I worked for the CEGB pre nationalisation and later for British Gas soon after they had to divest Transco. Despite the hassle of finding the best energy deal in today's market we still have things very much better than they were back then.
The CEGB was well run compared to many nationalised industries, but the waste and management stupidity were epic.
I wrote a list, but it looked so negative it's now deleted.

OK just one - My workplace had four 120MW reheat units. There were some considerable design faults but they worked well enough until they started to be used during daytime only. They could not go a week without one of the four units popping a boiler tube which meant shut down for 3 days for repairs. My boss said it has to be a steam flow issue that only happens at low loads like daily startups. We fitted a much bigger steam blown down valve and the tube leaks cleared up. Senior management had put up with it for at least 10 years and done nothing.

There were many more major and less major problems either aggravated by management inaction or caused by managerial actions that had been given no thought.

StevenRB45 said:

All sorted now and back into the car..I could not cope with a none isofix seat...the second guessing of have I routed this belt correctly e.t.c.

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Thought my children had all finished producing offspring but my youngest boy and wife have very recently presented us with a lovely little grandson. This meant the baby seat had to be dug out of the loft and installed into the car - it's not an isofix! After two abortive attempts at routing the belt I decided to take the seat right out, have a good look at all the loops etc and start again. As I removed it from the car I had to rotate and tip it to clear the seat/door frame and ---- the instruction manual fell out from under the padding! I must have put it there when I stored it in the loft.

It was a piece of cake from then on and gave me the confidence of knowing it was installed as recommended.

I thought all was well until my Mrs Jock reminded me that her sister, a lady of substantial proportions, would need to be collected from Waverley station when she came up for Christmas. She can not easily get into the back seats, even though our car has 4 doors, so has to sit in the front seat with it as far back as it can go. Yes, you guessed it, I'd installed the baby seat on the passenger side! As it's - the baby seat - in it's rearward facing configuration the front seat wouldn't go anything like fully back, so I had to strip it out again! It won't be going back in until after I've shoveled her back on the train south at midday on Saturday. At least I've got the installation instructions now so it shouldn't take too long this time.

Nationalised industry doesn't have to be like that - most of the rest of Europe manage to run nationalised utilities and have enough cash generated by them to buy our utilities, too!

We need to move on from 'nationalisation = bad management', well managed nationalised utilities and transport could be cheap and efficient.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Thought my children had all finished producing offspring but my youngest boy and wife have very recently presented us with a lovely little grandson. This meant the baby seat had to be dug out of the loft and installed into the car - it's not an isofix! After two abortive attempts at routing the belt I decided to take the seat right out, have a good look at all the loops etc and start again. As I removed it from the car I had to rotate and tip it to clear the seat/door frame and ---- the instruction manual fell out from under the padding! I must have put it there when I stored it in the loft.

It was a piece of cake from then on and gave me the confidence of knowing it was installed as recommended.

I thought all was well until my Mrs Jock reminded me that her sister, a lady of substantial proportions, would need to be collected from Waverley station when she came up for Christmas. She can not easily get into the back seats, even though our car has 4 doors, so has to sit in the front seat with it as far back as it can go. Yes, you guessed it, I'd installed the baby seat on the passenger side! As it's - the baby seat - in it's rearward facing configuration the front seat wouldn't go anything like fully back, so I had to strip it out again! It won't be going back in until after I've shoveled her back on the train south at midday on Saturday. At least I've got the installation instructions now so it shouldn't take too long this time.

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Ah yes...this crack.

Even in a "Small Family car" fitting the rear facing seat required the passenger seat pushing forward to the point any passengers must be less than about 5'10 unless they do not value their kneecaps or have to sit upright with the seat on it's lowest setting.

He's forward facing now thankfully, the isofix just comes in handy for bombing the seat in and out which it did over Christmas as I've had 4 adults on board a few times and can just sling the seat in the boot. That and you can fit it in the dark as it's literally impossible to get wrong.

Schumi2001 said:

Nationalised industry doesn't have to be like that - most of the rest of Europe manage to run nationalised utilities and have enough cash generated by them to buy our utilities, too!

We need to move on from 'nationalisation = bad management', well managed nationalised utilities and transport could be cheap and efficient.

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There is a big difference between nationally owned and nationalised.

