The Observer has one of its rather odd right wing business editorials today, given that it claims to be a left of centre paper. It begins well, noting:
Few opinion polls that claim to detect a shift in public attitudes merit the ubiquitous label “landmark research”, but here's one that does. The Legatum Institute, a thinktank, and Populus have found levels of support for nationalising large parts of the economy that would have been hard to believe a few years ago.
The big four industries in the sights of Labour's Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell should all return to public ownership, according to a strong majority of respondents. Water topped the poll (83%), followed by electricity (77%), gas (77%) and the railways (76%).
They add:
Dig deeper into the figures and you will see a remarkable convergence of opinion across age groups for most sectors. This is not a generational phenomenon. Some 78% of 55-64-year-olds, who are old enough to remember the days of British Rail (unloved at the time), support public ownership of train companies.
The Observer then tries to guess why this might be the case. The suggest it could be the collapse in real income growth since 2008. Or a collapse in confidence in big business, aided and abetted by disenchantment with executive pay. Then they speculate on whether or not it is the obviously feeble benefits of privatisation that fuel this sentiment when nothing suggests that the public have benefitted, whilst shareholders clearly have. The analysis is a curious hotch-potch of microeconomic thinking on what is quite clearly a macroeconomic and even macropolitical shift. Nothing symbolises this better than the comment that follows:
The extraordinary part of this pro-nationalisation shift, however, is that Corbyn and McDonnell have barely bothered to explain how they would pay for the assets, or how they would run them better. If a company were contemplating a series of takeovers worth £200bn-plus, the shareholders would want to know the details. The prime minister, if she's serious about defending capitalism, might want to push that argument.
To which they then add:
She could also try rewriting the regulatory system for the utilities to ensure consumers get a better deal. You'd probably start with water — it's hard to mess up and current owners enjoy a life of almost risk-free luxury.
At least the Observer pins it's colours firmly to the mast: it would seem that they are firmly on the side of the Tories in finding ways to beat off this 'threat'.
Let's look at this another way. First, why is nationalisation popular? Let's not play with trivia at the edges: let's go to fundamentals. People know that what we're talking about, whether it be trains, power, water and maybe other utilities (BT OPenreach is an obvious example; the banking platform that guarantees that payments can take place another, the National Grid a third, and healthcare an obvious fourth) are natural monopolies. There really is no room for a second serious supplier in any of these markets. Competition is not then ever going to be a reality in practice. And in that case to pretend that the private sector can provide an answer other than monopoly abuse is obviously just wrong. This is an answer reached with regard to railways in WW1 (although the full bullet was not bitten then). It's been reached with all the others since and it's now obvious to anyone that all the alternatives are just game playing: the result is an industry that has to be so widely regulated that any pretence at real competition is a charade, which has not prevented arbitraging of rules (train fares, customer tariffs and straight rip-off in the case of water) at consumer expense.
It's not trivia that's leading to this sentiment from the public: it's cold, hard, economic reality that is driving it. People want the state to do what the state does best. And they also know that the state can fund such businesses more cheaply than anyone else: if PFI has served any purpose then it has been to prove that the state's cost of capital is vastly lower than the private sector's, in which case using private sector funding for state activity rather than government borrowing now very obviously makes no sense at all to anyone but the most hardened of dogmatists. Again, the public know this, I think. And that's why they reject private sector solutions: they literally know they are not economic.
In which case they also know how this will be funded. The public know that £435 billion of QE bailed out banks and inflated asset prices. They're not daft: the evidence is all around them that something has gone deeply wrong with this programme, as I predicted in 2010. This was always the likely outcome.
But equally they can see we have not gone to Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic in a handcart: this money creation did not create consumer price inflation. Far from it; for long periods when there were no other external factors (like Brexit or oil supply changes) there was no real inflation at all. So they now know the government can make money out of thin air for the sake of the economy when it is appropriate to do so. Using QE created funds to pay for nationalised assets would make sense.
Make the gilts in question very long dated, if they need be dated at all (after all, they're replacing equity and equity is not dated) would be very wise.
Then make them very low coupon i.e. Set the interest rate very low. So low in fact they are very unlikely to exceed current inflation, but will still beat rates available from banks at present.
And by all means require that the sectors in question cover their respective costs - but make that coupon rate their cost of capital, and not impose some artificial and much higher rate as is normal in the public sector right now.
