a country famous around the world for its rain imposing on itself a drought.

"Everyone appears to be aware of his large pay; he has a base salary of £400,000 and received a bonus of £115,000 last year. Hinton recently told the environment, food and rural affairs parliamentary committee that he did not do interviews during the last outage"

oh the karma… Tunbridge Wells is the epitome of the right wing. they privatised the water, the profit was taken and now there’s no water.

ID: “THE LONDON ECONOMIC

"Everything is too expensive and nothing works. £200bn of our money has been paid out to shareholders for privatised utilities like rail, mail, energy and busses.

That's money that could have gone into reducing customers' bills or investing in infrastructure. It hasn't, it's gone out in the form of shareholder profit. If you look at social care, which is really the monster under the bed when you look at any local authority's budget, the role of private equity is disgusting. So the first thing we need to do is admit that privatisation has been a failed experiment, it has cost this country dearly and it is an experiment that needs to end."

-ASH SARKAR”.

The big thing to remember about this, and what all of us must keep reiterating when we talk about it, is that the justifications about “efficiency savings” for privatisation were simply blatant lies.