How did they get away with privatising public services?

[Newname85]

Whoever thought it was a good idea to privatise rail services, airports etc - how exactly did they get away with it?

How did anyone believe that adding profits on the top will somehow result in better service/ ROI?

I returned yesterday from a short trip to visit family. At the airport, you are asked to throw water away for security check. But, you are forced to buy it at £3.50 for a small bottle. How is this fair?
Restaurants serve ridiculously expensive food, but no obligation to serve water. wtf ??

The other day, I saw an advertisement from SouthEastern. Why exactly do they need to advertise!??? SE trains are the only option I have !!

Now NHS? Before we know, we’ll be forced to buy water at hospitals at £3.50 a bottle. (You can’t bring your own water as it’s infection risk)

It was Thatcher’s dream. Private good public bad. It’s the mantra of the Tory party 🤷‍♀️

The idea was that the private sector would invest in the relevant infrastructure (as a quid pro quo for subsequent profits) so that the taxpayer wouldn't have to. Except they didn't legislate to require them to do so, hence the shitshow that is the water companies.

What the never factored in was greed and lack of accountability - with both factors the fat cats saw public services as a licence to print money.

And energy companies

Have a read or what has happened to the probation service if you really want a depressing morning.

See also: right to buy. This is why a fortune in housing benefit is going to line the pockets of private landlords and many renters can't afford to save for a house deposit; and have little security of tenancy.

Thatcher has a lot to answer for.

The press talked a lot about incompetent and lazy public servants and everyone swallowed it hook line and sinker

Now the same services are run by people who are accountable to shareholders rather than the government

There are water refill stations at every airport. All you need is an empty bottle. If you don't like water fountains, you have an option of buying overpriced water.

The public sector can be inefficient - no doubt. However, in my experience you only really get the proper "private sector efficiency" when something is run totally and solely to maximise profit, eg on high margin, high cost, premium services, which is never going be a cost effective way to deliver health care, utilities & transport to 70m people.

The idea was that the private sector would invest in the relevant infrastructure (as a quid pro quo for subsequent profits) so that the taxpayer wouldn't have to. Except they didn't legislate to require them to do so, hence the shitshow that is the water companies.

This. Instead the private sector realised they could buy cash cows at a discount and strip out as much value as possible, knowinh the government would have no choice but to step back in & rescue (eg see operator of last resort trains!) when it all fell apart.

There was far less demand for social housing in past times, partly because the population was smaller, partly because there were fewer single person and single parent households. However, Scotland and Wales withdrew the Right to Buy some time ago, surely it’s time England followed their example.

The water example wouldn't necessarily be different in an alt public sector timeline. There's more free water fountains/bottle filling places than ever before and the getting rid of bottles comes from terrorism threat unrelated to private /public sector.

I do think some things would be better off nationalised, but the 70s was no dream, a lot of things were pretty fucked so it looked like a solution to sell them and have that temporary high. Politicians don't tend to deal in long term consequences when it won't affect their reelection chances.

Yep and it rid the government of the responsibility of providing and maintaining said services !!!

During the 1970s it was realised that so much of infrastructure needed rebuilding and improving, partly this was because we were still paying off loans from WW2. We had little money to invest without putting up taxes enormously. So it seemed like a good idea to let private money into the Railways and Utilities. The Shareholder democracy of the 1980 did last and we are better for it, IMO The railways did improve. We have been secure on energy since.
Unfortunately the management of these were the weak link and full potential never achieved. (Like Brexit)
For the record I thought Right to Buy the stupidest idea ever and not allowing Local Authorities to build houses with the proceeds the second silliest idea.

Yes! This.

Also the length of time you had to have resided in the property has changed. Now you can apply after THREE years. I can't remember what the criteria was when it was first introduced but the somehow the figure of twenty years keeps popping into my head

People wanted lower taxes.

I'm 62 and the state of the country and the world is the worst in my lifetime. I lived through the 3 day weeks and power cuts of the 70s, the high times of the 89s, the repossessions on the 90s etc. but in those days we all had something that we don't have now. Hope.
I feel that there's no hope for a better future. It depresses me so much. I have to avoid the news and politics now as my mental health can't cope with it. Awful.

As someone who can remember them in public ownership, at the time, they were deemed to be so inefficient and expensive that any change would have been seen as an improvement.

A certain section of society wanted lower taxes - and the same people were also the demographic able to buy shares in utility companies, the railways, Royal Mail etc. so they had the double incentive of being able to earn dividends from the vital services that were previously "owned" by everyone.

The Conservative mantra is that the Free Market will provide the best services - a mantra that time after time has been shown to be completely false because the Free Market is only interested in profit maximisation, not in providing better services, and if something isn't profitable, it doesn't happen. Couple this with regulators such as Ofwat that are stuffed with industry insiders, but which have little or no consumer representation, and a combination of weak regulators overseeing badly-drafted regulations and the private companies have a license to print money - in the safe knowledge that once they have milked the service for every penny and loaded it with huge levels of debt, the government (i.e. you, the taxpayer) will be forced to pick up the tab.

I could understand railway privatisation if it truly allowed the passenger to have choice to encourage competition. So if I need a train I can take the 7:14 from company x or wait for the 7:20 from company z which has nicer seats, forcing company x to provide better seating etc etc. But it doesn't work like that. Company x has the franchise repeatedly given to them no matter how bad the service, how much it rips off the passenger etc.

If anyone remembered our shocking public services in the 60s and 70s you would have been desperate for someone else to invest! The selling of shares meant investment. Most services improved and modernised. There are obviously issues that have arisen due to lack of control of ownership and subsequent investment vs profits. However the government could not afford to invest either! When did anyone last look at government borrowing? It’s sky high. We transferred public sector savings into benefits and the NHS.

Refarding airports, just go without water for a couple of hours! It’s not obligatory to buy water. Your travel costs include buying what you need. Or take an empty flask and find a drinking water tap. Thank God they are not run by the state.

@TizerorFizz "We transferred public sector savings into benefits and the NHS."

Not really - the public sector savings were used to keep taxes low, which only benefits those paying high levels of tax.

Governments, particularly Conservative governments, also committed the cardinal error of selling off the public services (which they had to effectively steal from the taxpayer in the first place) to people who would turn out to be asset strippers and spivs.

Imagine someone offering to buy your house from you for cash for less than the current value, but you still get to live there. Think of all the holidays you could have, and the improvements and conservatory etc. that they'll also pay for. What could go wrong? Firstly, the company can now charge you whatever they want in rent if you want to continue to live in the house, and attempt to charge you for any repairs. Secondly, they can decide to stop fixing the roof, stop replacing the broken gutters and windows and generally delay any vital maintenance - all the time while pocketing your rent. Thirdly they can take out a loan for the value of the house, and once they've moved the cash offshore they can neglect the house until it is on the point of falling down and then just walk away, leaving the people in the house and the lenders to sort out the mess. Nobody in their right mind would agree to such a deal - but it is essentially what some of the utility companies and transport companies have done with the assets that were gifted to them by the government.

Security checks in airports and the liquid ban would be there if they were state owned or privatised. Actually state run services tend to be more expensive and inefficient - hence privatisation