Nationalise the Utilities?

[anotheoldgit]

Windfall tax or not, isn't it time that the Goverment took our utilities out of private ownership and nationalised them once again?

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/75736 /Punish-energy-profiteers-with-windfall-tax-sa y-MPs

[danchip]

yes because the utilities companies are just going to hand them over arent they

[Gromit]

Certainly Privatisation of the telecoms and utilities companies has not seen the advantages that Thatcher promised us. Greater competition, cheaper prices, greater investment were all fiction.

And what happened to all the money raised by her flogging off these assets?. It certainly didn't go into building new hospitals or schools or maintaining a workable railway system.

I fear these assets were so undervalued and sold off ludicrously cheaply, that we could not afford to nationalise them now.

[rov1200]

With the energy companies it should not be too difficult to confiscate the excess profits gained during the increase in fuel prices. Ask Sid!

[jno]

anotheoldgit berates market economy and demands Old Labour solutions

Goodness, all my Christmases have come at once.

Basically, Gromit is correct. I suppose the government could simply seize everything it wanted without paying compensation to the blighters who bought it cheap in the first place, but it would only draw unwanted comparisons with the likes of Mugabe. On the other hand, they've nationalised Northern Rock without actually calling it nationalisation. So they might just get away with it if public opinion was strongly behind them. In the case of utilities, it might well be.

[shomer42]

Privatisation has been good in that I haven't had a winter of power cuts like I did in the 70's.

I don't think you can place a windfall tax on someone just because they are making a lot of money.

What the government could do is look at the competition laws and make sure they are not price fixing because if they are they should be penalised.

[brionon]

They want to Privatise the Post Office ! The one place you thought your money was safe !

[BertiWooster]

Brionon

When you say the ' Post office' - what exactly are you referring to ?

[BillyBB]

The Gas and Electric boards were amazingly inefficient and prices would be way higher now if they had carried on regardless.
The way they were privatised was appalling, the way they are regulated could be improved.
However, if you divide the profits by the number of customers, each company makes a fairly small amount off each household. If you spend �600 at Comet they will be making far more.

[BillyBB]

Blair signing the Amsterdam Treaty has been the death knoll for the Post. Crazy idea, the sort of infrastructure that can make the whole country better off now has to let other companies cherry pick the most profitable bits and still has to do the door to door delivery.
Repeal it now.

[BillyBB]

And why can't I choose a different Water company? Torys messed that up too.

[tigerlily11]

The Idea that these companies are owned by the french and other foriegn companies is a bother to me.
\they can't increase the price in their own countries but thats ok because they just get us to make up any short falls for them, because they know that this goverment won't stop them.

[Whickerman]

for once we agree AOG - all public utilities should be wholly owned and run by government. I'd also include national transport.

[anotheoldgit]

Regarding Royal Mail, it will be left to the British taxpayer to be burdened with the pension bill, while the foreign companies 'cherry pick' the best bits.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-109522 3/A-Royal-Mail-sold-foreign-company-3billion.h tml

With yet another piece of British companies set to be taken over by the rest of Europe, it makes one wonder what would happen if the european countries fell out with each other once again (it has been known to happen in the past) how would Britain go on? We don't own anything, and we don't make anything.

[Haggisdj]

We all need water, gas, and electric to survive. I have always thought that it is wrong to both tax and make massive profits on these necessities, especially when there are pensioners who cannot afford to keep their fires on in the winter...

[R1Geezer]

Gas and Lecky would be 10 times the price had they not been privatised. Public sector cannot run a pi55 up in a brewery. Strangely though I do think utilities should some how be state owned but run like a private sector business. That's pretty well impossible now. The only thing the gov can really do is give more teeth to the regulator. Gas and Lecky have been dirt cheap for over 20 years because of the competition between suppliers but even that must yeild to the current state of the energy market.

[BillyBB]

AOG. The power stations and pipelines are here, so foreign owners would have to stuff.
Trouble is we haven't got enough generating capacity and need to buy power from French nukes to keep the lights on in London over winter.
Bring it on, I live near a power station thanks.