Our Water Companies SOLD to Foreign Investors
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2024
- In 1989 water supply and #sewagetreatment in England and Wales was transferred to ten private companies. The majority of these are now foreign owned. At privatisation they had no debt but since then have accrued debt of £16 billion. In the meantime they have paid out £72 billion in dividends to their shareholders. Sewage is now routinely dumped into rivers and the sea. During 2023 this happened for 3.6 million hours.
Thames Water which supplies 8 million Londoners and which has paid out £15 billion to its shareholders is now unable to carry out necessary upgrading and is expected to increase water bills by 40%.
In the meantime the government of #rishisunak continues to stagger on with daily crises. Sunak has spent more than £2 million on private flights in the past year, more than 28% of children are living in #poverty , a former Egyptian government minister who gave £5 million to the #tories has been knighted and the Tories attempted to trash London mayor #sadiqkhan by posting a video showing #london to be a crime ridden and dangerous city.
Thatcher flushed this country down the toilett for a quick buck.
Thatcher was a tyrannical right wing ideological goon, she did it without the Trump style lunacy which made her much more dangerous.
And she was a Tory, funny enough.
I live in New Zealand, we can't believe Brits voted for Brexit. It was just madness.
We must be the stupidest people on earth for not revolting years ago.
Should have done that in the century queen Jacob still seems to be living in.
That's what I was thinking!
But after a dip at one of your beaches, or a walk down one of your flooded streets, well, in a sense, you really are revolting.
I think of a Mel Brooks film History of the World during the French revolution.
"Sire, sire, the peasants are revolting"
"You said it, they stink"
Welcome to the Brexit
Voting s down to education .Not just from school education
The British public talk about Third World countries without realising we are fast becoming one ourselves.
All down to that wicked woman Margaret Thatcher .I disagreed with her back in 1979 and my contempt for her and her disastrous free market ideology at all costs .........has been unwavering ever since.
Unwavering and ever growing !
www.templar.co.uk/downloads/FCO+30+1048.pdf
Scotland needs independence in order to try and get out of this horrible Tory mess!
Jeez haven’t you learned the catastrophe caused by becoming smaller from brexit?
So does London and every other part of the UK that was not up for the Brexit stupidity.
Always a comedian.
@@user-lc1wk5dh5h That's the whole point. We didn't vote for "Brexit". Scots want to remain as part of Europe for all the right reasons.
The main objective of the private water companies isn't to provide the best service they can or to invest in maintaining and updating the old victorian infrastructures, but is to make huge payouts to its board members and investors instead. And, lo and behold, the Tories let them get away with it. Just one more reason we need a change of government.
I left the sinking ship to take French citizenship years ago (when it was still easy) I feel so sorry for those "trapped" in a tory nightmare.
Even when we stick a red or yellow ribbon on it it's still a Tory nightmare. Fun times.
I must have been first on the list when Luxembourg changed the law to allow dual nationality back in... the early 2010s? Lived here since 1973 of course, but I am still distraught at what is going on, despite having no ties whatsoever to the UK, other than basically having been born and spent the first 5 years of my life there.
@@maxinlux6570 I currently have a giant swollen lump in my face as a direct result of not being able to be seen by an NHS dentist 3 days ago before the lump blew up to catastrophic pain. I am registered with an NHS dentist, there was simply no capacity not even for an emergency, before the middle of next week and when I called around every other NHS dentist in Coventry no one would take me in before the end of April. The end result is what started as a minor infection of a scratched gum blew up into a hell of a painful problem.
Of course I could go private... but as my landlord takes 65% of my income I don't have the spare £300 to £500 required. Mercifully after waiting in agony in a waiting room for half a day I was able to be seen by a walk in centre nurse yesterday who put me on antibiotics as the dentists should have done 3 days prior before this got out of hand.
It's just a complete privatised capitalist f*** up from start to finish with the capitalist minority rinsing the nation dry and pumping it out to the Cayman islands starving what community publicly funded services are left of the funds they need to even maintain a basic level of competent joined up service. It drives me nuts as when I was a boy the economy was five times smaller than it is today yet there was a 24hour provision of emergency doctors and dentists on the NHS. All gone now despite this country being awash in bloody money it refuses to tax.
Now if you will excuse me, I am off to put a bag of Peas on my face in effort to ensure I can continue to see out of my left eye while taking enough codeine to down a Rhino. All the best.
