Even this is bobbins though. The cost of nationalising the water industry alone is estimated at £160b – which equates to £5280 government debt per household. If they made water free for ten years people would still be out of pocket – and by the time the unions have got control water will be more expensive than it is now and we’ll also have to chip in for the capital investment required.

Water privatisation has been a disaster,a fair chunk of your water bill goes to service the loans the investment firms that own the companies took out.

we have a great comparison, because Scottish Water is nationalised and has far less debt, considerably cheaper bills, better water quality, and less leaks than in England

And this is all a huge improvement, at the time of its formation Scottish Water’s infrastructure was the worst in the UK, it’s now the best- all this was done by a cheaper nationalised service while the privatised rUK service has seen a decline in water quality, increase inleaks & bills!

http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/publications/2014/regional/10514.pdf

Even the FT has been saying the model is broken & customers are being screwed

https://www.ft.com/content/b60e062e-9712-11e8-b67b-b8205561c3fe

English & Welsh customers have been shafted by privatisation & yet johnsons fanboys defend it coz obviously corbyn/nationalisation =bad , whatever the evidence says

Water privatisation looks little more than an organised rip-off
Bills are rising to fund massive shareholder payouts

https://www.ft.com/content/2beee56a-9616-11e7-b83c-9588e51488a0

Beth Rigby pretty much nails it unfortunately: https://news.sky.com/story/general-election-the-tory-manifesto-is-a-lightweight-document-of-brexit-rhetoric-11869640

All Boris has to do is not shag anything and keep the headbangers like JRM away from any microphones or twitter.

In fact I suspect he could get away with more shagging stories – ‘good ol’ Boris – what a lad’.

TJ – you’ll be back soon: you can’t help yourself.
If you’re not on here, who else will you disagree with?

robdixon

Member

Even this is bobbins though. The cost of nationalising the water industry alone is estimated at £160b

When estimated by the water industry, sure.

Here’s the bit that is carefully ignored. Water like most other nationalised industries is so profitable and therefore valuable because it gets tons of public funding, because it’s weakly regulated, because piss-poor standards are tolerated, and because regulatory breaches are routinely fined at a rate lower than the cost of not breaking the regulations. Cost is nationalised, profits are privatised, failure is rewarded. Any industry would be worth a fortune in such an environment

It wouldn’t take a hostile environment to massively reduce the exaggerated value of these industries, simply a reasonable one. Tie funding to performance, enforce the rules that exist, upgrade the penalty structure so that doing it wrong is at least as expensive as doing it right. You know, like we’d already do if it wasn’t all mad.

Of course an actual hostile environment would be easy to arrange too, if they just learn from the past masters…

dannyh

Member

They don’t want to fix it, though. They want to run it down to the point where they can start to sell bits of it off to their mates. Total conflict of interest.

The exact opposite works for nationalization. We’ve seen so many cases in the past where governments have made life difficult for industries and sectors, all the tools are tried, tested and ready. Just turn them around.

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

Only the Torys promise to get it done and move on as a priority.

Which is impossible to deliver.

Only the Torys promise to get it done and move on as a priority.

That’s nice coming from the people who created the mess in the first place.

Take profit out of the equation and it’s obvious to anyone not blinded by greed that utilities, education, transport should be managed for the good of society.

That would be great. But the huge cost to buy them would be better spent elsewhere. If improvements and re-investment are required the govt should make the companies do it; they are supposed to be in charge.

If anything should be nationalised it’s the big 4 accounting/consulting co.s, They are evil. They are all sucking at the teat of public money, all signing each others expenses, all scratching each others backs, and all getting paid huge amounts with no real oversight.

And no real value.

Only the Torys promise to get it done and move on as a priority.

@mooman It’s amazing that after watching the last 4 years of paralysis as we tried & failed to negotiate the easy bit- the withdrawal agreement.

That people are still so clueless to think think that the far more complex Future Relationship will magically be easier, when Johnson has repeatedly stated that he wants to diverge much further from EU rules, ensuring that talks will be much, much more divisive & damaging.

Where as really Brexit should have been done by now, and the other important things of concern in this country should be getting addressed: housing; education; NHS, and social care, etc.

It’s taken 40 years to integrate into the EU, are you so naive that you think we could just reverse all of that with a few votes in the commons & a commemorative 50p coin?

Any trade talks will ultimately collapse due to the inherent contradiction at the heart of it

The ERG headbangers driving this whole thing want to diverge from the fundamentals of the EU project. They want to deregulate our economy, tear up workers rights, re-write environmental standards and change tax laws etc. This goes against the very principles of the single market.

The EU will never agree to this. Why would they?

When the real negotiations start, things will get very real, very quickly

The Brexit people were promised was always a right-wing neoliberal fantasy. Any serious pursuit of it would have a catastrophic impact on our economy

I find it amazing anyone still thinks we’ll be better off post-Brexit. They have clearly not been paying attention.

Excellent thread by the scarily accurate at predicting political future (check out his brexit flow charts) Jon Worth

Let’s look into the 🔮 beyond #GE2019

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) November 25, 2019

Johnson’s Brexit is just the beginning of a very long painful process

Being ‘better off’ like the people of Venezuela is less attractive than you think it is.

Jezza says he’ll get a deal in 3 months.

I’m not suggesting @mooman should listen to Corbyn, I’m suggesting he looks into what Brexit entails and how long it will take before it is “done” and we don’t have to deal with it anymore.

If it’s so right wing, why don’t labour make a stand against it? A clear stand to stop article 50?

The people presently ‘leading’ the labour party are the same sort of deluded ideologically driven fantasists as the ERG. They have also spent their entire political careers being fundamentally opposed to the very principles of the EU.

They have radically different agendas, but both hinge on being outside the EU

You know when you’ve hit a nerve with a Labour supporter…

so were you lying or confused about not knowing the difference from the WA of FR?

and your other point also misunderstands the ref vote

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/07/north-poor-brexit-myths

the TOP 5 leave voting seats are all Tory

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028

kimbers – Crossed post while I was editing; see above

I don’t feel the need to engage with anything you say

But you did…how odd