And then appoint properly representational boards to run these industries mixing existing expertise, political control, customers, workers and community interests.
Will it be a panacea? Of course not, and there will be mistakes. We humans make them, and we like pointing them out (as I know). But will it match the economic reality of these sectors? Of course it will. And will that match voter sentiment as well as their inherent and innate common-sense logic? Yes, of course it will too.
This is not rocket science. It just requires clear thinking. For the second time (at least) this week the Guardian / Observer has failed to deliver that in an editorial.
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I’m glad you picked up on this.
Did you see the Observer’s view on the future of work?
They mention UBI – but then they say this:
‘Even if robots were to erode human work, a universal basic income would be no solution: why would their owners continue to pay the rest of us an income when we lack the economic power that comes from having a job? Ceding the ground of an economic model based on the dignity of work and humans producing stuff consumed by other humans risks paving the way to extreme inequality. A tax on automation would simply discourage investment in the technological progress that improves living standards’.
I mean look at this. Huge assumptions about how UBI could be funded (re-distribution). No mention of the ability of the Government to print the money perhaps? Or any other good ideas? No imagination whatsoever and a blindness to what Government can actually do for its people. No mention of the trials in Northern Europe.
Useless.
The main issue for the railways is the same as in the other utilities – privatisation actually creates a diversion away from re-investment and quality of delivery as it creates another mouth to feed – the investor – who always wants more and threatens to take their money away to someone else if the returns are not good enough (underpinned by law). What you have is an instant mechanism for how money (operational surpluses) can be moved from the real economy of wages and expenditure to the investment economy and the 1%.
My organisation is a not for profit ALMO sponsored by the City Council and our surpluses are put back into investment. That is why we are able to still build council houses despite the 1% in rent income a certain Mr Osbourne began to take from us in 2015. It works (albeit slowly).
Private investment (even PFI) could be made to work if the returns were reasonable and the investor was expected to make a longer term commitment to the projects that they ‘fund’. But this is not the case and never has been to my knowledge. It’s all about huge profits – not the projects nor the social benefits that should come form them. The whole thing is a lie.
I had to pick which one to argue with….
The UBI comment was equally absurd
I fully understand that Richard – you do cover a lot of this stuff and I’m not poking any holes in your choice of article. All I was doing was pointing out that the same lazy thinking seems to dominate their thoughts on a multitude of issues. They have been unable to break through the intellectual glass ceiling they have imposed on themselves and which comes from the wider cultural acceptance of the ‘markets good/Government bad’ syndrome.
I didn’t think I was being poked at
I was agreeing with you
And pointing out my limits when I also had my 91 year old dad to see today and two children feed and….you know the sort of thing
Another fantastic article Richard, thank you.
Having worked in the power industry for several years, all of which were post privatisation I was shocked by the amount of trading that went on before the consumer even received their kilowatt of electricity. I remember having an argument with a trader who came to our power station on the benefits of a nationalised industry. He was adamant that privatisation led to competition which drove down energy prices. I asked how that was better than the old way of running the most efficient stations first and backing up the shortfalls to supply with less efficient stations coming online as necessary. This was also a greener way of doing things too.
Also, every new station that was built was a test bed for new technologies. Very little R&D has gone into the infrastructure since privatisation. Also all the big players in the game are foreign owned, so this country benefits very little from the profits either.
Lastly, to expand our nuclear generation will take cash injections of public money to build more plant. Subsidies paid for by the consumer to run the plants. And I am sure we will pick up the heafty tab for decommissioning them. So why not re-nationalise the industry and at least recoup some of the revenue during it’s running years?
Thanks
The same opinion polling seems to show that the public want food retailers and travel agents nationalised. What do you make of that?
The numbers are vastly lower
Quote in full is what I’d say in response to that
@Gerald
Food retailers? That might be what you get when your competition policy is so hopelessly absurd that you’ve allowed an oligoplpoly (cartel?) led by Sainsbury’s and Tesco to take over just about everything.
Free market? Pffft.
It is great to see this commentary, stuff like this is property of the people and the people should own it. Like most things my council has been forced to farm out to the parasites in the private sector, these would be better under the control of the people.
