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In the 1980s, privatisation was sold to the UK public as a pathway to better, cheaper services.
I was there; I remember it well.
Competition, we were told, would drive efficiency. Consumers would benefit from innovation, choice and lower bills. The state would be leaner, freer, more focused.
Nearly four decades on, we are living in the aftermath of one of the biggest con jobs (or should that be Con jobs?) in modern British economic history.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
What privatisation promised – and what we got
The big promise was that we – as private individuals – would have a chance to own part of our national utilities, here in the UK. We would be able to draw down dividends based on the profits made by the newly-privatised companies.
Not only that, but the money we invested in these privatised industries would be used to improve the services they offered, for example by modernising outdated infrastructure.
And prices would be kept down by competition between different privatised companies.
You may have noticed that logic is missing from these promises – if prices are depressed by competition, then the dividends we would have drawn down would not be very big (for example).
And, in fact, competition between privatised companies did not materialise. No privatised water company sells to customers beyond its geographic limits because it doesn’t have the infrastructure or the right to use it.
Let’s stick with water as the clearest example of what actually happened. They became monopolies in their different geographical areas. As a result, they have been able to raise bills, almost at will – mostly claiming they have to do it in order to put the money into the hugely outdated, Victorian water and sewerage systems they inherited.
And did they? Not a bit of it!
Since privatisation in 1989, companies have paid out more than £60 billion in dividends; meanwhile, infrastructure is decaying, leakage rates remain high, and untreated sewage flows into rivers while fines for polluting them are written off as the cost of doing business.
There is no incentive to invest in long-term sustainability. The only goal is profit.
Elsewhere, energy bills soar while private providers go bust. Rail fares rise relentlessly, as services become less reliable.
Far from choice and dynamism, we’ve ended up with monopolies, fragmented systems, and weakened public accountability.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The real costs of private ownership
The public are paying the price — literally.
Household bills have outpaced inflation.
Services are unreliable.
In many cases, maintenance is ignored until a full collapse becomes too expensive to ignore.
Local communities have no say in how vital services are managed.
We’re all at the mercy of opaque boards, offshore investors, and political donations.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
What public ownership really means — and doesn’t
It’s crucial to define our terms.
Public ownership is not about centralised bureaucracy for the sake of ideology.
It means democratic control over the systems we all rely on.
It means reinvesting profits back into service quality, not extracting them.
It means planning for the long term, rather than chasing the next quarter’s return.
Consider Scottish Water.
It is publicly owned, with lower average bills than England, consistently strong customer satisfaction, and a reinvestment-led model.
When the East Coast Main Line was temporarily renationalised, it delivered better service and returned a surplus to the Treasury.
How to pay for it – without wrecking the economy
Critics always ask: “How will you be able to afford it?”
But the truth is, we already can.
We’re currently paying through the nose for broken systems.
Re-nationalisation is not a cost — it’s a saving.
Utilities can be acquired at “book value” — that is, the price they were sold for, minus the debts they’ve since incurred.
Many of these companies are worth very little or even less than nothing when liabilities are included.
Funding could come from government bonds targeted at long-term investment, compliant with Gordon Brown’s “Golden Rule”: borrow to invest.
Publicly-owned services can return revenue to the Treasury over time.
It is, in Keynesian terms, productive investment with strong fiscal multipliers.
How to sell it to the public – and the powerful
The political framing is key.
Public ownership should be pitched not as a nostalgic throwback but a modern necessity.
It’s about lower bills.
Cleaner rivers.
Energy security.
Transport you can trust.
This is popular policy: polling consistently shows public support for renationalising water, rail and energy.
But it needs to be backed by a narrative that says: this is about making Britain work again.
Not just fairer, but better.
Even for the powerful, there’s a win here.
Stable, accountable infrastructure means lower inflation, higher productivity, and a more predictable business environment.
This isn’t class war.
It’s a fix for a broken system.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
What a responsible government would do next
- Immediate freeze on further privatisation
- Independent audit of existing privatised firms to assess viability and financial engineering
- Create public holding bodies ready to take control of failing services
- Reinvest in workforce development and service quality, ensuring public providers become centres of excellence
This is not ideological.
It’s practical, affordable, and overdue.
It’s time we stopped paying for failure and started owning success.
