Cost of Living crisis

UK public has paid £200bn to shareholders of key industries since privatisation

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/16/uk-public-paid-200bn-to-shareholders-of-key-industries-since-privatisation-study

Northern Rail passengers protest over poor service in Manchester in 2019 Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Analysis reveals ‘privatisation premium’ of £250 per household per year paid to owners of water, rail, bus, energy and mail services since 2010

The public has paid almost £200bn to the shareholders who own key British industries since they were privatised, research reveals.

The transfer of tens of billions of pounds to the owners of the privatised water, rail, bus, energy and mail services comes as families face soaring bills, polluted rivers and seas, and expensive and unreliable trains and buses.

As a result, citizens have been paying a “privatisation premium” of £250 per household per year since 2010 alone, the analysis found.

Recent focus has been on the privatised water industry, which has run up long-term debts of £73bn and paid out dividends of £88.4bn in the past 34 years at the same time as overseeing record sewage spills, according to the latest figures.

But for the first time the thinktank Common Wealth has drawn together the haemorrhaging of billions of pounds to shareholders across four key sectors, most of which were privatised from the 1980s and 1990s by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government – energy, transport, water and mail.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/16/uk-public-paid-200bn-to-shareholders-of-key-industries-since-privatisation-study

Continue ReadingUK public has paid £200bn to shareholders of key industries since privatisation

Jeremy Corbyn: Surprise, surprise – Labour is reaping what it has sown

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Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-new-party-labour-uk-poverty-b2827322.html

Instead of addressing child poverty, homelessness, poor working conditions or any of the real issues impacting this country, Labour has chosen to deflect the blame and pour billions into arms, says Jeremy Corbyn. Britain is tired of having no political choice – and we’re here to fix that

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Over the past year, the government has continued a programme of austerity and privatisation. It has refused to lift the two-child benefit cap, the single biggest driver of child poverty. It has tried to take away the winter fuel allowance. It has increased the bus fare cap. And it has tried to take away £5bn from disabled people, curating a two-tiered benefit system that deprives thousands of people of a dignified life.

There is one area where the government has been very generous, though: arms spending. Government military spending is now at £31.7bn, which is a 6 per cent increase in real terms from last year. Imagine how much better ordinary people’s lives would be if we spent that money on schools, hospitals and green energy instead.

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People have had enough of a political regime that serves the interests of billionaires and corporations. They have had enough of a government that inflicts suffering at home and enables genocide abroad. They have had enough of broken promises from political parties that fail to deliver real change.

Original article at https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-new-party-labour-uk-poverty-b2827322.html

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine 'Private Eye'.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.
Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn: Surprise, surprise – Labour is reaping what it has sown

‘It’s time for a grown-up conversation about taxing wealth’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/its-time-grown-conversation-about-taxing-wealth

 model houses on a pile of coins and bank notes

TUC hits back at banking boss who suggested public-sector pay should be curbed because the economy falling

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TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said that while the government has “taken the right approach” by investing in public services and infrastructure, “the job of securing growth is far from over — and more support is needed to see that investment sustained in the long term.”

“That’s why it’s time for a grown-up conversation about taxing wealth and financial institutions,” he said.

“It’s only right that banks, gambling companies and the wealthiest in our society contribute their fair share to fund our schools, hospitals and local authorities.

“The government needs to ensure it can repair and rebuild our vital public services along with wider critical national infrastructure.”

Mr Nowak also called on the Bank of England to further Bank of England to “ease the pressure on household budgets and to make it more affordable for businesses to invest.”

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Ooriginal article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/its-time-grown-conversation-about-taxing-wealth

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Morning Star Editorial: The neoliberal model of privatised water is sunk

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/neoliberal-model-privatised-water-sunk

 A tanker from Thames Water

INVESTMENT in Britain’s water utilities took a dive under Thatcher’s government. By 1980 investment by the regional water authorities dropped by two-thirds as the neoliberal straitjacket into which public expenditure was confined limited their ability to raise capital.

Contrast this to the present situation where the now privatised water companies have racked up millions in loans that seem more valued as a source of ready cash to pay bonuses, dividends and sweeteners than infrastructure investment.

The total debt burden of the dozen privately owned water companies stands at £65 billion which this year’s Commons report says is perilously close to the 70 per cent gearing at which commercial credibility is compromised.

Jo Maugham, director of the Good Law Project, which has been involved in legal challenges to a number of water companies, says: “The water sector has been poorly regulated for decades. It has been poorly regulated primarily by allowing water companies to over extract water from aquifers and reservoirs but also cash from operating entities within the water companies, and they’ve been allowed to underinvest in water infrastructure.”

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The logical case for public ownership is sometimes challenged by the suggestion that taking these failing enterprises into public ownership would be prohibitively expensive.

This is, of course, true if these enterprises were to offered for sale at the price their owners value them. A socialist government armed with a popular mandate and backed by a working class armed with both resolve and the necessary instruments of coercion might simply dispossess these rapacious incompetents and instruct them, individually and as a class, to find an alternative way of making a living freed of the responsibilities of ownership.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/neoliberal-model-privatised-water-sunk

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: The neoliberal model of privatised water is sunk