2019 General Election

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
Am I to understand the biggest shareholder in BT are the German Government? ( T-mobile ) And the second biggest shareholder the French Government?

An outrageous idea to have BT in UK state ownership, mad Stalinists!!


Off with his heed
Your rose tinted glasses have obviously been painted over bright red. Since when has nationalisation meant successes and efficiency?

Was it the railways? No, They were crap.

Was it British Leyland? No that was irreversibly brought to its knees.

Perhaps the steel industry? Nope that didn't work either.

Nationalisation is one of those ideas that seems good in principle but end in dismal failure. Well, in this country at least, comrade.

Except with regard to the NHS, which though far from perfect, mainly due to a lack of money, is far better of than it would be if sold off to the yanks.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
When you pull off a heist, probably the greatest heist in all of history !! That is, Thatcher selling off the country's infrastructure to her acolytes at a knock down price (electricity, water, gas, telecommunications etc etc) … well … you have to expect the members of the heist gang to start falling out over the spoils at some later date.

A classic cliché of the heist movie. :eek::buddy:
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Let us 'sell' off the military, the police, the road network, the civil service, the councils, schools, the fire service, etc?

Channel 4 seems reasonably successful as a nationalised creation - and Rolls Royce (1971) Ltd lasted sixteen successful years as a nationalised industry after a private disaster.

Let's sell the BBC to Rupert Murdoch?

"Nationalised is bad" is just dogma.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
And if the railways and British steel have improved under private ownership (they had to take back the rail network because the bodies they were shovelling up after rail disasters caused by bad maintenance became embarrassing,) then there must be a new definition of success.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
"Nationalised is bad" is just dogma.
Indeed.

While I've no wish to own a car producer or a steel works - I could always buy shares in them if I did - "networky" things like the railways, the postal service and broadband seem to lend themselves to being run centrally.

Nationalisation? Bring it on ( just don't get carried away).
 

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
Was it the railways? No, They were crap.
Was it British Leyland? No that was irreversibly brought to its knees.
Perhaps the steel industry? Nope that didn't work either.

And the main problem with all of them was the ridiculous accounting system used by the Treasury. With normal business accounting systems most of the nationalised would have appeared profitable or nearly so.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
And the main problem with all of them was the ridiculous accounting system used by the Treasury. With normal business accounting systems most of the nationalised would have appeared profitable or nearly so.
That sounds interesting. Any chance of a link so I can read up on it? TIA.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Ahhh if only these big corporations would abandon this performance related pay bollocks and resort to far better management techniques and incentives.
They knew how to do it back in the day …. :heyhey:

 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Direct subsidy of the Rail network costs £5 billion annually, 200% more than when it was Nationalised...

avatar_a61e111c94ce_128.pnj
 

Tilly

Well-Known Forumite
I was in Pizza Express and ordered a deep pan with extra sweat and doe balls

It's called the Donkey Dick, the politicians friend
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
Direct subsidy of the Rail network costs £5 billion annually, 200% more than when it was Nationalised...

avatar_a61e111c94ce_128.pnj

And OpenReach get a boatload of money from the government for rollouts of a fibre network that offers 1/5 of the top speed of competitors, and their board sees the dividend from that rollout.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
Thinking about the post a page or two back about "Tories" (presumably like JRM, Boris, Cameron etc) and "wannabe Tories" (presumably us "sheep"), I had one of those "suddenly everything is clear" moments, which may account for one's views of the other lot.

Basically, there's "Us" and there's "Them". We know all about "Us" and the views and the values which "Us" holds .... and as "Them" are clearly not us we assign them different views and different values which are at the opposite end of the spectrum to ours. And because they hold the views and values we've assigned them, we're able to go in to bat for "Us" to make sure our views and values take precedence over the views and values of, well, "Not Us".

And herein lies the problem. It's not "Them" we go up against; it's this "Not Us" opponent that we've created. They - "Not Us" - are easy to argue against. We understand their views and values as they're diametrically opposite to ours, and as our views are demonstrably superior, how can voters not support and vote for "Us". Fair enough if it were "Not Us" we were up against, but it isn't; it's "Them" we're going against and "Them" may have different views, maybe only subtly, to "Not Us".

