[la gran siete]

Looking at my water and gas /leccy bills it seems pretty obvious it has been. Since privatisation my water bill has shot up from £80 pa to nigh on £400??? Infrastructure investment? For sure but that could have been done when it was under public control thus avoiding paying huge dividends out and over the top salaries to directors.
gas/ leccy= I am paying £150 pm . Twenty years ago I was paying that for my winter gas QUARTER bill ( leccy was about £80). Normal yearly inflation cannot account for all that increase.We have been ripped off!When I first switched over to my current provider 5 years ago they were the cheapest at 80 pm In that time they have almost doubled their rates and are now the dearest. Changing to the cheapest means a saving of £20 pm if I am lucky.
The Government of the day said it would be cheaper , they said there would be more choice, they said it would be more efficient. Ha bloody ha!Whats the point of choice if its all a rip off??In the old days things were nice and simple . You had one gas and one leccy provider and you bill covered all your energy requirements company overheads and whatever invetsment was needed.Now you are having to pay for massive Directors salary bonus schemes and ever increasing shareholder divis as well. WHAT IS THE POINT??The onl;y reason the Government privatised it wasnt to do us a favour but to take it off their hands and pursue a madcap ideology called Thatcherism.
And thoie who think I never criticise this Government. I do for, continuing this thatcherite balderdash. PFIs set up by them . We shall be paying for them for generations to come.
The private sector is all about profit first and not service- thats secondary

[johntheexpat]

Ahh, the Postmans just been and forgotten to deliver any cards, but didn't forget the bills.

[la gran siete]

Originally Posted by johntheexpat

Ahh, the Postmans just been and forgotten to deliver any cards, but didn't forget the bills.

Direct Debit

[maix27]

I keep thinking along the same lines. Nothing seems to work anymore. Think of the things that should just work: NHS, Postal service, telephone... to name but a few. Everytihng is going to pot.

My favourite is the idea of privatising the prison and probation services... how much of a joke is that?

I want to leave this country, it's going down the pan rapidly (if it hasn't already been flushed).

[Alan_W]

Originally Posted by la gran siete

Looking at my water and gas /leccy bills it seems pretty obvious it has been. Since privatisation my water bill has shot up from £80 pa to nigh on £400??? Infrastructure investment? For sure but that could have been done when it was under public control thus avoiding paying huge dividends out and over the top salaries to directors.
gas/ leccy= I am paying £150 pm . Twenty years ago I was paying that for my winter gas QUARTER bill ( leccy was about £80). Normal yearly inflation cannot account for all that increase.We have been ripped off!When I first switched over to my current provider 5 years ago they were the cheapest at 80 pm In that time they have almost doubled their rates and are now the dearest. Changing to the cheapest means a saving of £20 pm if I am lucky.
The Government of the day said it would be cheaper , they said there would be more choice, they said it would be more efficient. Ha bloody ha!Whats the point of choice if its all a rip off??In the old days things were nice and simple . You had one gas and one leccy provider and you bill covered all your energy requirements company overheads and whatever invetsment was needed.Now you are having to pay for massive Directors salary bonus schemes and ever increasing shareholder divis as well. WHAT IS THE POINT??The onl;y reason the Government privatised it wasnt to do us a favour but to take it off their hands and pursue a madcap ideology called Thatcherism.
And thoie who think I never criticise this Government. I do for, continuing this thatcherite balderdash. PFIs set up by them . We shall be paying for them for generations to come.
The private sector is all about profit first and not service- thats secondary

Every word -spot on. Without mentioning the dog's breakfast that is our Rail "service"

[PoochJD]

Hi,

I totally agree with all of you on this issue! There's not a single "privatised" service that has actually improved, when it wasn't a public service beforehand.

It wasn't that long ago, when if you needed a service, you knew exactly where to go, or who to get in touch with. If it was electric, you phoned your local electric company. For gas, the local gas supplier. Need a telephone, just call BT. Want internet, you looked in a computer/internet magazine, and looked for the one who gave the best price with the best service. (None of this arsing about, as to whether or not you're near to an exchange or not, or whether your area has got the right cabling available.)