I think the case for nationalising BT is weak. There is a fair amount of competition in the cities and urban areas. It is in the countryside and the smaller towns that the problem arises. I agree about the rest and as for the various regulators, total bunch of useless freeloaders.
I referred to open reach, not BT
It was a major travesty that BT service provision and infrastructure were not separated at privatisation.
No reasoned market rationale to that at all.
Unfortunately the calibre of editors and a lot of the journalists at the Guardian/Observer is mediocre. To my knowledge Larry Elliott, the Guardian economics editor, has never run an in-depth feature on Modern Monetary Theory. You’d think he might do this with all the commentary in the mainstream media about Magic Money Trees including the Guardian but Larry studiously avoids anything on MMT. Such avoidance suggests very strongly he’s a closet Tory masquerading as a Social Democrat or Green.
I think ‘closet Tory’ might overstate the case somewhat.
I suspect to some extent along with others at the Guardian he’s gradually slipped into the habits and mindset of the blithe. I suspect quite a lot of the readership are reasonably comfortable with that.
I know Larry
Closet Tory he is definitely not
But his thinking is more coventional than that of many here
Are you aiming to give existing investors something with the same market value as their original shares? Or more? Or less? That seems an important question.
I think fair value would need to be determined
I am not saying that need be current market value
I doubt it would be float price either
It would be fair value
It would be a new prospectus wouldn’t it?
As you say fair value would need to be assessed. Existing shareholders would therefore be rewarded (or penalised) for the quality of their stewardship of the assets.
That’s fair isn’t it?
Yes
With respect to fair value – in the case of the DNOs (Electricity Distribution Network Operators) they get remuneration on the basis of their asset base – which they like to get others to pay for (= money for nothing etc) . So who defines what their asset base is worth? How do you assess the value of cables that have sat in the ground for 100 years (I can think of some – & they will probably sit there for another 100) or other long lived assets? What is a fair return? 12% (really?) or 8% (as the German constitutional court found for German TSO assets). I’d turn the screw, the mostly foreign owners have had it far too soft for far too long – cut remuneration on the asset base to 3% – 4%? pick a number & then watch the owners (e.g Warren Buffet) decide they just might want to sell.
Agreed
Most of this is rent
And those returns are absurd
From one who has actually worked for a privatised monopoly utility and (many years ago) also worked at at call centre for shareholders’ inquiries (mainly merger proposals). A couple of perspectives:
Firstly this: “If a company were contemplating a series of takeovers worth £200bn-plus, the shareholders would want to know the details.”
I’ll tell you what the shareholders get. The hapless small shareholder gets a massively long and deliberately unreadable prospectus plus referral to an understaffed call centre where ‘teleconsultants’ read unintelligible scripted answers and are forced to stick to the script. Then once that little charade is complete the institutional shareholders use their proportional might to ram the proposal through anyway.
Another point that is rarely discussed and understood is the inherent conflict of interest for a government that knows it will sell its utilities at a higher price if the sale comes with the prospect of a weak regulator. So they end up maximising their sale price by selling a license to rob the public.
These people like The Observer who whimsically say “why not get a stronger regulator” don’t seem to be aware of the potential legal and contractual difficulties in changing the regulatory regime. Its much easier to just buy them out. Labour will also know that it will be much harder for a future Tory govt. to re-privatise than it would be for them to quietly undermine the powers of a regulator.
As to The Observer’s point about how Corbyn and McDonnell “would run them better”. How about an open public charter defining the rights of the consumer. The opposition leader ‘if he’s serious about’ nationalisation, might want to pursue that idea.
In the absence of a visionary future of socialism in a mixed economy, perhaps it’s time to go back to Marx, as many believe there are still lessons to be learned from him.
I’ve always been in favour of nationalisation, perhaps even more than what are called natural monopolies, but we need questions and answers more generally on capitalism. For example, why should a firm be allowed to make profits in excess of what is required to pay decent wages, reinvest in the business, accrue a contingency reserve and pay a modest return to shareholders? And why should shareholders expect capital gains beyond inflation, plus dividends – such that some owners can become obscenely wealthy?
But I’m a pessimist, I don’t see any of this happening, including nationalisation, (even were Labour to get in) as the power of wealth is so entrenched in the political system that it is the de facto power.
