I wonder how some feel about that now?
Failing water and sewerage systems
Failing railways
Failing health care
Failing social care
Failing energy policies
Failed postal service
And so on.
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You arenât trying hard enough. More deregulation!
All the natural end point of market forces. You canât argue that the market wasnât working. It did what it was supposed to do and found itâs most efficient equilibrium for the prevailing market forces. Communes fail because they think they can somehow operate without the framework of the market, Free marketeers fail because they assume that an unregulated market is always desirable.
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Sadly, the same thing was repeated worldwide with the same consequences.
Kind of an interesting comparison, and not one I had thought of previously. UK Cons would deserve it far more than the Mulroney PCs really did.
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Yeah thatâs a fair shout. Iâm not against privatisation provided it delivers the service itâs supposed to, and it provides value.
Currently we donât have that.
Itâs argued privatisation delivers value. Iâm not convinced. In my experience you end up with the cost of the contract along with the cost of managing that contract. Throw profit on top and service ultimately suffers.
Well it depends what you are privatising. If it is a natural monopoly you will either end up with a license to print money for a few wealthy investors or fake competition which is just hopelessly inefficient.
There were things that were nationalised in the past to prevent them going bust and causing damage to the wider economy but that needs to be a case of allowing them space to transform. Some industries are of importance to national security because you want to ensure that you still have capacity to produce steel or build ships, but it shouldnât be used merely to prop up bad businesses.
I think the examples given above are a mixed bag. Water and sewage are natural monopolies but not every function within them is. Railways should be an integrated system. If itâs left to market forces you will end up with a few profitable routes between big cities and then nothing on all the minor branch lines that feed the bigger picture. Health care in the UK suffers badly from fake competition although the main problem is a lack of funding. Energy policy is mixed - distribution is a natural monopoly, generation isnât. And the postal service has obvious competition for the profitable bits but the universal service needs a backup.
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For the lolz ⌠
The SNPâs Pete Wishart says that his vote in 2003 against the war in Iraq was âone Iâm most proud ofâ.
He says todayâs vote on the partyâs proposal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza is of âsimilar significanceâ, and asks the prime minister if he believes MPs should look back on today âwith similar prideâ.
Sunak responds by saying that no one wants to see fighting go on âany longer than necessaryâ, adding that the government is doing âeverything we canâ to bring about a humanitarian pause in fighting which would allow hostages to be released, and humanitarian aid to be brought in.
So has Sunak cut all UK arms deals with Israel? or funding to the IDF?
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I am in the mood tonight⌠
I swear you couldnât make this up 
. The sorry state of politics in the UK. 
I am really disgusted with our two main parties in they way they behaved trying to undermine the SNP â immediate âceasefire motionâ parliament tonight for the sake of humanity.
Parliament is now a pantomime.
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Oh no it isnât âŚ
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I wonder if any of them know what comes after ⌠?
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What was the raucous about? I understand the Speaker did something that was not conventional.
No-one comes out of it with any credit. My motion. No, my motion. No, mine - when there is a cigarette paper between them.
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Liz Truss: ââŚand I would have got away with it if it wasnât for those pesky kids!â
Bureaucrats and lawyers do actually run the country but they take their policy and direction from their elected leaders like, for example, the actual fucking Prime Minister.
If they wonât do something then it is either because it is impossible or illegal.
Itâs a common feature amongst populist leaders worldwide that they are somehow thwarted in government because of shady elites pulling the strings when, in fact, it is a case of their fantasies hitting hard reality.
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I would not say there was a cigarette paper between them. Regardless of where you are on the issue, the SNP inclusion of âcollective punishmentâ in their motion is consequential, and to me seems quite cynical. The primary purpose of including it would seem to be target Labour. Labourâs call for an immediate ceasefire would put the UK in line with most of the rest of the West, which has been making escalating calls for exactly that - with the âimmediateâ putting the UK as on of the more aggressive calls.
By contrast, the SNP motion would make the UK even more irrelevant than Ireland. Ireland has no traction whatsoever with Israel, but at least has weight in the EU to push the EUâs collective position towards the more critical.
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I didnât pay any intention to the commotion from last nightâs parliamentary motion but I expect this was the key factor behind it. It often is with parliamentary motions - and over the last few months the SNP have clearly been targeting Labour with many of its attacks.
Who wants âtractionâ with those fascist fucks?