Should the UK government be required to improve citizens’ living standards?
Rivers of sewage: the only reason Boris Johnson was able to allow private, profit-making, water firms to fill our rivers and beaches with crap is that Margaret Thatcher privatised the service in the 1980s. Shouldn’t we get better value for our money than he gave us?
Let’s have your views on this.
With energy costs skyrocketing, sewage stinking up our waterways, rail travel prohibitively expensive and food fast becoming unaffordable – while executives of the privatised utility firms are banking grossly-inflated salaries and their shareholders take enormous dividends, it would be easy to suggest that we were all ripped off by Margaret Thatcher, back in the 1980s.
I suggest this because I remember that, every time part of the UK’s infrastructure was sold into private hands, she told us that it would drive bills down, and investment up.
In fact, the opposite has been the case. Investment has plummeted, bills have soared, and profits have boomed because these privatised utilities are, in fact, monopolies.
We can’t live without water; we can’t survive without food; we can’t stay warm without heat, and so on.
It seems to me, therefore, that privatising these services was a gross dereliction of duty by the Tories of the day.
But there is no law telling us that, and therefore there is no requirement for the current government to reverse the situation. Should there be one?
That’s the question I would like to put to you:
Should future UK governments be required to demand the best standard of living for its citizens, while also ensuring they pay the lowest amount of money to get it?
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). 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
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.
The Livingstone Presumption is now 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:
hi Mike, I’ve just watch Crispin’s NOT THE ANDREW MARR SHOW on YouTube talking about the racism inside the labour party!
https://youtu.be/hj3Pyq_jOGA
the government supposed to have a duty of care to the uk citizens.
I just don’t get why people don’t know this?!
Yes, they shouldn’t allow inflation to run rampant.
renationalising of all our utilities is a must no matter how much it costs(shares will drop when investers know they will lose money). a new irreversible law to prevent the filthy conservatives repeating this crime should be brought in.
Fascist tories will say their remit is to ensure public money is not wasted on publicly owned facilities including water, heating and food. Therefore we peasants elect MPs to create conditions wherein the market place aka privately owned companies operate as a commercial business and have endless profits!
Remember democracy was once supposedly about elected women and men representing and working for the benefit of their constituents not putting corporate business interests first, second and last!
Now democracy doesn’t exist and instead we have a fascist dictatorship wherein the fascist tories are ensuring anyone who dares to challenge their fascist dictatorship will be arrested and imprisoned!
Certain industries and institutions including water boards, railways, energy companies, children’s homes, NHS were all publicly owned because our public money was being used to fund these institutions. Any ‘profits’ was used to invest in maintaining infrastructure/pay a decent salary to employees and ensure we peasants were being given fully function and operational services!
Now we peasants have no public services other than the corrupt and rotten police forces who operate as sycophants for the fascist tories!
I believe the Houses of Parliament should be sold to private property developers because all those MPs are just receiving a huge salary for doing precisely nothing for us peasants! In fact 10 and 11 Downing Street should also be sold and the properties razed to the ground and replaced with huge skyscrapers!
UK government should be required to demand the best standard of living for its citizens as it is their primary purpose.
The imbalance comes when Private Investment is involved when citizens rights are then sidelined in favour of profits.
Some say that CEO’s of Water companies should be fined or imprisoned if they create public health issues through lack of investment in infrastructure but as they are mostly non-UK companies this is difficult or even impossible.
UK Laws can imprison citizens if they refuse to pay a water bill though, so unless this imbalance is corrected we shall remain unprotected and vulnerable to the whims of faceless, foreign utility companies.
The UK Government can only have the power to insist and demand the best for it’s citizens only if it has full control over the whole supply network.
The problem with the Tories is the same problem there is with company directors, a company directors overriding responsibility being to maximise the companies profits for the shareholders, the Tories to maximise the profits of their donors…
Of course, the job of government is to look after its people to the best of its ability, to arrest this situation our country finds itself in, all utilities must be returned to state ownership or the situation will get worse leading to civil unrest.
The welfare, well-being, happiness and prosperity of its citizens should be the prime responsibility of the UK Government above all else, or at least alongside the wellbeing of the environment and all other living creatures. It is a duty of care. Hence all industries that exist to provide an essential service should be Nationalised.