← Back to context

Comment by ulfw

13 hours ago

You must have forgotten Thatcher

she was certainly a fan, but the spark for the match for almost all of the privatisations was EU/EEC directives

if the UK had never joined the EEC those industries would likely still be under government ownership

(for better or worse, water certainly was a disaster, but telecoms and airlines seem to have gone reasonably well)

and rail was done post Thatcher, with her on record as saying it is "a step too far"

  • As a regular user I see rail privatisation as successful.

    In fact the only failure is water, as it was just privitised regional monopolies with no competition.

    Electicty/gas? Tell me you’d be happy with British Gas when you aren’t allowed to use Octopus

    Phone? Of course that’s a success, both mobile and also wires.

    Airline? Freight?

    Busses are too fragmented in regional areas, but the services tend to be better than they were under council run.