Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
That's exactly why the utilities, rail etc. fell into such a decrepit state after decades of under investment by government. It's also the reason that taking them back into public ownership would be a massively expensive disaster. Politicians want the brownie points for telling people what they want to hear but, when faced with the reality of having to pay for it all via taxes or spending cuts elsewhere, soon get very cold feet about it all.
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Whoa there Osem! The rail companies fell into a decrepit state due to WWII and during that time cost thousands to repair and maintain far outstripping the revenue received from the Government for the contracts in place so much so that the only alternative was to take them into Government ownership as the companies were on the verge of going bust.
Yes, when B.R. came into existence there was an attempt to standardise everything thereby saving costs but going forward bad judgements by succeeding Governments added to the decay.
The rest about rail is for another discussion. Your post was about utilities so let's look at the rest.
Water. How many water shortages were ever declared under public ownership? How many reservoirs were closed after the utility went into private hands?
Gas. When has there ever been a shortage? OK, North Sea gas was supposed to last a lifetime (I remember the hype) but that was when we had elecricty production mainly relying on coal and to a lesser extent nuclear.
That nicely brings us to electricity. When has there ever been a shortage brought about by the lack of infrastructure or investment? You cannot include the winter of discontent under the labour party when power cuts were due to industrial action of unions.
As regards the GPO, it should never have been privatised but there was a deal done with the US that caused it which may have been beneficial to the country but we have never been made aware of.
To summarise, please explain this statement.
"the utilities, rail etc. fell into such a decrepit state after decades of under investment by government"