Re-nationalisation of industries - Corbyn

[Hope]

Jeremy Corbyn has apparently called for renationalisation of certain areas of industries - the old Clause 4.

Do you agree?  If so, which areas would you like to see re-nationalised?

[Shaker]

Thank goodness - an actual socialist seems set to be at the helm of the Labour party again.

[ad_orientem]

For a start I think it's scandalous that water and electricity are run by private companies for profit. The same goes in my country too. They should be state owned. It also means you can spread the costs so that everyone pays the same price per unit regardless of where you live.

[Hope]

For a start I think it's scandalous that water and electricity are run by private companies for profit. The same goes in my country too. They should be state owned.

I can understand electricity; it has to be produced (it doesn't exist naturally) so its production should have soime degree of market-based control.  Water, on the other hand, is natural, and although it may need to be treated those costs can't easily be changed (though water some parts of the UK needs more treatment than elsewhere). 

[Rhiannon]

The thing I didn't realise until one of my kids went on a school trip to a water treatment plant was the levels of security needed now. Renationalising water will require funding for that, as well as maintaining and replacing the infrastructure - sewer and supply pipes as well as laying it on for new developments. If the state can afford to a) fund all of this adequately and b) buy out the current private owners then I'm amazed.

[Shaker]

If the state can fund wars and sundry vanity projects, why not that?

[Jack Knave]

For a start I think it's scandalous that water and electricity are run by private companies for profit. The same goes in my country too. They should be state owned. It also means you can spread the costs so that everyone pays the same price per unit regardless of where you live.

I agree. All services that can't be implemented into a market place with the appropriate competition is ideologically wrong.

When these services were in public hands the rich paid more for them, via their taxes, than the less well off did. Now we are all paying the same price (basically a poll tax) and some of that is going to shareholders and foreign pension pots - it's a crime.

[Jack Knave]

The thing I didn't realise until one of my kids went on a school trip to a water treatment plant was the levels of security needed now. Renationalising water will require funding for that, as well as maintaining and replacing the infrastructure - sewer and supply pipes as well as laying it on for new developments. If the state can afford to a) fund all of this adequately and b) buy out the current private owners then I'm amazed.

The bankers have been given £375 billion in QE. We aren't short of money it is just the governing elite don't want to both with our wellbeing. If we buy it off them we set the price!!!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Many of our utilities are privately owned by the public utilities of France and Germany. So much for doctrinal opposition to public ownership.

Two labour leaders before the election, one to change the narrative away from Osborne's more extreme assumptions and then one to steal whatever Blairite clothing that leaves George with.

[BashfulAnthony]

Thank goodness - an actual socialist seems set to be at the helm of the Labour party again.

A socialist who, when asked five times in a recent interview, refused to condemn the IRA bombings and killings.  Nice guy.  He ought to be ashamed of himself!

[Gonnagle]

Dear Hope,

As has been mentioned, the basics for life, heating, water but I would also think about transport, it should not cost a fortune for workers to travel to and from work.

Also housing, a roof over your head is another basic.

Gonnagle.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Dear Hope,

As has been mentioned, the basics for life, heating, water but I would also think about transport, it should not cost a fortune for workers to travel to and from work.

Also housing, a roof over your head is another basic.

Gonnagle.

I agree with your point about transport. Make that cheaper and see the economy take off.

 Of course the strategy is not to do that but to keep it under par until a slight improvement in the last two years of the government just to reinforce the idea that the party is indispensable for the future.

[Hope]

I agree with your point about transport. Make that cheaper and see the economy take off.

 Of course the strategy is not to do that but to keep it under par until a slight improvement in the last two years of the government just to reinforce the idea that the party is indispensable for the future.

Unfortunately, Vlad, with devolution the central UK Goverment doesn't have quite that level of control.  It will be interesting to see how the public will regard how well the devolved governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh, especially, have dealt with those aspects of policy that they are responsible for when elections for these two bodies take place next year.

[Jack Knave]

I agree with your point about transport. Make that cheaper and see the economy take off.

 Of course the strategy is not to do that but to keep it under par until a slight improvement in the last two years of the government just to reinforce the idea that the party is indispensable for the future.

Unfortunately, Vlad, with devolution the central UK Goverment doesn't have quite that level of control.  It will be interesting to see how the public will regard how well the devolved governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh, especially, have dealt with those aspects of policy that they are responsible for when elections for these two bodies take place next year.

But if they suck up to the banks and BoE they will do it for them. The only way Labour came to power was by getting into bed with the bankers and their cronies.

[jeremyp]

But if they suck up to the banks and BoE they will do it for them. The only way Labour came to power was by getting into bed with the bankers and their cronies.

How did that work?  Do bankers' votes outnumber those of the rest of us?