I would love to work on that vision
I’d need to stop blogging though
And I’m not sure I can do that
@G Hewitt – This is a touch off topic but I share your pessimism, at least in the medium-term (+/- 20 years). And agree that Marx & Engels need to be revisited (there seems to be an awakening interest in their work). The entrenched status quo (both Left & Right) is like a Lernaean Hydra and will continue to re-invent itself until there are no more options left.
Radical change can only come from outside the mainstream. For that to happen there has to be an irreparable break-down of the prevailing othodoxy, which has shown itself to be remarkably resilient. Arguably it took 2 world wars and the subsequent demise of the USSR to breathe life into the system, with a price-tag of many millions of innocent lives. Clearly such an inefficient and unstable socio-economic structure cannot last forever. As Marx indicated it carries the seeds of its own destruction.
In the meantime a new vision with accompanying instruction manual has to be developed, ready to fill the vacuum. People like Bernie Sanders are showing the way – building supporter networks of essentially young people across nations. George Monbiot addresses this, although I fear he believes there can be adequate structural reform within the Labour Party (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/george-monbiot-out-of-the-wreckage-book-labour-world-transformed-neoliberalism-momentum-a7974531.html.)
Progressive thinkers – such as Richard et al. – really need to come together to set this new vision in motion. Even if it means cutting back on the blogging! There is too much at stake. Future generations deserve better. All the current indications both here and across the Pond suggest a growing appetite for a real change in the way society is managed and functions. And there’s an expanding armoury of new tools available (viz. MMT, the Internet, etc) to build a new Ark to be afloat when the old one sinks. The foot-soldiers are there – they just need the instruction manual and leadership.
Apologies. This was going to be a brief response but got a bit carried away. For me it’s the most important agenda to which progessive thought & energy should be directed.
Barista – a double marocchino per favore!
Have you read The Courageous State?
Should I revisit it?
If not you, who, if not now, when?
I know, I know….
Going to the States in just over a week
I’ll write it on the plane
Around various websites, (Money Saving Expert has recently polled site visitors)
The main argument against nationalisation goes back to overpaid public sector workers doing little or nothing, the time to get a new phone and/or line, the rundown state of British Rail in the 70’s and 80’s before sectorisation and general inefficiency.
The main counter argument would be how it would be different this time round.
A few of links:
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=148076
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/current-poll
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/poll/26-09-2017/do-you-support-renationalisation-of-rail-energy-water-and-more
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=73179786
Interesting reading.
All industry had overpaid and underworked middle managers then
The Thatcherite narrative that the unions killed nationalised industries has never been effectively challenged. It’s become part of the national mythology.
The responsibility for managing lay with the management and they didn’t fight their corners against the treasury. If they’d been worth their salaries, and had any self respect they would have made the case for investment and the right to manage or resigned.
Not surprising the workforce was disenchanted and unmotivated watching the six hundred and forty thousand, three hundred and fiftieth Austin Allegro rolling off the production line. The management’s idea of product development was to pt out a version with a square steering wheel.
Yeah sure, its “interesting reading” if you aren’t old enough to know better, don’t realise that a lot of the service now is actually far worse than it was then and you think that unsubstantiated propaganda is interesting.
I won’t bore you with the several weeks of struggle I recently endured getting landline and decent broadband (the correct billing of which is still not resolved). That wouldn’t be an intersting story because its not 40 years old or fabricated.
It took me over a year to resolve the BT billing on my last move
Good luck
I for my part was amazed (and considerably relieved) that a recent transfer from BT Broadband etc to the much derided Talk Talk for half the price I’d been paying (and now with faster fibre at no extra charge) was seamless.
I have to admit that when my contract is up…..
A problem that might arise if the energy suppliers were nationalised could be the tariffs.
Example: I and many others are on the cheapest gas and electricity tarriff available, the nationalised supplier comes in and increases the tarriff by £200 per year, that is the cheapest price offered, many people are going to be unhappy with that.
Same goes for telephone and broadband, if I pay £25 a month for both and have no issues, if a nationalised supplier ups this to £30 per month, again, a lot of people are going to be unhappy.
And why would that happen?
Give me one good reason
The tarriff offered by the new nationalised supplier would have to be the cheapest on the market for every area (the old Manweb type boards)
I cannot see one standard tarriff, paperless and internet billing did not exist over thirty years ago, neither did broadband.