The clearest example of this are "Remainers". Remainers typically argue that the UK will be financially better off by staying in the EU (at least in the short/medium term), and this appears to be their main argument. And they can't understand why Leavers won't see that we'll be worse off and won't start backpedaling so that we stay in the EU. But the arguments the Remainers are putting forward are against "Not Remainers". "Leavers" are different to "Not Remainers" (which is a Remainer construct after all). Leavers are all about taking back "control" from the EU - of our laws, our money and most importantly it seems, our borders. Essentially the two sides have different priorities - Remainers talk prosperity; Leavers talk control. And it's maybe why the Remain side lost; because they argued "prosperity" against the "Not Remainers" instead of arguing "control" against the "Leavers".

What do they say? "Men are from Mars; Women from Venus"?
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I'm not a remainer because I think we'll be better off …. (that may be true, I think so, but I really don't know at this point.) I'm a remainer because the only hope we have as a species is if we do away with lines and differences, nationalism and elitist tribal bullshit. The EEC isn't perfect by a long way, but I'd sooner be inside the tent pissing with the wind to reform it, than outside pissing into a relentless gale.

This is because I believe nature wont acknowledge any of these things in the long term and unless we escape this territorial belief we inherited from the beast we evolved from, we'll go the way of the dinosaurs. (And if there isn't an effing big rock hurtling in … well, we can simulate that easy enough.)

I also believe that the referendum and elections in general are (and likely always have been) influenced by self interested factions from financial to political not just from here, but abroad as well. But that ability to influence has been greatly enhanced by modern technology, amplified by state bullshit and yes … we are behaving no differently than our previous history tells us, as we keep repeating the same mistakes of the past. In that, George Santayana was spot on.

This next General Election is really only about one thing … Doris Johnson's self interest and promotion, Brexit is just a f***** big tool in his toolbox.

I'm a member of the Labour Party, and in essence agree with Corbyn's politics, but watching him being interviewed, he's succumbed to the political lethargic behaviour we are all so tired of. Don't answer a question directly. Deflect anything you're not sure about. Adopt the wonderful policy of white noise bullshit. He may not like Doris, but boy has he ever learned from him.

Tell me, when are politicians going to realise that answering honestly is far more impressive than bullshit. When are they going to realise that saying: "I don't know" isn't an admission of stupidity, but an admission of lack of knowledge, something we all understand. Lack of knowledge can be remedied, stupidity just pisses people off.

Personally I'm close to giving up. I'm on the home straight anyway, and beginning to seriously wonder if the human race is worth the effort. Perhaps we should move aside and let nature get on with something useful.

(Rant over :gonk:)
 
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Noah

Well-Known Forumite
That sounds interesting. Any chance of a link so I can read up on it? TIA.

Doubt if it appears in print anywhere accessible. My personal experiences come from a few years ago now so might be out of date and I am no financial expert but -

1. Money spent on land, buildings, equipment, furniture etc etc. My understanding is that in commercial practice this money is written off over a number of years (depreciation?) and they become assets. Treasury says no, money has been spent, these are debts and remain debts forevermore. Government Departments, nationalised industries, NGOs, QUANGOs etc have to include the interest on these debts in their memoranda trading accounts on which fees or prices charged to the public are based, which pushes up these prices to a significant extent. At some stage the treasury decided that the debts should not be calculated at the historic rate, ie what they had actually cost but at the current rate, ie what they would cost at the current time so the debt burden is forever increasing.

2. The March spend. Estimates for money needed for a particular financial year effectively have to be produced a couple of years in advance and are tightly compartmentalised, rent & rates, equipment, renewables, repairs etc. Please tell me what is going to need repairing or replacing in two years time. And these are inflexible, you cannot use money set for renewables on repairs. What is worse is if you are careful and manage not to spend all the allocated money then you will lose it. Not only will it be clawed back but the amount will be deducted from all future years budgets as you clearly don't need all the money you are asking for. Hence the March spend, frantically spending all the remaining money in the annual budget before the end of the financial year.

3. The financial year. Ok to be a bit funny but why do the treasury used a very old 13 month year calendar. And why do they retain the Julian calendar New Year of 26th March (now 6 April New Style), the rest of the country adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. I know that practitioners of the Black Arts use the Old Calendar ...
 
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Noah

Well-Known Forumite
I rather like Labour's latest policy about "nationalising" broadband. Not sure about the practicalities, but assuming there's not too many devils in the detail, the strategy is sound.

What I understand them to be saying is free access to broadband, not necessarily free use.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Oh Tilly, everybody knows that life is free. It's dying that's a bit of an expensive f****r. :heyhey:

 
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