[Hope]

I agree with your point about transport. Make that cheaper and see the economy take off.

 Of course the strategy is not to do that but to keep it under par until a slight improvement in the last two years of the government just to reinforce the idea that the party is indispensable for the future.

Unfortunately, Vlad, with devolution the central UK Goverment doesn't have quite that level of control.  It will be interesting to see how the public will regard how well the devolved governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh, especially, have dealt with those aspects of policy that they are responsible for when elections for these two bodies take place next year.

But if they suck up to the banks and BoE they will do it for them. The only way Labour came to power was by getting into bed with the bankers and their cronies.

??  Vlad, how do you get from 'deep-sea diving' to 'women wearing kinky boots'?

[Jack Knave]

But if they suck up to the banks and BoE they will do it for them. The only way Labour came to power was by getting into bed with the bankers and their cronies.

How did that work?  Do bankers' votes outnumber those of the rest of us?

Money talks and money is power!!!

[Jack Knave]

I agree with your point about transport. Make that cheaper and see the economy take off.

 Of course the strategy is not to do that but to keep it under par until a slight improvement in the last two years of the government just to reinforce the idea that the party is indispensable for the future.

Unfortunately, Vlad, with devolution the central UK Goverment doesn't have quite that level of control.  It will be interesting to see how the public will regard how well the devolved governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh, especially, have dealt with those aspects of policy that they are responsible for when elections for these two bodies take place next year.

But if they suck up to the banks and BoE they will do it for them. The only way Labour came to power was by getting into bed with the bankers and their cronies.

??  Vlad, how do you get from 'deep-sea diving' to 'women wearing kinky boots'?

Hope, it's Jack here, what ever you're taking ease up you're seeing things!!! 

[L.A.]

The state is not good a running businesses, even when they had a monopoly most nationalised industries managed to make a loss. If Corbyn was ever in a position to implement his lunatic scheme it would bankrupt the country. Fortunately, most people realise this so he is unlikely to ever be in a position to command anything other than a Left-wing fringe group (though this could well be the Labour party)

[L.A.]

Thank goodness - an actual socialist seems set to be at the helm of the Labour party again.

Yes, the Labour Party has lost its way for a while.

The reason that Labour 'lost it's way' was because it finally realised that a Left Wing government was never going to be elected in this country.

I find it unbelievable that so many Labour supporters seem to have forgotten that today.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Lapsed,

A question for you, or any poster, are the people of Scotland so different from the people of England?

Gonnagle.

[Outrider]

The state is not good a running businesses, even when they had a monopoly most nationalised industries managed to make a loss. If Corbyn was ever in a position to implement his lunatic scheme it would bankrupt the country. Fortunately, most people realise this so he is unlikely to ever be in a position to command anything other than a Left-wing fringe group (though this could well be the Labour party)

It's time we realised that the state isn't in the business of running a business. Each element does not have to break even, it should provide for the people.

Those industries where genuine competition isn't possible should be nationalised. Currently that means the railways - which are not in competition, they're in multiple parallel monopolies - the telecommunications industry (the nations internet and phone infrastructure are still a monopoly) and water (again, parallel monopolies).

The gas industry needs renationalising, but electricity perhaps not: the current situation where the distribution network is nationalised but the generation is open to competition works reasonably well, the issue that needs addressing is the preposterous 5-year blocks that permits are issued in precludes long-term investment which favours the existing dirty technologies.

Overall we need to keep spending under control, but that requires a populace that gives up on the 'low tax, small government' model that only serves those who aren't worried about taxation in the first place.

If I could convince Mrs O. that snow wasn't that bad I'd be emigrating to Scandinavia pretty much as soon as I could.

O.

[L.A.]

I think the last Labour government that could be described as truly 'Left Wing' was elected in 1945 - but things have changed a bit since then.

Blair became unpopular because of the war - and the circumstances surrounding it. Ed Miliband was unpopular because he was perceived as being utterly useless and in the pocket of the unions - a gift to the right-wing press - his brother would have stood a good chance of leading a centre-left government.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think the last Labour government that could be described as truly 'Left Wing' was elected in 1945 - but things have changed a bit since then.

Blair became unpopular because of the war - and the circumstances surrounding it. Ed Miliband was unpopular because he was perceived as being utterly useless and in the pocket of the unions - a gift to the right-wing press - his brother would have stood a good chance of leading a centre-left government.

I'm sorry but for the right wing press it's a right wing conservative government or nothing.
The press were properly schmoozed by Blair but will not make that mistake again.

They are the in house magazine for elite global capital.

[Nearly Sane]

Dear Lapsed,

A question for you, or any poster, are the people of Scotland so different from the people of England?

Gonnagle.

No, nor do I think they are that different from the people of Norway or France