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Category: privatise

  • 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.

    …

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

  • 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

    …

    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.

    …

    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’.

  • 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.”

    …

    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.

    …

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

  • Outrage as Thames Water allowed to pay just a fifth of record pollution fines

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/outrage-thames-water-allowed-pay-just-fifth-record-pollution-fines

     A Thames Water van

    THAMES WATER will only have to pay a fifth of its record £122.7 million in fines under a “sweetheart deal,” with industry regulator Ofwat branded “outrageous” by water campaigners today.

    The heavily indebted utility firm was handed the penalties in May for failures over sewage treatment and paying out dividends.

    It has already passed a deadline for paying them by August 20 but has now agreed to pay only a fifth by the end of next month, with the remainder subject to securing a private rescue deal and cash injection.

    Ofwat said that it had set a final “backstop date” of March 31 2030 for payment of the remaining penalties whether or not Britain’s biggest water company avoids insolvency.

    It would have 30 calendar days to pay up after securing such a deal or at the end of an insolvency process that would see it placed into a government special administration scheme.

    River Action chief executive James Wallace said: “It is outrageous that Thames Water has been allowed to kick its fine down the road.

    “This fine must be paid by those responsible, not future owners and investors.

    “Ordinary people do not get to walk into court and say, ‘I’ll pay the rest of my penalty if I get a better paying job.’ Yet that is exactly the sweetheart deal Thames Water has secured.

    “This is not accountability. The investors who drained the company and pocketed £170 million in dividends in October 2023 and March 2024 may never feel the consequences.

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/outrage-thames-water-allowed-pay-just-fifth-record-pollution-fines

    April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
    April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)

  • Government urged to drop ‘parasitic’ private contracts as rail fares set to soar

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-urged-drop-parasitic-private-contracts-rail-fares-set-soar

     People using a ticket machine at Waterloo train station in London

    THE government was urged to ditch “parasitic” private contracts today after it emerged that regulated train fares in England could soar by 5.8 per cent next year.

    This year fares went up 4.6 per cent — one point higher than last July’s retail prices index (RPI).

    …

    The government is set to renationalise all train operators by 2027 and integrate them into Great British Railways, a new public body which will also oversee rail infrastructure.

    However GBR will continue to lease rolling stock, carriages and locomotives, from private firms. Outsourced contracts, such as those for cleaning staff, are also set to remain.

    A spokesperson for rail union RMT said: “Our analysis shows that £720 million is extracted each year from our railways through rolling stock leasing, outsourcing and subcontracting.

    “Eliminating that profiteering would allow fares to be cut by 6.5 per cent.

    “The government has an opportunity under GBR to remove these parasitic contracts that drain resources from the network and instead offer real value for money for passengers through public ownership.”

    …

    Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-urged-drop-parasitic-private-contracts-rail-fares-set-soar