The public sector isn’t the problem.
In many cases, it’s the only solution left.
Share this post:
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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:
UK government spending blunders: public ownership works – so let’s reclaim it
Share this post:
In the 1980s, privatisation was sold to the UK public as a pathway to better, cheaper services.
I was there; I remember it well.
Competition, we were told, would drive efficiency. Consumers would benefit from innovation, choice and lower bills. The state would be leaner, freer, more focused.
Nearly four decades on, we are living in the aftermath of one of the biggest con jobs (or should that be Con jobs?) in modern British economic history.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
What privatisation promised – and what we got
The big promise was that we – as private individuals – would have a chance to own part of our national utilities, here in the UK. We would be able to draw down dividends based on the profits made by the newly-privatised companies.
Not only that, but the money we invested in these privatised industries would be used to improve the services they offered, for example by modernising outdated infrastructure.
And prices would be kept down by competition between different privatised companies.
You may have noticed that logic is missing from these promises – if prices are depressed by competition, then the dividends we would have drawn down would not be very big (for example).
And, in fact, competition between privatised companies did not materialise. No privatised water company sells to customers beyond its geographic limits because it doesn’t have the infrastructure or the right to use it.
Let’s stick with water as the clearest example of what actually happened. They became monopolies in their different geographical areas. As a result, they have been able to raise bills, almost at will – mostly claiming they have to do it in order to put the money into the hugely outdated, Victorian water and sewerage systems they inherited.
And did they? Not a bit of it!
Since privatisation in 1989, companies have paid out more than £60 billion in dividends; meanwhile, infrastructure is decaying, leakage rates remain high, and untreated sewage flows into rivers while fines for polluting them are written off as the cost of doing business.
There is no incentive to invest in long-term sustainability. The only goal is profit.
Elsewhere, energy bills soar while private providers go bust. Rail fares rise relentlessly, as services become less reliable.
Far from choice and dynamism, we’ve ended up with monopolies, fragmented systems, and weakened public accountability.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The real costs of private ownership
The public are paying the price — literally.
Household bills have outpaced inflation.
Services are unreliable.
In many cases, maintenance is ignored until a full collapse becomes too expensive to ignore.
Local communities have no say in how vital services are managed.
We’re all at the mercy of opaque boards, offshore investors, and political donations.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
What public ownership really means — and doesn’t
It’s crucial to define our terms.
Public ownership is not about centralised bureaucracy for the sake of ideology.
It means democratic control over the systems we all rely on.
It means reinvesting profits back into service quality, not extracting them.
It means planning for the long term, rather than chasing the next quarter’s return.
Consider Scottish Water.
It is publicly owned, with lower average bills than England, consistently strong customer satisfaction, and a reinvestment-led model.
When the East Coast Main Line was temporarily renationalised, it delivered better service and returned a surplus to the Treasury.
How to pay for it – without wrecking the economy
Critics always ask: “How will you be able to afford it?”
But the truth is, we already can.
We’re currently paying through the nose for broken systems.
Re-nationalisation is not a cost — it’s a saving.
Utilities can be acquired at “book value” — that is, the price they were sold for, minus the debts they’ve since incurred.
Many of these companies are worth very little or even less than nothing when liabilities are included.
Funding could come from government bonds targeted at long-term investment, compliant with Gordon Brown’s “Golden Rule”: borrow to invest.
Publicly-owned services can return revenue to the Treasury over time.
It is, in Keynesian terms, productive investment with strong fiscal multipliers.
How to sell it to the public – and the powerful
The political framing is key.
Public ownership should be pitched not as a nostalgic throwback but a modern necessity.
It’s about lower bills.
Cleaner rivers.
Energy security.
Transport you can trust.
This is popular policy: polling consistently shows public support for renationalising water, rail and energy.
But it needs to be backed by a narrative that says: this is about making Britain work again.
Not just fairer, but better.
Even for the powerful, there’s a win here.
Stable, accountable infrastructure means lower inflation, higher productivity, and a more predictable business environment.
This isn’t class war.
It’s a fix for a broken system.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
What a responsible government would do next
This is not ideological.
It’s practical, affordable, and overdue.
It’s time we stopped paying for failure and started owning success.
The public sector isn’t the problem.
In many cases, it’s the only solution left.
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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