Very sorry to read that and hope you get treated soon 😊
CONFISCATE all utilities and put them back in public ownership, then sue the shareholders for damages, THEN DESANCTIFY Thatcher. ❤🇨🇵🇪🇺
To keep the record straight, in Scotland, the water boards are still publicly owned and dumping sewage is strictly verboten, except in a dire emergency. Scottish water rates are lower than in England.
The Westminster government put pressure on the Scottish Government several years ago to privatise the water boards and were told in no uncertain terms to take a hike.
I feel sorry for our English cousins having to endure such utter incompetence.
Thank you Alan ✌
Public services should NEVER be in private hands. Their first purpose is to make a profit. Bad news always.
We are the most stupid people on Earth. We complain, suffer and despair...yet we do nothing.
Whinge
Yes we do - we continue to vote Tory/Labour and expect things to get better...
With most utilities privatised , lowest pensions in western world, all services such as Police, social services and NHS on the floor it seems strange no one is demonstrating about us paying virtually the highest taxes in the world for nothing in return.
We have a scam , we must stick to the scam , the scam is working 😢
Starmer: yes
Sunak: yes
lib dem leader no one has heard of... who cares.
Nationalise Utilities. Privatization has failed.
Yes and make the private greedy owners put things right before bailing them out..
@@martinburn it’s even worse when the greedy owners have been doing all of this with funds from pensions across the world. We get shafted from all directions
The majority of English people have only themselves to blame they all knew what the Tories were like yet they still voted for them and now you will have Labour which is turning out to be a Thatcher fan club
yup, they had 2 good chances for better, 70% of those over 65 decided they would prefere to let their kids and grandkids economically drown via Tories than ever vote for a left winger with a plan to invest in the nation and its people the likes of which had not been seen for 80 years. Which in turn gave sufficient time for the capitalist minority to re-establish its grip over Labour via starmer and reinforce the two party one system state while ensuring no real systemic beneficial economic change would be possible likely for the remainder of my lifetime.
If there is a Hell, may there be a special place for all those who voted for such suffering out of complete ignorance and gullibility. They have caused more damage to the prospects of the younger generations and this nation than typhoid and war ever managed.
Thank you Micheal, it's all very depressing, what the Tories have done to this Country is an absolute travesty. The Utilities, like the Railways and other Services belonged to us and the Tories sold them off for almost nothing to their Supporters. They need to be brought back under Public Ownership as soon as possible and then remain in Public Ownership.
Because an *entitled, detached and largely corrupt elite* _owns our politics._
The Tories are a disaster.
"This Septic Isle, Set in a Sea of Sewage"!
Little wee England sinking in sewage, how the mighty have fallen huh,,,
Yeah. 😐🤮
Turd island 3rd country 😂
Lowest wage growth since the Napoleonic wars
"Our incomes and wealth have gone through the bloody ceiling over the last 40 years and practically doubled over the last 5 years, whatever are you talking about?? it's boom times!"
- the top 0.5% -.-
@@Nine-Signs 🤣🤣🤣
@@Nine-Signs where do get that from
@@stop-the-greed Why I heard it on Bloomberg news! so it must surely be true for all! you would think so listening to some of our politicians...
@@Nine-Signs Make sure you count your marbles again as I am sure you have lost quite a few!
Looking across the Irish sea at the tragic mess that is now the UK and the shocking child poverty figures. With access to the EU now restricted post Brexit the question has to be asked is should Irish governments be making contingency plans for the possibility of mass migration from Britain to Ireland for people seeking a better life. This is something that would have been unthinkable a few year ago.
Loads o folk moving from down south to Scotland. Cant build enough houses for folk moving up here, causing shortages for locals
Very good point.
@@michaelbolger745 On the day after Brexit, my colleagues and I looked for job ops in Scotland. 2 actually left. My partner's mother being Irish, he immediately applied for a passport. We have both retired now and will probably emigrate.
Saw an advert on TV last night about helping to clean up the water cos it was full of excrement and chemicals it was for Africa but it could have quite easily been for England. Disgusting
We ARE the "stupidest people on earth". Come the revolution...on no, nobody has the guts to do that...Vive Le French!!
