Keir Starmer

[Chippy_boy]

To an off topic question, are you American or in the US? Lots of ‘Z’s’ in there.

Worked for American companies pretty much all my life and flit between one spelling or another. I am not great at spelling either, as it happens!

 

[Jam Tomorrow]

In terms of sickness and protections the public sector has more waste I agree. In terms of actually doing the job correctly and in the most productive way I'm not so sure tbh.

I always thought providing a safety net for your employees was a fundamental part of a civilised society not a “waste”.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Show me any examples of successful far right entirely free market economies over the past 120 years and you might have a point.

Oh wait, there aren't any.

See it's easy to argue against a bullshit strawman. But you literally had a list of shit you think the government should run earlier in the thread. So even you don't believe your own bollocks.

LIke I said, I am not dogmatic about it. You'd be an idiot to suggest the state should run EVERYTHING and likewise only an idiot would say it should run nothing. Neither of us are idiots.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

LIke I said, I am not dogmatic about it. You'd be an idiot to suggest the state should run EVERYTHING and likewise only an idiot would say it should run nothing. Neither of us are idiots.

That's very kind of you to say.

 

[mackenzie]

Why would the employer ‘insist’ on it when it would have been part of the initial terms when the potential employee went for the position?

Like the ‘out of work-time call’, that would be part of any initial contract agreement and those who don’t want it, don’t take the job.

All seems a fuss over nothing.

Why would the employer ‘insist’ on it when it would have been part of the initial terms when the potential employee went for the position?

Like the ‘out of work-time call’, that would be part of any initial contract agreement and those who don’t want it, don’t take the job.

All seems a fuss over nothing.

It's being "normalized"....that's my issue with it. If you want people to break up their weekend with their family then pay a proper rate to reflect it.

 

[BrianW]

I would suggest the state should run natural monopolies. Water is a good example.

The private sector is fine where there is lots of competition. You just need to regulate the market to prevent cartels and other bad practices. It would be absurd for the Council to run supermarkets. On the other hand, Councils can quite reasonably run bus services in their area and it is certainly desirable there should be heavy regulation (e.g. franchising) as we have seen that the free market delivers 1001 buses up and down and down Wilmslow Road, but a hopelessly inadequate service where the demand is less obvious. (The Council ends up paying for socially necessary services anyway, but has no income from the profitable routes to offset it. Hence the taxpayers end up paying more for worse provision.)

A common sense, non-ideological approach is best. Once ideology becomes the No 1 priority, we see bad outcomes.

 

[west didsblue]

We're focussing too much on a specific, but I was making a general point. Perhaps competition in a different context just produces a better product, or a cheaper product, rather than longer hours.

I am not dogmatic about it. There's a place for privatization and a place for public ownership. Genuinely, I don't really give a toss if the product/service I receive is delivered by a public or private organization - it's irrelevant to me. But what I do want is high quality, and without getting stung for it. IMO, that more often is achieved through the private sector, but if someone can convince me that the public sector can do as well or better for the same or less, I am all for it. Sadly, my experience of public sector organizations is typically that the service is rubbish. Whether is the police who can't be arsed to turn up after a burglary, to the GP surgery being shut when you need it, to the council wasting millions on some cycle lane that no-one asked for, only to have to take it out again when they realised it was unsafe for two oncoming lorries (true story). It's wall-to-wall rubbish.

It’s a bullshit argument if we can’t focus on specifics. There are numerous things that have been privatised that are effective monopolies where it actually costs the public purse more than if they were state owned. That’s because a successful private company needs to pay dividends, and private companies won’t take on certain things unless they get guaranteed profit, and when it’s an effective monopoly like water and rail the government has ended up having to stump up bucketloads of cash as an incentive for the private companies to do it. So we’ve ended up with an underinvested rail network and shit in rivers because the private companies running them pass on government subsidies to their shareholders and senior executives rather than using it to improve the service or meet statutory regulations. Even if the companies are held to account they just walk away or go bankrupt and the public sector ends up taking on the liability when it comes to essential services.