I’m not saying that this will happen, but the nationalised supplier would be criticised if it ran at a loss.
I am at a loss
Are you saying offer one fair tariff?
It defeats me why this cannot be legislated for now
No-one can say what tarriff would be available with a nationalised supplier, my point is that those of us who use comparison sites to get the best price for their gas and/or electricity as well as phone and/or would not be very happy if their annual bill rose by 20 percent.
You admit yourself that when your contact with BT is up, you are considering moving elsewhere.
With a nationalised supplier you would not be able to do that.
A high percentage of areas are stuck with Openreach as their infrastructure, only limited areas have FTTP.
I am not a telephone engineer, I do not know if it is possible to convert the existing copper wiring to fibre, I would imagine it would come at a high cost if it was, but the benefits would be be worth it (People’s QE?)
What I would be interested in is your thoughts on using The Green New Deal in tandem with energy nationalisation, I personally think there is a good case here if used wisely.
As for a fair tarriff, Scottish Water is usually cheaper than south of the border, it is generally in with the council tax bill.
I still think that because technology has moved on, tarriffs for paper and paperless online billing would differ due to the obvious savings for the supplier.
I am sincerely hoping the need for this tariff fiasco – which is wholly designed to rip off most consumers – would end for good
It is a total sham
I’m pretty tired of the old chestnut about “the rundown state of British Rail in the 70’s and 80’s before sectorisation and general inefficiency.”, and suggest people take a look at the BBC series on British Rail at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b053pxdr
This, IMO, clearly shows, especially in its last episode, that British Rail had, after all the really heavy lifting under nationalised management, become both pretty good, and more importantly, a ripe target for asset-stripping by the privateers and carpetbaggers who were hovering around in the way wings, waiting their moment.
Agreed
We still use BR created HSTs
[…] Read here […]
“No real inflation at all”. Really? Who does the shopping in Prof. Murphy’s household I wonder? Yes, you are technically correct of course. But that theft of purchasing power is still there. Well, the loss is there in the fiat currency though curiously not in gold which you disparage.
I can still by a Big Mac today with the same amount of gold that I bought my first Big Mac circa 1974. So that speculative asset [Gold] that pays no interest appears to have done much better than so-called money.
I note that you are in the latter, kept in a bank no less, which you point out is safe. I ask is it really safe? Yeah sure if it all goes TU then you’ll still the same amount out in GBP terms at least. But then again you might look at Cyprus’ attempts at a haircut to bank account holders. The state will do what the state needs to do in desperation to keep a hold on power.
For the record, I do the shopping, all of it.
And my local supermarkets don’t take gold. It’s not an acceptable currency.
If you want to speculate in a near useless commodity, feel free. But to pretend that has anything to do with the real economy is a polite joke, at best.
I suspected you did all the shopping Richard I stand in awe of how you find the time.
Of course one can convert gold to any currency needed, and now with the advent of digital gold (not bitcoin) spending it is easy as well.
My point is, that you have ignored the erosion of purchasing power, whilst saying inflation is low. Are you implying then that everything is okay when clearly it is not?
I’d put it to you that holding GBP is the real speculation. Those in occupied Singapore during the war soon found out that paper money wont buy you rice to eat. I hope that you’re right and Venezuela could never happen here.
With respect, your last comment suggests your opinion is absurd as your pseudonym
G Hewitt says:
If not you, who, if not now, when?
Thanks for quoting Dr W Edwards Deming circa 1985. His System of Profound Knowledge would be fundamental to the success of the nationalised industries – and all the others.
[…] ownership of natural monopolies,  as Corbyn is proposing, is not tooth and claw socialism, although Letwin said it […]
This from the Canary underlines the continuing trend of privatisation.
Starve of funds – demoralise workforce – blame the workforce for failing services – carve up into saleable units – give control of public assets to profit seeking ‘investors’
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/2017/10/01/chief-inspector-slams-nhs-hospitals-wholly-unsatisfactory-little-complicated/
“they didn’t fight their corners against the treasury”, not did they deal with their workers effectively to create an harmonious environment “in place of strife.”
The failures of capitalism need to flagged up. For example, how does the “market” deal with transport congestion and environmental degradation. In the former it lobbies government to provide more roads & cuts in fuel duty etc and makes it easier to afford bigger vehicles and change them more frequently thereby increasing congestion, while on the railways it increases fares and makes buying an economic ticket a byzantine project, all to dissuade travelling.