Say lavvie
It's been said before: This government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
And was Jerusalem builded here, in Englands green and pleasant land
Michael, Great video...but you CANT begin to Imagine the Utter FRUSTRATION and RAGE my family experienced in the 1980s, under Thatcher then 90's Tory continuation AS we watched the NATIONALISED Companies We ALL worked in (Dad after ww2 service went into Electricity generation, My Husband, the Gasboard, Me from NHS into Electricity board Showroom.....My Mum in A Local Authority run 'old People's home') ALL were well-run, well-financed AND PUBLICLY owned,..since the war....We watched them SYSTEMATICALLY Being ASSET-STRIPPED..and Utterly RUINED before Being Sold off for good....I.e Showrooms in Southern area sold to a private investor for £1 each!!! We were mostly Thrown out of our jobs ....BUT it was STATE-ORGANISED-THEFT of OUR Public Services! Nobody listened or cared at the time....Bought Thatchers line that it would "Bring in the Investment they ALL needed!" A TOTAL LIE Of course! Breaks MY heart to See our ONCE well-run and Admired Nation...Being ONCE again ROBBED by These UTTER VANDELS.....
Loved how James O'Brian phrased it: The UK loves it when the government ownes public services. Just not the UK government.
I'm so delighted that Ireland split from the UK a hundred years ago. Its not perfect.We're doing very well financially. But we do have a housing problem. Huge immigration we are struggling to deal with. But the UK is in a dire situation.
All public utilities should be renationalised WITHOUT compensation! The shareholders have had their slice in advance!
Confiscate them!
It is a pity that Tory voters don’t come onto your show, they hate to hear the truth.
unfortunately, for the British, their country has become privatised. Anything that’s not bolted down that potentially could be turned for a profit is being sold off to people that don’t give a toss about things like Service obligations, the environment, etc etc. All that they care about is making a buck
Privatisation of monopolies is daft Thatcherite Tory philosophy. Selling the assets to foreigners so they can make a nice little earner is insane!
I remember Edward Heath warning against selling the family silver. Starmer says it's too costly to re-nationalise.
I say it's too costly not to@@nickbarton3191
Thank you, Thatcher, and her rip us off friend's,,they sold us down the river 😢 😢😢
and that would be a polluted river
Michael telling it as it is. Tory voters take note!
Yes ! Vote out the Tories for 100 years !
thatchers ugly repulsive shadow still haunts Britain today. look no further than spent up Thames water.
Brilliant observation as always. Which leads me to ask how can 14 years of Tory rule have resulted in this?. but it’s not 14years of austerity was it? there was the 13 year inconvenience of less than red labour and their pseudo socialist policies. Then the big one, 18 years which included the sale of the Countries assets by virtue of Thatcherite policies. In the last 60yrs, The Tory’s have managed to shaft this Country and led those easily led to believe they’d be the beneficiaries of Tory kindness & goodwill. The Tory’s took us into Europe and the Tory’s who took us out whether Euro membership was a success or failure, hindsights a wonderful thing. We can judge how well we’ve done since leaving the EU by the water quality of this Country which has deteriorated to dangerous levels yet nothing is being done so the plans working is it Richi? It’s time for a change!
We hear the Thames is so full of E. coli that the winners of the boat race can’t take a plunge!
And all participants of the boat race have been advised to carefully cover up any small wounds or scratches to avoid them going septic.
This country is an absolute joke
No billy it's bloody sad what's going on and the perpetrators are allowed to run roughshod over the UK population, what the hell is wrong with us all.
It's the smell of public squalor and private afluence.
The plan is working. Everything you described was their plan all along.
In France our sewage treatments are still dealt by the public sector. The British example is a warning for the french authorities if they ever think to privatize our network. Thank you Mickael for this information.
So is Scotlands water owned by the people.why anyone in England thought they would get a better service from privitisation as the whole deal is money to the shareholders and bugger the people.
Very good but France ranks below the U.K. for water quality . The U.K. is at the top of the rankings but Michael Lambert has an agenda so doesn't tell the whole truth . My view is that a person who doesn't tell the whole is a liar .
@@johngaskell1467 So you say !
@@dennisfraser6896 Greed !!🤑
@@josselynemaire4745 Go on the world wide web ( a British thing ) and look up ' who has the best quality water in the world ' No need to take my word and stop wasting my time .
The Brexit believers who haven’t been on the continent for decades should go take a look at things in France, a day trip will do, the difference in quality of life and environment is marked.
In Germany water and sewerage is done by each municipality to stringent national purity rules, and you pay the local council what it actually cost! Cheaper than UK to boot Clean water, clean rivers, no ploppers in the sea either, heat created from solid waste fermentation recycled to warm local houses and industry, and remaining dried solid waste goes to furnaces to create heat for homes!
