by Gigabit » Sun May 13, 2018 4:36 pm
I find it odd that if privatisation has been such a success, why no other country has replicated it like the UK.
Railways - UK is unique in privatisation in Europe, even Northern Ireland is state-owned!
Telecoms - France Government still owns significant share of Orange; German Government still owns significant share of DT
Post - publicly owned in most of Europe, e.g. France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland
Utilities - EDF in France is mostly state-owned
There is a max granted in some countries (German utilities are mainly privatised) but no country has privatised literally everything. Why might this be? It can't be a coincidence. Privatisation has done little to improve service. Railway punctuality for example is horrific compared to Switzerland or Germany. TfL Underground leads in the UK and is state-owned. Electricity prices are incredibly expensive (privatisation = competition = lower prices? Wrong, it's an organised cartel). Broadband prices are low because of strict regulation. Has privatisation increased fibre availability, nope. Do BT get lots of taxpayer money and have every FTTC contract? Yup, so much for competition.
I'm not saying we start privatising everything, that would be mad. But services which haven't improved and in fact cost more (railways!), seem to me pointless being privatised. I'm sure the German and French Governments love it, they can do fuck all and take a cut. But do we need them? I find it odd we don't get talk from the Brexiteers on this, taking our country back. Well let's take our railways back then.