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Labour’s Spending Review revealed a party aiming to appear bold – while avoiding actual confrontation with the market forces that have devastated our essential services.
Despite pledges of billions for transport, housing, and energy, the structure of these announcements shows a continuing commitment to private sector dominance and a clear reluctance to reverse decades of neoliberal orthodoxy.
But what if we didn’t accept that premise?
Five books are gone – 45 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
A broken system, ignored
Water companies have polluted rivers and coasts while extracting billions in dividends.
Energy bills remain sky-high, even as wholesale prices fall.
Rail delays and cancellations have become the norm.
All this while the companies responsible rake in profit and pass on the cost of failure to the public.
Public ownership isn’t about ideology. It’s about fixing things that are visibly broken.
The argument isn’t difficult: we pay more and get less from privatised utilities.
Bringing them into public hands, run transparently and for service rather than profit, is common sense.
But Labour won’t say this.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
What Wren-Lewis missed
Simon Wren-Lewis’s recent article made an important point: that a responsible government would increase public investment, even if it means more borrowing, because the economic returns are greater.
But even he doesn’t take the next step: if public money is funding public essentials, why should private firms be extracting profit from them?
Wren-Lewis supports spending but not structure.
My argument goes further: the structure of delivery matters as much as the spending itself.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
A Keynesian case for control
Keynesian economics – which was how the UK was run until Margaret Thatcher turned up in the 1970s – supports state intervention in times of economic stagnation, but it also requires that spending be effective.
If you invest billions in housing, but let hedge funds capture the profits through inflated land prices and buy-to-let schemes, you’re not solving the problem. You’re subsidising the next crash.
Rebuilding the economy requires public direction.
Green energy? Fine.
But why hand profits to private nuclear contractors instead of building public renewables that lower household bills and create secure jobs?
A true Keynesian approach invests to grow capacity and reduce long-term costs.
Public ownership does exactly that.
Neoliberalism in new clothes
Labour’s plan dresses neoliberalism in high-visibility jackets – favouring free markets, privatisation, deregulation, and reduced government spending on public services.
Investment without ownership just repeats the mistakes of the last 40 years: nationalise the risk, privatise the reward.
From Sizewell C to the British Business Bank, the spending sounds ambitious until you ask: who benefits?
You cannot overcome neoliberalism by pouring more public money into the same privately owned structures.
You simply deepen the problem.
Five books are gone – 45 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
Framing the future
What I’m offering isn’t radical.
It’s repair.
We can say to voters: your bills will go down. Your rivers will be clean. Your trains will run.
That’s what matters.
Will investors lose? Possibly.
But most of them won’t notice the difference when the system they rely on — the roads, rails, power and water — starts working again.
That’s good for everyone.
It’s time to stop pretending we can fix broken systems by throwing money at them while leaving them in private hands.
Labour won’t say this. So we must.
Share this post:
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
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And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Public ownership: the case Labour refuses to make (but must)
Share this post:
Labour’s Spending Review revealed a party aiming to appear bold – while avoiding actual confrontation with the market forces that have devastated our essential services.
Despite pledges of billions for transport, housing, and energy, the structure of these announcements shows a continuing commitment to private sector dominance and a clear reluctance to reverse decades of neoliberal orthodoxy.
But what if we didn’t accept that premise?
Five books are gone – 45 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
A broken system, ignored
Water companies have polluted rivers and coasts while extracting billions in dividends.
Energy bills remain sky-high, even as wholesale prices fall.
Rail delays and cancellations have become the norm.
All this while the companies responsible rake in profit and pass on the cost of failure to the public.
Public ownership isn’t about ideology. It’s about fixing things that are visibly broken.
The argument isn’t difficult: we pay more and get less from privatised utilities.
Bringing them into public hands, run transparently and for service rather than profit, is common sense.
But Labour won’t say this.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
What Wren-Lewis missed
Simon Wren-Lewis’s recent article made an important point: that a responsible government would increase public investment, even if it means more borrowing, because the economic returns are greater.
But even he doesn’t take the next step: if public money is funding public essentials, why should private firms be extracting profit from them?
Wren-Lewis supports spending but not structure.
My argument goes further: the structure of delivery matters as much as the spending itself.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
A Keynesian case for control
Keynesian economics – which was how the UK was run until Margaret Thatcher turned up in the 1970s – supports state intervention in times of economic stagnation, but it also requires that spending be effective.
If you invest billions in housing, but let hedge funds capture the profits through inflated land prices and buy-to-let schemes, you’re not solving the problem. You’re subsidising the next crash.
Rebuilding the economy requires public direction.
Green energy? Fine.
But why hand profits to private nuclear contractors instead of building public renewables that lower household bills and create secure jobs?
A true Keynesian approach invests to grow capacity and reduce long-term costs.
Public ownership does exactly that.
Neoliberalism in new clothes
Labour’s plan dresses neoliberalism in high-visibility jackets – favouring free markets, privatisation, deregulation, and reduced government spending on public services.
Investment without ownership just repeats the mistakes of the last 40 years: nationalise the risk, privatise the reward.
From Sizewell C to the British Business Bank, the spending sounds ambitious until you ask: who benefits?
You cannot overcome neoliberalism by pouring more public money into the same privately owned structures.
You simply deepen the problem.
Five books are gone – 45 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
Framing the future
What I’m offering isn’t radical.
It’s repair.
We can say to voters: your bills will go down. Your rivers will be clean. Your trains will run.
That’s what matters.
Will investors lose? Possibly.
But most of them won’t notice the difference when the system they rely on — the roads, rails, power and water — starts working again.
That’s good for everyone.
It’s time to stop pretending we can fix broken systems by throwing money at them while leaving them in private hands.
Labour won’t say this. So we must.
Share this post:
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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