As far as environmental degradation, including greenhouse gas emission, it doesn’t give a toss and even bankrolls denial, abetted by a lunatic in the White House who denies there is a problem. After all, the only social responsibility of a business, according to Friedman, is to make a profit.
The latter can only be changed by state legislation, while in the former I would suggest a nationalised, integrated public transport system which is cheap (free), efficient, comfortable, runs on time, safe and easy to access. An engineer’s blog has advocated a fleet of “super” coaches plying the existing motorway network, with local connections and access, to get cars off the road.
We need some imaginative thinking to challenge the received neoliberal wisdom.
Regarding your mention of “super coaches”, one idea I had when driving down the motorway one time to Bristol was for shuttle trams between the junctions, simply going back and forth between each junction. Passengers would use the stations at each junction to get on or off the shuttle, local bus services (like park n ride) could then transport passengers to the towns they wished to go to. It would make shopping trips and seaside holidays so much easier, get the bus from your town to the nearest junction station, then hop between shuttles until your reach your desired junction, then a short bus ride to your destination.
I’m aware the cost of such a system would be quite high, especially if rolled out to all motorways, but imagine the impact of reduced congestion and lower pollution!
Here’s the link: http://www.alanstorkey.com/a-national-integrated-coach-system-for-10-20-billion-in-five-years/
Among the ‘top four industries’ targeted for a return to public ownership, “Water topped the poll (83%)”.
It is worth remembering that in Scotland water has remained in public ownership. Nobody is going to pretend it is perfect, but there is no appetite in Scotland to privatise it, and a strong sense that public ownership is the right place for that service. Neo-liberals in Scotland are noticeably quiet on the matter.
Here is a summary statement about Scottish Water, from the Scottish Water website:
“We are a publicly owned company, answerable to the Scottish Parliament and the people of Scotland. It’s our job to provide 1.34 billion litres of drinking water every day and take away 847 million litres of waste water daily.”
The problem is not about ‘private and ‘public’; the problem is ideology and factionalism. It always was about ideology and factionalism (the reason we have the kind of dysfunctional politics we have, and the characteristically low grade of politician to whom we are perpetually condemned). Unfortunately the British electorate is too easily seduced by both.
Welsh Water is an even better example
The trick is to prevent powerful vested interests becoming embedded and institutionalising rent-seeking. For example, the electricity and gas networks in Ireland are state-owned and the largest energy supplier is also state-owned, yet households and small business consumers are being ripped off far more voraciously that they are in Britain. The water and waste water industry is in state ownership and is being restructured as a single national entity – Irish Water, but it is seriously underfunded and is in a classic Irish “state of chassis”. It is both hated by the public and dysfunctional. And as for the state-owned railways the less said the better..
Nationalisation by an exploitative government results in effective regressive taxation
I agree that this behaviour results in regressive taxation, but I wouldn’t accuse successive Irish governments (or governments that allow this in other jurisdictions) of being intentionally exploitative. It’s simply that the management, staff, unions, suppliers to and regulators of these industries develop variations of officially authorised tacit and explicit collusion to rip-off final consumers. It can happen under privatised, nationalised or mixed regimes. The only sustainable solution is forceful, statutory representation of consumers’ collective interests, statutory collective purchasing schemes where appropriate, effective enforcement of competition and consumer protection law and the jailing of those who break it.
Unfortunately, Labour’s current high command, desiring to return to some imagined pre-Thatcher nirvana, has no interest in this. And the Tories are pathologically incapable of contemplating these solutions.
I repeatedly make points about governnance
I can see no evidence that Labour is not aware of the risks
Or to put it another way; neither an ideological source as ‘public’ nor ‘private’ sector, ‘a priori’, guarantees anything at all. There is no fairy-dust in the free-market or state-controlled economic aether, sprinkling magic returns, scattering high standards and fair prices to an awestruck public.
It is time the public embraced a more mature view of the world and stopped listening to snake-oil salesmen of left or right.
Agreed
[…] should Labour (or anyone else) believe that because people seek the nationalisation of natural monopolies that what they want is full blooded socialism. I know some will, but they’re a minority. […]