L'isle de merde - The isle of shite.
The Tories don't give a sh*t 🥀
They do, it's floating in our rivers and seas 💩💩💩💩💩
@@danielcraig4974 😁
They do.
They do it on *YOU*
@@danielcraig4974One of the first things they did was to pass legislation to allow the water companies to dump more sewage. Nice government eh? Really care about the people don't they? 🙄
The water companies should be nationalised!
I'm a keen angler. Last week I caught two trout and salmonella. The trout had dysentery too.😮
The only hope Michael is that the Netherlands, Ireland and France go ahead with law suits to force standards upon Britain.
At which point the various corporations can then take the UK to court at the bank of international settlements and force the UK government to hand over billions of pounds for the costs they incur as a result of "unfair trading practices" because the problem is capitalism and attempting to regulate it into being a bit nicer has always been a fools errand in the fullness of time.
Oh dear, at least Scotland and Wales have publicly owned water companies, but not Engerland oh no..
Thatcher privatised the utilities and decades later it's clear that it was a huge mistake. The Tories must pay for the damage they have done to this country.
You really believe they care?
Only trouble is we longer have a political party that wants to undo the damage.
No mistake. Investors in these and other formerly public utilities have been well rewarded by the bastard Tories. Labour is no better.
@@williamoram6969 They created legislation immediately after leaving the EU to allow water companies to dump more sewage into your rivers. No point blaming the pro EU Thatcher for that
I've heard people describe the UK as a Third World country, which I disagree with. However, there are certainly elements of it that could be. Potholed roads and sewage spillages being two examples. The majority of the people deserve better than this. Another wonderful video, Michael.
The Tories are doing their best to bring us third world levels of corruption and inequality.
They surely do.I have lived in Germany quite a few decades,have family in S,Devon and go back twice a year,every year.My father was an officer in R.N. my mother in the WRENS.They would be spinning in their graves if they weren´t scattered at sea.
Thanks Peter 😊
Thatcherism, short term gain, long term pain.
Hear hear. 👍🏼
These water companies have squandered billions of pounds, giving share holders and CEOs and directors massive bonuses and dividends.Now they want to put up our bills to pay for the renewal programme. I notice that the share holders don’t want to part with their cash. Lack of investment for many years, just looking after the share holders. The pipes need separating ie sewage and rain water. The whole of the country will need digging up to solve this issue instead of doing the work piecemeal as they should have done. The foreign investors are laughing at us. I went down the coast the other day and saw durex and tampons and shit in the water. Don’t eat any fish folks. If we are not careful we will become another Hatti, stinking and lawless.
Thank you Mr. Lambert. Xx
Thank you 😊
Special economic zones are terrifying . The get to avoid all employment laws and environment and health and safety laws
Capitalist sacrifice zones.
Could it be that the upper class in a class society doesn't give a shit as they know they can always afford to live in a clean place.
Never affects the upper class that's where we come in to clean up their shit and keep quiet 😂
Please don’t skip the Freeport /SEZs Michael, this is going to be a huge topic and the public interest is starting to escalate
Just wait to they start to selling off the roads. One easy step to becoming very wealth!! Buy a public utilitarian, at a rockbottom price and then loan its assets; preferably up the top of its highest chimney and then payout the loans, as dividens; to the stockholders. And then send the loan maintenance-bill, to the customers. And what can the customer do? precisely nothing because utilities, have very few competitors. Electricity generating stationed, Gas works, Water works and Sewerage/treatment pumping station, before; were all publicly owned.
I have one question re our utilities and services; what has happened to the regulators of all these services? Don’t we have the likes of Ofwat and Ofgem keeping an eye on what our utility companies are up to? Have they been infiltrated by government appointed staff to the extent they’re basically playing the same tune and working in the interests of the shareholders of these companies? I thought they guarded the public interest, something they’re clearly not doing at the minute. Anyway, another good summary Michael of the state we’re sadly in. Happy Easter.
OfCom "see no bias" in glaringly biased, minister-led GBNews misinformation. When OfCom finally have a charge-sheet of five offences they call all of them "first offence" and let their lying friends off.
Meanwhile OfWat see no pollution - because they shut down their sewage monitoring stations!
Wilful blindness underpinning the sickening corruption of Britain.
Thanks Andrew - I agree OFWAT have failed totally 😊
Seemingly toothless, spineless and ball-less.
