I wonder if they’ll ever ‘take back control’ from the people they’ve sold the national infrastructure to? Of course they won’t, because everything they do is about raising cash for the very few and saddling the very many with years of paying for it. Their greatest triumph though is how they convince ‘ordinary people’ that they’re on their side!
Even the Mail, via the Alex Brummer column, have been questioning privatisation, which suggests something has gone very, very wrong…
I have paraphrased an article and added one a few other thoughts/observations.
Within a few short decades of privatisation, several of the enterprises have been broken up and floated on the stock market and transferred their ownership from the UK state to overseas government control.
Vital strategic decisions on energy, transport and other services being taken in Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Amsterdam and Madrid rather than the UK.
The loss of command and control in vital industries and services is in the spotlight at present. John Holland-Kaye is the head at Heathrow but Hea throw has Spanish owners in Ferrovial, Qatar et al so, it’s hardly a surprise that sorting it out isn‘t top of the priority list
None of these distant owners care a jot about Emirates or BA, the passengers, or the role of Heathrow in the UK's service-driven economy.
When the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan was damaged by an earthquake in March 2011, the government of Angela Merkel in Berlin decided to halt new nuclear investment in Germany and decommission existing plants by 2022.
As a consequence, German power suppliers EON and RWE decided to cancel plans for new nuclear plants in the UK at Anglesey and Oldbury, saying the economics no longer made sense. Britain had ceded control over its electricity future to Berlin.
Even better, we decided to let France and China build our new nuclear energy plants, the only country to outsource nuclear energy building.
In this year's energy crisis the loudest protests about energy bills and the need for corporate bailouts came from Scottish Power. The utility is owned by Spain's Iberdrola which, in the past, has come under fire in Scotland for sending cash surpluses off to Spain for investment in wind farms in North America.
At present several UK water suppliers, including overseas-owned Anglian, Thames and Yorkshire, face serious enforcement actions from the UK Environment Agency for pollution.
Overseas and sometimes state ownership of UK utilities have done enough damage to us whist massively increasing the coffers for them. The Dutch readily admit that some of our train services subsidise fares in the Netherlands. Yet the UK's remaining home-owned and quoted bus and train franchises are next on the list whilst LNER, the one real success on the railways at the minute, is under immediate threat as the government look for a short term gain for a mid to longer term loss!
Stagecoach is being bought by German investment fund DWS, Aberdeen-based First Group is being targeted by private equity suitors and Newcastle's Go Ahead by Aussie and Spanish investors. Other than a sugar rush of cash for shareholders and executives, nothing positive can come from the loss of local ownership.
Then there is the matter of our energy supply in the midst of a global crisis. The French government currently is taking full control of one of the big five generators in the UK, Electricite de France (EDF).
President Emmanuel Macron is anxious to rehabilitate and expand France's nuclear fleet which has proved a source of national strength in the face of Russia's war on Ukraine. Resources potentially invested in next-generation nuclear in the UK could well be directed back home to France!