As for not wanting to get stung, do you honestly think you’ll get a better deal if say the NHS was privatised and you had your choice of service providers that you have to pay for, where two thirds of your fees end up as private company profits. We’ve already seen that in the animal world where most vets belong to American corporations where you get charged £40 for a 5 minute consultation before they actually do anything. I’m not suggesting vets should be nationalised but the previous government made it too easy and lucrative for big business to take over pretty much everything and allowing them to squash competition from smaller operators.

Most bin collections are already privatised except the local council selects the operator. Would you rather have multiple bin lorries going round where you personally choose which one you want to use?

Whilst you say you’re not dogmatic about it, pretty much everything else you say suggests the opposite.

 

[metalblue]

Easy words, but in what way specifically? Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of privatization of everything, and e.g. water companies is a big problem because you can hardly switch water providers. When you have to rely upon a regulator, it's probably not a great start.

But comparing for example, electricity supply pre and post privatization, in what way is it "a disaster" now compared to how it was before?

I remember when it took 6 weeks minimum to get a new phone line connected by the GPO. How wonderful was that? It was fucking awful. Now, the service is miles better.

My local GP surgery is shut on a saturday and shut on a sunday. Good luck if you are ill at the weekend. What sort of "service" is that. And when Jeremy Hunt tried to change it, they all threatened to strike. M&S cannot shut on a Saturday or Sunday, can it. My local garage - a little independent with like 3 mechanics, manages to be open on Saturday, so why can't my GP surgery? It's because they don't give a toss. They get paid whether they open or not, so they'd rather play golf. Wouldn't we all.



It's dangerous to get too hung up on specifics. I tried to answer as a generality and give an example that's all. In that specific example, it might be great if the council arranged a rota system so they could provide extended hours of cover, so the public could access services and more convenient times, perhaps?

Your GP is a private company mate.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I would suggest the state should run natural monopolies. Water is a good example.

The private sector is fine where there is lots of competition. You just need to regulate the market to prevent cartels and other bad practices. It would be absurd for the Council to run supermarkets. On the other hand, Councils can quite reasonably run bus services in their area and it is certainly desirable there should be heavy regulation (e.g. franchising) as we have seen that the free market delivers 1001 buses up and down and down Wilmslow Road, but a hopelessly inadequate service where the demand is less obvious. (The Council ends up paying for socially necessary services anyway, but has no income from the profitable routes to offset it. Hence the taxpayers end up paying more for worse provision.)

A common sense, non-ideological approach is best. Once ideology becomes the No 1 priority, we see bad outcomes.

I agree with all of that.

 

[metalblue]

It’s a bullshit argument if we can’t focus on specifics. There are numerous things that have been privatised that are effective monopolies where it actually costs the public purse more than if they were state owned. That’s because a successful private company needs to pay dividends, and private companies won’t take on certain things unless they get guaranteed profit, and when it’s an effective monopoly like water and rail the government has ended up having to stump up bucketloads of cash as an incentive for the private companies to do it. So we’ve ended up with an underinvested rail network and shit in rivers because the private companies running them pass on government subsidies to their shareholders and senior executives rather than using it to improve the service or meet statutory regulations. Even if the companies are held to account they just walk away or go bankrupt and the public sector ends up taking on the liability when it comes to essential services.

As for not wanting to get stung, do you honestly think you’ll get a better deal if say the NHS was privatised and you had your choice of service providers that you have to pay for, where two thirds of your fees end up as private company profits. We’ve already seen that in the animal world where most vets belong to American corporations where you get charged £40 for a 5 minute consultation before they actually do anything. I’m not suggesting vets should be nationalised but the previous government made it too easy and lucrative for big business to take over pretty much everything and allowing them to squash competition from smaller operators.

Most bin collections are already privatised except the local council selects the operator. Would you rather have multiple bin lorries going round where you personally choose which one you want to use?

Whilst you say you’re not dogmatic about it, pretty much everything else you say suggests the opposite.

If privatisation was in part to destroy the union power it worked, we’ve had less strike days since privatisation, average 0.9m since privatisation in the mid 80s compared to average of 12m strike days annually before that. No wonder the unions hate it.

If privatisation was for competition then where monopolies exist it has failed and caused harm. There are plenty of successful privatisations where competition has existed. And plenty that are a cluster fuck where it doesn’t.