Now, you get your electric from the gas company, the internet from the post office, and your phone from the electric company! It's totally farcical! Each time something gets privatised, the only loosers are the great British public!

Any government who decides to re-nationalise any of these "public" services, would almost certainly get my vote.


Pooch

[Mac Man]

Telecoms are cheaper than they have ever been - when you think you can call the US or Australia for not much more than calling your Gran down the street.

As for the other utilities? Water is the worst as you have no choice over your supplier.

yes gas and leccy are much more expensive than 10 years ago... but we have seen massive wholesale increases in energy prices to which the UK is basically hostage to.

If we had good old nuke power in abundance (like the French) our electricity would be a damn sight cheaper. As it is we rely on proucing electric from imported gas and coal, so we're at the mercy of OPEC and the Russians

[Alan Westy]

Most of you who post on this forum do not remember what the country was like in 1979 before Mrs Thatcher came to power, it was run basically by the unions who held the country to ransom. If she had not implemented reforms we would by now have a third rate economy lower than Italy & Spain. As for privatisation I for one would not want to go back to the "good old days" when you waited up to 6 months to get a phone line installed or had to have a party line.

[johntheexpat]

Originally Posted by Chris Lamle

If we had good old nuke power in abundance (like the French) our electricity would be a damn sight cheaper. As it is we rely on proucing electric from imported gas and coal, so we're at the mercy of OPEC and the Russians

Some French numbers to mull over:

I pay a standing charge of 13.83€ per month for a maximum 9KW draw. A higher maximum incurs a higher charge and lower max, incurs less. (+VAT @ 5.5%)

I basically have economy 7, roughly 5.5 cheap hours overnight and 1.5 at lunchtime.

Cheap leccy is 0.0463€/KWh +VAT@19.60% = 0.0554€
Less cheap leccy is .0787€ + VAT = 0.0941 €
=
The current exchange rate is £1 = 1.39€ so:

Cheap = (near as dammit) 4p per KWh
Less cheap = (n.a.d) 6.8p per KWh

(Geeky stuff, 'cos its all on the bill:
Nuclear is 85.7% of the total, renewable is 5.9% (hydroelectric is 5%), coal 3.3%, 3.2% is gas, 1.6% oil and others 0.3%.)

And finally EDF broke a record during the week, when supply reached a fraction under 89,000MW at 19:00 one evening

[sim667]

Lets be honest, privatisation is a bit rubbish!

[Decadence]

Privatisation was a big joke...on us. So now we get held to ransom every quarter.

[la gran siete]

Originally Posted by Alan Westy

Most of you who post on this forum do not remember what the country was like in 1979 before Mrs Thatcher came to power, it was run basically by the unions who held the country to ransom. If she had not implemented reforms we would by now have a third rate economy lower than Italy & Spain. .

thats what the media would have us believe but Union unrest was a symptom rather than the disease itself. What really caused our problems was poor management poor leadership and lack of investment

[andykn]

Originally Posted by la gran siete

thats what the media would have us believe but Union unrest was a symptom rather than the disease itself. What really caused our problems was poor management poor leadership and lack of investment

Unfortunately the only people who are worse at efficiently running an operation than greedy capitalists are civil servants. That's why stuff was privatised and much of it is cheaper in real terms than it was ten or twenty years ago.

I would have preferred to see ownership of assets that are effective monopolies (such as distibution of gas, electric water and local phone) kept public with the management of those assets being let out to tender.

So I would still own a share of, say, the national gas pipeline network, and would ask firms to tender for its upkeep and maintenance every so many years.

[city fan]

Originally Posted by la gran siete

madcap ideology called Thatcherism.

This Madcap ideology got Britain out of some serious decline and actually made the country competitive.

Originally Posted by la gran siete

And thoie who think I never criticise this Government. I do for, continuing this thatcherite balderdash.

The only good thing about Labour. They actually kept a lot of the good things the Tories had implemented and tried to put a more caring spin on things.

Originally Posted by la gran siete

The private sector is all about profit first and not service- thats secondary

Exactly. The way things should be. Profit makes us all stonger, as does competion. You cannot artificially create jobs and wealth. The era of Keynes is well behind us. Adam Smith is again to be shown to be right.