In Europe the government owns the railways (or whatever) but does not operate it like an arm of the civil service. In UK it was just another government department run by the same Humphreys that see it as another personal empire to build. The problems were so deeply ingrained there was no option but to privatise. It's said that government could buy back the shares. But even if they could afford the cost, they would never resist interfering and we would soon be back to the old pre-Thatcher ways.

By the way British Railways never were privatised. Its' a nationalised network with train operators allowed to buy track time as long as they agree to follow the same rules as the old British Rail. No surprises the costs are silly and the performance is lack-lustre. The old Midland, LNER, Great Western, etc ran just fine before WW2 and would have been fine after WW2 (with some help to restore the damage) but political dogma said otherwise leading directly to the Beeching debacle.

[ame]https://youtu.be/XeBHDSsogf8[/ame]

Had her political career saved by the Falklands conflict, sold the family silver and eventually ended out in her arse with quite possibly the most unpopular political decision in British history. We are still living with the utter devastation of her legacy today. She is not to be celebrated.

(And oh, the irony, that the economic successes outside of selling everything we owned to her friends, was underpinned by the EU you so despise!)

lets be honest here, if the water, gas, electric, royal mail, british rail (the list is endless) had not been privatised, then they would not all be now owned in full or in part by a multitude of european companies, for example my local rail operator abellio is owned by the dutch equivalent of british rail, a state owned dutch company.
Eurostar is 55% owned by the French government owned national rail company SNCF

EDF (the company building our newest nuclear power station) is owned by the french version of the electric board

Privatisation literally sold off all our government organisations to other government organisations.

The best analogy is selling off a golden goose because it required feeding.

Good old Maggie sold everything off to europe, still makes me laugh that those who praise maggie hate europe, when she was their best friend, and edward heath who took us into europe in 1973 was a Conservative.

Take history back 40 years before Thatcher's privatiseations and we find a Labour government falling over itself to put everything they could under state control. The railways were doing fine before the war as was the car industry etc etc. All would have done ok afterwards if left to bet on with the task.

Rail was an exception because the war had run the network to death so government money was needed to repair the damage. That was the excuse for nationalising the whole lot. It got the job done (ignore Beeching less than 2 years later) but was the most costly way to achieve it.

DaveMcT said:

Take history back 40 years before Thatcher's privatiseations and we find a Labour government falling over itself to put everything they could under state control. The railways were doing fine before the war as was the car industry etc etc. All would have done ok afterwards if left to bet on with the task.

Rail was an exception because the war had run the network to death so government money was needed to repair the damage. That was the excuse for nationalising the whole lot. It got the job done (ignore Beeching less than 2 years later) but was the most costly way to achieve it.

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I think things like the Post Office and BT when they were owned by the goverrnment / if we imagine they still were now is a mad theory. How can they compete with private companies like Sky / Virgin / UPS / DHL etc (their competitors on the open market) when the government itself has a vested interest in them and funds them.


It seems unfair all around: Those companies get special funding from the government and 'mustn't fail' on one hand, and 'can't fail' in some ways, as the government could always up it's investment in them to some extent. The private companies whilst not treated to the same government money, in a successful situation may be making a tonne more money on the private open market and as such have way more money of their own to invest in R&D etc and improving its services / products to the public.


I feel like it's a hard one to balance and I think it was only right the government sold them off. I can understand a long time ago where perhaps nobody else but the government was fit to make huge investments in say the telephone infrastructure, railways and such... and it was definitely probably the only way we could have established all of that and benefitted from it all how we did as a country, but today the world is just so so different than even 50 years ago in more ways than we can sum-up.


I also love the NHS and benefit from it hugely, but at the same time if it can't sort itself out (I know government funding can be improved, though I reckon just as much of its problems are poor management and structure up and down it) I fear the argument will soon be made that it must too stand on its own feet... I DO NOT support or want that to happen at any cost, but as far as I can see we do have the best system in the world from a users point of view, but I think the difficulty in funding and managing it 'successfully' in a way that we're happy with is probably why the rest of the world doesn't have an NHS. And I hope nobody 'shoots me down' for bringing it up, because as I said, I DO NOT want that to happen, but it's a real concern and could possibly be the case if no solution is ever found or agreed upon.


I think we all love the idea, but when it comes to paying peoples wages and making it work we're all lost for words. I hope we figure it out.