Labour has already said it won't renationalisethe water companies. What's the point of them?
They aren't the tories. Literally EVERYTHING was better in 2010, regardless of nationalisation.
tory break regroup period
There is NOTHING to choose between the two major parties. Which is why people are defecting in large numbers to the likes of Reform UK, only to be fooled by the same tactics & lies as they were when voting TORY in 2010 & again in 2015 ! Joe PUBLIC is both vulnerable & gullible !
The problem Labour and other parties face, is that so many people will vote Tory as default so they have to tread carefully. In any case, if Labour propose to change anything the right wing press will scream abuse at them.
06:48 - We need to "confiscate" the whole thing - Water, Electricity, Trains, Gas, Everything that belongs to the public!
I'm a Brit retired and living in Cyprus and can tell you we've never had any problem with sewage as we see now in the UK .
Here in Cyprus the water company is separate and the sewage company is separate , I think this is the key as its too much to expect one company to do both .
The shareholders should have to pay the dividends back until the quality required is maintained
Or you just turn the damned thing over to the workers to run as a democratic enterprise where money is no longer shoved out of the door to people far away who did no work at all for it resulting in a massive increase in profits retained in the business and communities rather than being extracted via unearned income of dividends and rents and then sent to the bloody Cayman islands. How about that?
Quite literally the Conservatives just don’t give a shit.
Fine video, Michael.
Thanks Keith 😊
Am I the only one who seems to recall Thatcher saying that a reason for privatisation of the Water Industry was the need for investment in the infrastructure and the ability of private industry to source this. Is there any Thatcher policy that has proved to be successful in the long term?
Thatcher was a convinced neoliberal capitalist. The thinking was something akin to, 'surely' the new privatised owners will take good care of their assets, so that these will make them dividends for ever. So far so good. But then came Brexit and the deregulation of sewage treatment and oh boy! did the privatised water companies make use of that deregulation! Again not community minded but neolib, out for themselves and for all they can get. And if they go bust due to their own reckless borrowing, then the taxpayer will bail them out. Worked for the banks in 2008, so why not for us too, say the privatised irresponsible industries.
The same Thatcher that helped set up the single market..so not all bad!
@@jillhargrave-george4510 With one clear difference. The liberal freedoms of the Single Market are truly wonderful and work so well. Why? because they are controlled by firm rules and by its own court that oversees and regulates what goes on in the SM. That same ECJ court that Britain so strongly objected to in the run up to Brexit.
I studied in Spain, in the late 70's and used to think how "backward" things were, in many ways. I last visited in December last year and (snapshot, I know) but everything seemed to work, the roads weren't full of pot holes, the pavements were "even." I wasn't constantly tripping over homeless people and I saw very very little in the way of litter. Something is going very wrong here!
It's the government
It's deliberate, they are running it down so it's valueless and then asset stripping to their lobbyists at a knock down or even give away prices.
It's called privatisation, done the dirty Tory way
South West Water,the worst offenders are involved in a court case brought by an individual against them dumping raw sewage. They have demanded the case be withdrawn for 2 reasons. These being 1. The public has no legal right to swim in the sea and 2. The Water Company has no legal responsibility to keep the rivers ans sea clear of sewage. Their argument being that this is the responsibility of the Govt and the Environment Agency. Well the Environment Agency is not fit for purpose and the Govt does not give a toss.
I didn't vote for the free market Conservative party so don't blame me mate. I knew from the very start this was the way it was going, I think the only water company that is British owned is Welsh water. You privatise public services they are open to anyone In the world who wants a slice of it. I was also against the privatised Royal Mail who can remind you was privatised by George Osborne then hiked the majority of shares to the city. In other words he robbed the British people of their 4ightful access to the full share listing. So just keep voting Tory then blame everyone else . Aim your venom at the people who created this mess starting with Thatcher then Major and finally Cameron and Osborne. No other party would have done this, Macmillan said don't throw away the family silver so the Tories in their greeddid just that. We are now dependant on other countries building our nuclear power stations running our railways I will stop their before I've a heart attack .😅
Scottish water is publicly owned.
I live in Houston Texas and the sewage company actions has made the news here! It will help keep the crazies who want to privatize public utility companies quiet.
Pretty sure many US cities are trying to claw back their water utilities and struggling with litigation? I think many were/are owned by German utilities and their investors. Sad state of affairs all around
Best vote blue and keep the mad mango out of power or you're all in deep trouble ✌
We were one of the richest countries in the world. We are now a basket case and Johnson and Co know it. They IMHO are divesting from the UK and are just about to do one.