To go back to the times of Benn, Foot and their ilk would be truly frightening. An uncompetive country, ruled by Unions

[andykn]

Originally Posted by city fan

This Madcap ideology got Britain out of some serious decline and actually made the country competitive.

Competitive at what?

[mij]

They had to privatise in preparation for the European master plan.

Company's owning and running our utilities/services with Brussels overseeing the rest is the plan. There will be no room for national governments soon, let alone nationally owned utilities/services.

[Harj]

Originally Posted by andykn

Competitive at what?

Yes, at what? We have sold most of our industry (our bread and butter) to outsiders, I understand that some european companies own some of the parking firms that councils employ. We have cut funding in science and engineering (where I work, most of the skilled new recruits are coming from , Slovakia, Hungary, India, Greece, because there no no skilled brits coming forward).

Our car industry, gone.
Power-gone.
Water-gone.
Steel-gone.
Coal-gone.
pride in civil service-gone.
Cutoms at airport now by Securicor.
NHS- gone.
Royal Mail-going.
British Airports owned by forign companies, hence the fact that heathrow is simply an embarresment to this country.

Crime -up,
Utility Bills-up
Tax-up
Fuel price-up
travel costs -up and getting higher.
Stupid jobs created for ppl wth management or consulting degrees,-up
tax payers money for above jobs-up.
House prices-up and beyond the reach the average Joe.
Chances of my job getting outsourced to another company - Getting high.
Speed cameras-up

Most of the bad things in te above can be attributed to privitisation (even the cleaning in NHS i contracted out), ppl forget that shareholders care absolutely nothing but about how much is in their pockets, resulting in poor service and higher costs.

[Ethics Gradient]

Originally Posted by la gran siete

Looking at my water and gas /leccy bills it seems pretty obvious it has been. Since privatisation my water bill has shot up from £80 pa to nigh on £400??? Infrastructure investment? For sure but that could have been done when it was under public control thus avoiding paying huge dividends out and over the top salaries to directors.
gas/ leccy= I am paying £150 pm . Twenty years ago I was paying that for my winter gas QUARTER bill ( leccy was about £80). Normal yearly inflation cannot account for all that increase.We have been ripped off!When I first switched over to my current provider 5 years ago they were the cheapest at 80 pm In that time they have almost doubled their rates and are now the dearest. Changing to the cheapest means a saving of £20 pm if I am lucky.
The Government of the day said it would be cheaper , they said there would be more choice, they said it would be more efficient. Ha bloody ha!Whats the point of choice if its all a rip off??In the old days things were nice and simple . You had one gas and one leccy provider and you bill covered all your energy requirements company overheads and whatever invetsment was needed.Now you are having to pay for massive Directors salary bonus schemes and ever increasing shareholder divis as well. WHAT IS THE POINT??The onl;y reason the Government privatised it wasnt to do us a favour but to take it off their hands and pursue a madcap ideology called Thatcherism.
And thoie who think I never criticise this Government. I do for, continuing this thatcherite balderdash. PFIs set up by them . We shall be paying for them for generations to come.
The private sector is all about profit first and not service- thats secondary

A funny thing about running countries, is having enough growth in the ecconomy to keep them ticking over.
It may be a tricky subject for some to grasp, but basically they reason the majority of us can:

- go on holidays abroad
- have fancy electrical goods like computers to talk on the internet
- have expendable income to be able to not have to eat gruel everyday and not have to work a 100hr week.

-> Is steady ecconomic growth.

That was not possible prior to 'thatcherism'.The country had been in decline for 100+ years, the two world wars adding to the toll along with the loss of the empire, world ecconomic trends and depressions.

It got to a point in the 1960's and 70's where Britains ecconomic decline was so bad, that we could not generate enough income from industry. Unions went on strike further crippling a dying ecconomy. Any changes made to try and create an upturn were apposed at every step by the unions.

An analogy would be like trying to get a group of survivors on a desert island to stop hunting for food from an ever diminishing resource of animals and go hungry for a few days so they could cultivate crops and provide a sustainable solution ...... the survivors digging their feet in about going hungry for a few days of not hunting and refusing to do it ... would be how the unions operated during that period of history.

