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Originally Posted by trebor
for eg, it was the conservatives who privatised everything and look where that has got us.
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It got you lower gas bills, lower electricity bills, lower water bills, lower telephone bills and, apart from water, a choice of service providers in each case (I assume you're an ntl customer?). Furthermore it reduced the likelihood of the whole country grinding to a halt at the whim of the workforce of nationalised behemoths like British Coal or British Rail.
I grant you it hasn't been 100% successful - the privatisation of British Rail was far from smooth. Even in this case, though, privatisation directly led to a massive increase in rail passenger numbers and a good deal of the network's problems can be blamed on endemic lack of investment in rail by both Tories and Labour over 50 years.
Thatcher's public service reforms in the 1980s were a turbulent and, for many people, a painful experience, but they are the basis of the economy we enjoy today and I don't see any of Blair's cabinet planning to change it. Funny that, as they voted against each piece of legislation at the time.