Boris Johnson should be in prison!
Hunt nas got the tories sticky fingers into private pension fund 25 %
To invest in new businesses {PPE}?????
We are the country that was persuaded by the right wing that fundamentally the only thing that matters is numbers on a balance sheet. A simplistic & twisted ideology that’s the root cause of our demise.
Privatizing utilities in such a way that they create guaranteed local monopolies is STUPID.
The UK is paying the price for the supidity of Maggie Thatcher. It took a long time, in which Tories were very smug about her. But now, finally, the price of her idiocy is being felt by everybody. Well, almost everybody. The ultra-rich are exempt.
stupid is the right word, sold their vote to the tories in the 1980's for the free money from privatisation and now they and their children have paid that money back so many times over to enrich foreign shareholders who run the companies to maximise shareholder value; knowing they will personally never have to live with the consequences.
the english have constantly voted for this for the best part of 40 years and are now living with what they voted for, so little sympathy here
I went back to my home town High Street recently. I was shocked to see so many shops had closed down, it was like a ghost town.
Privatisation of water was one of Thatcher's ideological obsessions. Coupled with a weak regulator and the UK public has been royally screwed.
Yet again, profit is put before public health.
A blatant act of treason (and abject stupidity).
Water in Scotland was not privatised. It is still a public utility.
Hi Michael
Thank you once again for your most informative and insightful blog. We’ve lived in Spain since Brexit and the people here seem happy and relatively untroubled by the obvious rise in the cost of living here. Among the most striking differences between here and the UK is that you see plenty of police and ambulances around, I can stroll down to my village doctor and be seen within minutes without an appointment. Some of our British friends here are getting hospital treatment for heart conditions and cancer without having to wait. The UK is truly broken and I don’t know how it can be fixed
Sounds good,but the big bogey around the corner will be climate change,the struggle for fresh water with regular droughts and soaring temperatures that will affect quality of life.
How tragic and depressing 😮😢
Because the Thatcher and the Tories said so.
It's funny that the brexiteers wanted the country back after was nothing left to take back.
😢
Open the country for foreigners to come and work (like in the pre-brexit time) to initiate growth in the farming and hospitality sectors with very little cost to the government.
Thank you for your usual words of wisdom, Michael ! Yes, we are all certainly "going to hell in a handcart" (apart from the mega wealthy ! 😂). Regretably, it doesn't look as though much will get better under a Labour government either 😢
Nationalise Royal Mail. Nationalise all water and utilities companies. Nationalise rail
Money is the issue here, we are in debt big style. I agree with your sentiments, however. I feel deeply sorry for the postmasters, like aomething out of a banana republic
That was Thatcher, wasn't it?
Yup , the ultimate nasty woman
Basilgette will be turning in his grave because of This raw untreated sewage we've gone back 15O years
It took a lot of planning to make things this bad.
Well yes but markets under capitalism did the planning while the governments of centrists and right wingers over 45yrs made sure there was as little interference as possible by government in that.
Renationalise
Love to here your views on the economy Michael, never boring, very interesting and important stuff, thank you!!🙏
Thank you Alistair 😊
Once again you've nailed it. 👍
Thanks Paul 😊
Michael l listen to you every week. I really enjoy it and no way am l bored. Thank you
Thank you James 😊
Thatcher's revolution isn't looking so pretty anymore, is it? Harold Macmillan hit the nail on the head when he spoke of selling off the Georgian family silver, the nice furniture in the saloon, and the Canaletto, didn't he? In my lifetime, when I look back, the two things that have really stuffed this country the most are Thatcherism and Brexit. And Thatcher's visceral hatred of the EU has lingered in Tory quarters until the present day. (Though, to her credit, it has to be said that she was one of the architects of the very successful Single Market.)
When I studied economics back in the day, there were certain sectors and industries in the economy which should always remain under government control, and even arch capitalists used to agree. Any industries which are vital in times of war, for example, spring immediately to mind. Thatcher and her advisors seemed not to understand this simple pearl of wisdom.
Like many at the time, I was taken in by Thatcher and Thatcherism; however, distance lends perspective. Now, like many others, I can see the damage she did to the UK economy. Her privatisation schemes were just that - schemes. The crazy thing is that there are many Conservative politicians even today, in this mess, who are itching to give us yet more Thatcherism. Liz Truss is, for instance. Good heavens! The last thing this country needs at this time is yet more Thatcherism. We have enough wealth inequality as it is; and we have little left to sell off to the highest bidder.