So something needed to be done - and it was going to cause upset and unrest for a period of time before it started to pay dividends.

Thatcher came on the scene, broke the unions and changed the ecconomy which after just over 10yrs, started to stablise and has grown sucessfully ever since.

So getting to the point of privatisation .... it happened to put -> £17,103,000,000 a year into the ecconomy from gas/electric and water supplies.

You may not like this, and choose to cover your ears and go 'la la la I can't hear you', but one of the prime factors in the ecconomic growth from 1997 - 2007 .... is down to continued 'Thatcherism' in ecconomic policy ... and the result of the upheaval during the 1980's.

I am not saying she was great and did everything right, far from it. What I am saying is that she did work to fix the ecconomy and it DID pay dividends in the end.

We went from 100+ years of decline to steady growth since.
The significance of that is you can now afford to waste time on the internet whinging about it.

[city fan]

Originally Posted by andykn

Competitive at what?

It enabled the UK as a whole to come out of decline in general. If you're talking about the old industries like coal, car making, manufacturing, they were going down the tubes anyway.

How could our industries compete with cheap labour abroad. They were doomed long before Maggie.

So we compete in new areas like Finance, the services industry, and by in large we've been successful. Unemployment is still lower than when we had the Nationalised Industries. It therefore follows that you operate a free market you'll have better economic conditions.

[city fan]

Originally Posted by Harj

Yes, at what? We have sold most of our industry (our bread and butter) to outsiders, I understand that some european companies own some of the parking firms that councils employ. We have cut funding in science and engineering (where I work, most of the skilled new recruits are coming from , Slovakia, Hungary, India, Greece, because there no no skilled brits coming forward).

Our car industry, gone.
Power-gone.
Water-gone.
Steel-gone.
Coal-gone.
pride in civil service-gone.
Cutoms at airport now by Securicor.
NHS- gone.
Royal Mail-going.
British Airports owned by forign companies, hence the fact that heathrow is simply an embarresment to this country.

Crime -up,
Utility Bills-up
Tax-up
Fuel price-up
travel costs -up and getting higher.
Stupid jobs created for ppl wth management or consulting degrees,-up
tax payers money for above jobs-up.
House prices-up and beyond the reach the average Joe.
Chances of my job getting outsourced to another company - Getting high.
Speed cameras-up

Most of the bad things in te above can be attributed to privitisation (even the cleaning in NHS i contracted out), ppl forget that shareholders care absolutely nothing but about how much is in their pockets, resulting in poor service and higher costs.

What utter tosh.
How has privatisation had an effect on speed cameras, the fuel price, travel costs, cosultants with degress getting jobs tax- tax increases with Nationalisation-see Keynes. Crime up- because in the past all the robbers were down the pit!?

You say-

Our car industry, gone.
Power-gone.
Water-gone.
Steel-gone.
Coal-gone.

Yes if they cannot compete in the real world, why should I as a tax payer shore them up?

What would you have? Jobs being made for these people continue to dig for coal thats not there or make cars no one wants to buy

[andykn]

Originally Posted by Ethics Gradient

An analogy would be like trying to get a group of survivors on a desert island to stop hunting for food from an ever diminishing resource of animals and go hungry for a few days so they could cultivate crops and provide a sustainable solution ...... the survivors digging their feet in about going hungry for a few days of not hunting and refusing to do it ... would be how the unions operated during that period of history.

My analogy is that it's like selling your house, renting it back and living off the capital. It would put, say, 200,000 pounds into your economy but would hardly be prudent.

We've been selling assets (on the cheap) and living of the proceeds.

[andykn]

Originally Posted by city fan

So we compete in new areas like Finance, the services industry, and by in large we've been successful.

Finance is not a new area, we were world leaders in that before. We have not very successfully fended off competition in Services. Where we had Wimpy befroe we now have McDonalds and BK; Butlins replaced by Thomas Cook (now foreign owned) and so on.

Unemployment is still lower than when we had the Nationalised Industries. It therefore follows that you operate a free market you'll have better economic conditions.

