Possibly but how do we know what the price would now be given the required investment over the years if the utilities hadn't been privatised ?
Hard one to call really.
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Baroness Thatcher - Dead / RIP
- Thread starter Wozza
- Start date
Possibly but how do we know what the price would now be given the required investment over the years if the utilities hadn't been privatised ?
Hard one to call really.
KZNSeagull
Well-known member
No-one can answer that. But price controls were in place to avoid the privatised companies hiking the prices up. These were scrapped in 2002. But competition meant that consumers could swap suppliers and get the best rate around - no-one was moaning about that. Rather like the other thread on here about BT.
When you go out for a meal ( and I know you like doing that) the chef will be aiming for 85% GP
In 20 years of producing GPs for chefs ranging from the boozer down the road to Marco Pierre White, I have never seen any chef hit anywhere near 85%.
70% is an impressive return, the majority hit just above 60%.
BadFish
Huge Member
- Oct 19, 2003
- 17,207
True enough, Although we do know that profits would have been that high and that when they were privatised we were promised a more competitive rate due to competition. If companies are making that much profit surely it must be suspect that the competition is as strong as it should be.
BadFish
Huge Member
- Oct 19, 2003
- 17,207
Trouble is you have a choice of either large corporations or governments running utilities, neither of which i trust to do the right thing by the consumer. We have a few community utility companies that help to keep prices low. Is there such a thing in the UK?
And what about when they operate a virtual cartel and keep all the prices more or less the same?
And yet supermarkets will make more than that out of most people every month. When you go out for a meal ( and I know you like doing that
Are you seriously comparing a public utility and necessity with a restaurant?
Well he compared getting your bins collected with shopping in Tesco. Badly.
KZNSeagull
Well-known member
Then you reintroduce the price controls that were scrapped in 2002, that were there to protect the consumer.
However, wasn't it "to comply with EU rules" that the trains were sold off? Also, the sell-offs of strategic utilities came with the "golden share" whereby control remained within our borders. Who was it who scrapped that? One G. Brown.
Norman Potting
Well-known member
I think the EU "rules" said nothing about selling the railways off, the "rules" required that the cost of the infrastructure on which said trains run needed to be identified separately. That could have been done quite easily without privatising the railway.
Robert Adley, Conservative MP for Christchurch and unashamed railway enthusiast described the method used to privatise the railways as "a Poll Tax on wheels" (he also described Mrs T as the "Finchley Fishwife"). Sadly he died before he could use his position as Chair of the Commons Select Committee on Transport to influence things. I believe he favoured a return to the pre nationalisation "Big Four" companies, each responsible for trains and infrastructure.
...And with regard to the current utilities set up I suggest that this is the best way to describe them Urban Dictionary: confusopoly. I have long ago given up trying to work out who exactly is cheapest.
Baron Pepperpot
Active member
I daresay these lot photographed this week celebrating Thatchers death, will probably be out again for the funeral. Spot the ones that were of an age to remember/born when Thatcher was in power.
Really undecided about this. Didn't like her. But this all does seem in poor taste. Having said that, she is perceived to have caused misery for millions. At a time when so many are saying how wonderful she was, it's important that both sets of voices are heard.
Can you remember how 'efficient' the old gas board was and how long it used to take to get a phone sorted out,for instance.
Public services were often shite and wasteful.
Blimey,we have enough trouble with an inefficient public sector in this country at the moment.Heaven help us if the state still tried to run all the bits that were privatised!
Yes, i agree. I just can not understand how you would have to about 39 years old now to have even seen the last year of Thatchers reign, even then you would have only just left school. To be affected by the policies that some hate, you would have to be about 47 years old. If it was the older generation and those affected, then i could understand, but most pictured are barely out of their teens.
I do not agree with a state paid funeral, but to perhaps have to witness unrest on the day of Thatchers funeral, from some people born in the early 90's seems wrong.
Hmm. I'm not sure. It's OK, and indeed very important, that young people should be involved in acts of remembrance concerning the world wars, the holocaust, Hiroshima, etc. even though they were not there. So I'm not convinced they shouldn't be involved in this (though I wouldn't compare Thatcher's doings with those events). Its all just a question of the manner in which it is done, and being fallible humans, some people will just get it wrong.
RowleyBirkinQ.C(deceased)
New member
I'll not state my stance on this, but here's another viewpoint on maggies passing. What are your views on this "campaign"
I do not agree with 10m being spent on a state funeral. I also do not agree with Billions being given in Foreign Aid, especially when the Indian Prime Minister stated that his country did not want the 620m that we keep shelling out.
So we could cut back all round and help fund the cause in the photo.