Maybe I am too long in the tooth and too cynical, but I have long since come to the conclusion that this country will never prosper as it should. At least not in my lifetimes. I once lived in Switzerland for four years many years ago, so I have seen how a country can be run well and efficiently. Such perfection! We could learn a lot from the Swiss, but we won't. We will go on bungling through, hoping for the best, but getting the worst. Sad!
Long in the tooth here as well. I despise thatcher but her deal with the eu was imo the best thing she did. Everything else was destructive to industry, community and our societal cohesion. Following the american model has always been disastrous for us. Brexit was a bonus to putin and the craziest idea ever. Stay strong, things can get better ✌✊
You left out the specific effects of the *austerity* era brought in by Osborne in 2010 and which has never gone away since.
@@bereal6590 I agree with you. She did get the Single Market right. But Brexit has put paid to any benefits we had from that, as we all know.
I also agree with you re the American model. I know quite a lot about life in the States, because my late partner was American, so I have spent a lot of time there, living a normal life. I know their supermarkets, their healthcare system, and so much else besides. I can assure you that these things are not all they are cracked up to be. Yes, if you go to upmarket stores, you can get European foods, but you have to pay through the nose for them. Ordinary supermarkets are jam packed with foodstuffs that are often less than healthy: lots of processed foods, full of salt, sugars, and all sorts! 🙂
I am not anti-American. Not at all. How could I be when my late partner was an American. But I am not an American; I am a European, and I prefer European standards, in foods, electrical goods like fridges and washing machines, cars, etc. Unfortunately, so many of our politicians, especially Tories, revere all things American, and wish to emulate the Americans' ways.
I agree with you, too, about Putin. When we left Europe, Putin's dream came true. So many of our politicians in all parties think they are so bright. Personally, I have my doubts. Serious doubts, too!
Thank you for your kind wishes. I wish you the same. 👍🏻
@@padraigohooligan8363 Yes indeed, thanks for reminding me. How on earth could I have possibly omitted that? Sorry!
Capitalism before society, profits before people, that was the path she bolted us to by being among the weakest leaders this nation has ever had in that she was entirely subservient to the capitalist minority and their wants, at any externalised cost to society and nation, and EVERY government be it right wing or centrist has followed in exactly that footstep only differing on minute matters of social justice to provide cover for being aligned on domestic economics and foreign policy and so long as a majority only ever vote for a centrist, or a right winger, no matter if their party is old or new, no matter what lies the candidates spout, it will always be a vote against change on behalf of the capitalist minority that owns them both and the media simultaneously. In short, the Tories are demagogues and centrism is the cancer that leads you there time and again.
Enjoyed that micheal, well said and done, agree 💯%with your thoughts and view's 👏 👏👏
Thank you 😊
Excellent commentary Michael. How about linking the current state of the UK to the trend toward neoliberalism since Blair and Cameron?
Also the New Yorker article this week about the state of Tory party and Brexit.
I think we are fairly unique in that no other country has privatised water!
Needs to be brought back into public ownership!
Disgusting incompetence and greed! 😢
Still living with thatchers legacy.
A wonderful 'share owning democracy '?
We are the thickest nation on earth though. Proof is we keep voting for the same.... time and time again. 34 parliaments since 1917...... and nothing has changed. The rich still get richer.
It’s because those in power own the scummy newspapers such as the Sun, which are obviously aimed at the gormless levels of our society. Our glorious leaders will always control us in the way, unfortunately.
This is what happens when you sell your soul.....and everyone else's.......
Yup! No chance and no hope to buy, lease or rent it back.
We are in the shit more ways than one,
That is all about "Take Back Control" Micheal. They have used the right wods and have made the right move: Brexit. Only British population mistook the conception of "Whose Control"
British folk needs to have a Massive & En Masse Wakeup. The longer they try to hide their mistakes, the deeper the blaming mentality take its toll on Great Britain.
I wish you well Micheal, and Happy Easter Monday!
Thanks John
To even start to try to get the economy going why not consider 'trickle up economics' for a change. If you give more money to those at the low end of the pay scale they invariably spend it, on food, clothes, household improvements, cars, and leisure, thereby lifting business. Just a thought.
No not getting bored at all. Keep going
😊