If you take into account the numbers taken out of the official figures over the years and those (wrongly) on long term sick unemployment is higher than in 1979 both at the end of tory rule and now.

[city fan]

Originally Posted by Ethics Gradient

The significance of that is you can now afford to waste time on the internet whinging about it.

And now France has finally woken up and realised they have to move into modern times as well.

Sarkozy will break the unions there and their crazy pensions systems.

He has seen the light. Allied himself with the USA, putting in reforms to decrease state control and get his country out of the position we were before Thatcher.

[Ethics Gradient]

Sticking to actual privitisation issues:

Originally Posted by Harj

Our car industry, gone.
Power-gone.
Water-gone.
Steel-gone.
Coal-gone.

Thats more down to trying to compete with countries where the average salary is £2,000/yr instead of £24,000/yr in the UK.
Even though they have gone, there is LESS unemployment than before privatisation .... how does that work exactly ? Well we change the types of jobs and income generation to more profitable ones.
We can't make things as cheaply as China or India .... so we sell high value services, finance and investment instead .........

You can't have your cake and eat it.

[Ethics Gradient]

Originally Posted by andykn

My analogy is that it's like selling your house, renting it back and living off the capital. It would put, say, 200,000 pounds into your economy but would hardly be prudent.

We've been selling assets (on the cheap) and living of the proceeds.

Not quite - you forgot to mention the fact that the house was going to be repossed because you couldn't afford the mortgage in the first place ..... to stick with the analogy.

... and not prudent ? You mean being able to live in the same house AND have an income from it so not having to work and freeing up your time to either persue a life of leisure .... or go out and create another income and increase your standard of living ......

[city fan]

Originally Posted by andykn

Where we had Wimpy befroe we now have McDonalds and BK; Butlins replaced by Thomas Cook (now foreign owned) and so on.

I told you competion was a good thing. Thank god for BK. Wimpy is dire

And Butlins urrgg

Originally Posted by andykn

If you take into account the numbers taken out of the official figures over the years and those (wrongly) on long term sick unemployment is higher than in 1979 both at the end of tory rule and now.

The figures can be massaged. The bottom line is that after Thatcher and now it has never been easier to get a job. We've been at full employment at times and have had skill shortages, hence immigration. I remember times when unemployment was rife and you were lucky to have a job.

[gavan]

Originally Posted by andykn

My analogy is that it's like selling your house, renting it back and living off the capital. It would put, say, 200,000 pounds into your economy but would hardly be prudent.

We've been selling assets (on the cheap) and living of the proceeds.

I'd broadly agree with the 'living off the windfall' aspect but that doesn't mean that certain aspects of privatisation - ie. increased competition instead of public monopolies - haven't been beneficial to us all.

The problem is that the money injected into the economy from selling off the public organisations has broadly run out but private individuals are now starting to face the bills.


Personally I'd prefer to see essential services in public hands but with as many parts of their business tendered out to private companies as is sensible.

[njp]

Originally Posted by Chris Lamle

Telecoms are cheaper than they have ever been - when you think you can call the US or Australia for not much more than calling your Gran down the street.

That's the result of technological progress, and has very little to do with whether or not the telco is privatised.

[Ethics Gradient]

Originally Posted by njp

That's the result of technological progress, and has very little to do with whether or not the telco is privatised.

Do you have any idea about BT and it's inertia ... and how historically it was before privatisation ?

It was privatisation and opening the market up to competitors that allowed prices to drop MORE than the technology.
Technology has been more about 'value adding services' than about the essential costs of trunking a call.

(having said that, the continued effects the internet and communications going forward WILL be dramitically affected by technology)

[GasDad]

Originally Posted by njp

That's the result of technological progress, and has very little to do with whether or not the telco is privatised.

That implies that AT&T (in the USA) somehow had access to technological progress that was denied to the GPO.

That doesn't make sense - AT&T went with electronic switchboards, we were somehow placated with a 'Trimphone' (that pulse dialled ***).

It was the unions/lack of investment/bad management (all those people in Liverpool making mechanical exchages etc), that stopped progress.