Regarding Labours plans, as nice and idealistic as they sound (the whole, making everything free carry on), I would love to hear the nitty-gritty technical stuff on how they could realsitically do anything that'll work any better. I think the Conservatives right now, living up to the word 'conserving' are being careful with money and balancing it out between a lot of things. I think Labour underestimates how good for everybody investing in business can be because it ultimately leads to more tax and more money in the pot for things like the NHS and government, more money to pay the staff who desparately deserve and need it.


In short: What's their plan to support all the things they want to re-nationalise and pay for? They were clear about all the benefits, but I can promise them... being able to live up to it is another story..


PS: Please if we're going to discuss this some calm, level-headed discussion with no finger pointing or insulting.. Genuine thought from someone who is not an expert. Genuine questions over these things. If you want to educate me please do but if we can just keep it reasonable it's 100x more likely I'll be able to see your point and at least agree to disagree, or maybe agree.. who knows!

SB1500

There is far more to running public services than how much people get paid or how much money an organisation makes.

I will give you an example which is the current hinkley point nuclear power station project.

Nuclear power is a huge national strategic resource, not only from an electricity point of view but also research and development and defence in making materials for weapons. In the past the government build dozens of plants all over the country to put us in a position of power, sitting at the table of the richest and most powerful countries in the world.

The current Hinckley point project is part funded by the Chinese, who are theoretically a potential threat to our national security, and EDF the nationalised French electricity company, so the French and the Chinese are running our nuclear power, profits from this go abroad, so that’s not money in our collective pocket. The security of our power stations software could be fiddled with by a man at a computer in Beijing and the data from electricity use is shared with a potentially hostile nation.

Another source of concern is the huge amount of gas we buy from Russia, who in the past have cut off gas pipe lines to countries to force a political point or exert their authority. Can you imagine what would happen if there was suddenly no gas, especially this time of year?

In the event of any sort of war or attack, phone networks, gas, electricity water and other essential service's like roads and rail could be vulnerable to attack if owned by foreign companies and powers.

Obviously there are arguments for the other side of this but these are the sorts of concerns that get raised when you talk about ownership of essential services.

The problem with most privatisations is that they're operating in a monopoly - either because it's impossible to introduce a level of competition within the sector, or because it's an area in which a truly independent operator cannot compete.

Railways are now a series of privately owned (but still government funded!) monopolies - there is no competition on almost all routes. So a shoddy, subsidised service is delivered whilst an EU government is taking most of the profit out for themselves.

I can't say utilities have benefitted anyone in privatisation - yes, there has been a driving down of prices - but at the expense of many companies going bankrupt and dragging the market to the bottom and we now have a situation where we need massive investment in the infrastructure but our government is no longer in control.

Then you have the postal service - the 'last mile' just isn't a marketplace anyone wants to be in.

I note I'm being censored again for my posts.

Bloody ridiculous.

Schumi2001 said:

I note I'm being censored again for my posts.



Bloody ridiculous.



An alt-right agitator can post what they like, but you get censored for calling them out on it.

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Stick to whatever your points are and less finger pointing and name calling - pro tip.

“Alt-right”, google that and consider editing your posts...

Going to report me to teacher again?

Typical of the 'emboldened right' - happy in their own little echo chamber, but get offended when challenged.

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SB1500 said:

https://youtu.be/XeBHDSsogf8

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dont forget why we had to have strikes, to stop people being forced to work in like this

dave said:

dont forget why we had to have strikes, to stop people being forced to work in like this

View attachment 205601

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Must admit, I do enjoy the memes on both sides of the debate.

Saw a good one last month, it was a picture of Davvyd Thomas from Little Britain which said “When I have grandchildren and they ask me about the 2010s I’m telling them this was Boris Johnson” ? 10/10

dave said:

dont forget why we had to have strikes, to stop people being forced to work in like this
View attachment 205601

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Back then, low paid manual workers were little more than slaves. The unions served an important role against Lord-of-the-manor style company owners.

But they over-played their hand and the old mass employment industries have closed. We no longer have factories where children risk losing limbs while cleaning under working machinery. Which begs the question what do the mass unions actually offer today other than being fund raisers for leftist politics.

[ame]https://youtu.be/nUbwkyRs1v4[/ame]

Another good one..