4 charts that show how George Osborne wants to sell more public assets in 12 months than Britain has in last 20 years

[blacksunday]

4 charts that show how George Osborne wants to sell more public assets in 12 months than Britain has in last 20 years

As the Government sets about implementing a programme of sell offs, new research shows George Osborne will raise more cash from the sale of public assets this year than from the last two decades of privatisations combined.

Tory plans to pass publicly owned services into the hands of private companies are likely to generate around £31.8 billion for the Chancellor in 2015/16 with parts of RBS, Royal Mail and Lloyds up for grabs.

Mr Osborne began his programme of sell-offs this week when he authorised the disposal of £2.1 billion of shares in RBS, representing a £1 billion loss to the taxpayer, seven years after the bank was rescued by a £45 billion Government bailout.

Shares in RBS are trading 33 per cent lower than when the Labour government initially purchased them. If the Government sells all it’s holding at this price it will end up losing around £15bn of public funds.

Back in 2013, Under the Coalition, 70 per cent of the public stake in Royal Mail was sold, and last month Mr Cameron announced half of the remaining shares had left public hands.

If Osborne's proposals are seen through, it will be the largest amount of money raised through the disposal of public assets in any 12-month period in modern history.

This year's proposed sell-off total, currently £31.8 billion, is roughly just one fifth of the total amount raised by all privatisations from 1979 to 2014, a period of 35 years.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-great-british-sell-off-osborne-will-sell-more-public-assets-in-the-next-12-months-than-in-the-last-20-years-combined-10440918.html

[RedDaisyRed]

Wonderful news. The state does nothing well and the private sector does. This is a great way to preserve the welfare state and help the poor. He has our full support.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

Utter tosh RedDaisy.

[caroldecker]

Yes - but apart from the Royal Mail, the banks were rescued during the crash and the government's ownership was accidental. All parties are currently agreed that they should be sold back to the private sector.
Bollocks non-story really.

[Isitmebut]

The problems of nationalised industries like the Royal Mail , especially when government fudge liabilities and don't want to stump up the tax payers money for modernizations or anything else.

"Peter Mandelson abandons plan for part-privatisation of Royal Mail"
• Business secretary blames poor market conditions
• Trouble looms over £10bn pension deficit
www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jul/01/royal-mail-mandelson-part-privatisation?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

“As part of the deal, the government had been planning to take on the £10bn pension fund deficit, as well as to change regulation.”

“But now Mandelson has put himself on a collision course with Royal Mail, its pension trustees and unions by refusing to bail out the postal company's estimated pension deficit.”

"“The trustees are expected to revise their estimate of the shortfall from the current figure of £3.3bn to at least £10bn in the next few weeks. This would require Royal Mail to more than double its annual payments to plug the deficit, which would bankrupt the company.”

So what with their pensions protected by a Conservative Chancellor, nice pressies of free Royal Mail shares as a send off, the postal workers were then at the mercy of the capitalist private sector.

“Royal Mail staff accept 'ground-breaking' pay deal”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26069867

“Postal workers have voted overwhelmingly to accept what their trade union called "a ground-breaking" pay deal.”

“Previously the Communication Workers Union (CWU) had been threatening industrial action.”

“The deal covers pensions and job security over the longer term, the kind of agreement more common in Germany.”

“On pay, the workers will get a 9% above-inflation increase, phased across the next three years.”

“The agreement will also bring an end to the union's threat of industrial action over Royal Mail privatisation last year.”

Now all they need to do, is match German productivity levels.

[Isitmebut]

In 2005, Labour/Blair said that "nuclear power is back on the agenda with a vengeance" as closures were decreasing our nuclear energy capacity.

It takes around 10-years to build a nuclear reactor, yet we were being told by Ofgem in their first annual Electricity Capability Assessment in 2012, that by 2015/6 our spare capacity in a severe winter would be pants.

How can this be?

Well in a bit of numb-nut strategic thinking, the UK Labour government decided that the French State (via its wholly owned EDF) would be in charge of our nuclear power needs, and in 2006 we SOLD our only nuclear building expertise, a company called Westinghouse, to Toshiba of Japan for £3.1 billion.
news.sky.com/story/405200/bnfl-sells-westinghouse-to-toshiba

The moral of this story is one of £££quality over £££quantity;

It is one thing privatising a Post Office who's trade unions will always want to get around some 'kin table UNTIL they get exactly what they want, to selling off a UK strategic asset with the expertise to build something we urgently needed shed loads of - and just announced a push to build - choosing instead to give the mandate/trust to the French government.

[Isitmebut]

And with RBS, it was like the UK government buying a Rolls Royce and turning it into an top end Ford, as I've explained below, neither good for 'growth' or 'income' stock market investors who know our 'in' price - so how can the RBS price have ever rallied too far above £5 when every investor and mother, knows 78% of the whole companies stock will be dumped on the market when the UK government was IN profit. Duh.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2441457-George-Osborne-sells-2-1bn-of-RBS-shares-at-a-loss?pg=2