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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

‘Clean Power Not Paddy Power’: Greenpeace protester climbs on to Tory campaign battle bus

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https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4328144/clean-power-paddy-power-greenpeace-protester-climbs-tory-campaign-battle-bus

Image: Credit: Kristian Buus / Greenpeace

Climate activist targets Conservative election bus in protest at the government’s failure to adopt more ambitious climate policies

A Greenpeace activist climbed on to the top of the Conservative’s campaign bus this afternoon and unfurled a banner reading ‘Clean Power Not Paddy Power’, in protest at both the election date betting scandal engulfing the government and the Prime Ministers’ failure to deliver more ambitious climate policies.  

Amy Rugg-Easey was able to get on to the bus at a campaign stop near Ollerton in Nottinghamshire, ahead of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s appearance in the last televised debate of the campaign, which is being hosted by BBC in Nottingham this evening.

“We’ve had enough of this government lurching from one scandal to the next, while gambling with our future,” Rugg-Easey said in a statement. “We need clean power, not Paddy Power.

“Fourteen years of Conservative governments has left this country broken. Sunak has gone backwards on climate action, ditching key pledges and promising to ‘max out’ the climate-wrecking oil and gas that are the cause of the cost-of-living crisis and our unaffordable bills. Our rivers are awash with sewage, and our economy, NHS and public services are on their knees. 

“Enough is enough. We’ve climbed onto Sunak’s battle bus today to remind the British public that it is the Conservative government’s consistent failure to deliver greener, fairer policies that has created the mess we’re in. Don’t back the wrong horse – a vote for the climate is a vote for a better future.”

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https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4328144/clean-power-paddy-power-greenpeace-protester-climbs-tory-campaign-battle-bus

Rishi Sunak on stopping Rosebank says that any chancellor can stop his huge 91% subsidy to build Rosebank, that Keir Starmer is as bad as him for sucking up to Murdoch and other plutocrats and that we (the plebs) need to get organised to elect MPs that will stop Rosebank.
Rishi Sunak on stopping Rosebank says that any chancellor can stop his huge 91% subsidy to build Rosebank, that Keir Starmer is as bad as him for sucking up to Murdoch and other plutocrats and that we (the plebs) need to get organised to elect MPs that will stop Rosebank.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil's You May Find Yourself... art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Continue Reading‘Clean Power Not Paddy Power’: Greenpeace protester climbs on to Tory campaign battle bus

NHS waiting list surges despite Sunak’s pledge to cut backlog

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/10/nhs-waiting-list-surges-despite-sunaks-pledge-to-cut-backlog/

The lying EU bus promoting money for the NHS when all the anti-EU shites are anti-NHS Neo-Liberal shites.
That’s a funny-looking bus, it’s Boris’s lying anti-EU bus promoting money for the NHS when all the anti-EU shites are anti-NHS Neo-Liberal shites.

‘The Prime Minister’s key pledge of reducing the size of the waiting list by March 2024 is looking more and more in doubt.’

The number of people stuck on NHS waiting lists has reached a record high, despite promises from ministers to eliminate lengthy backlogs.  

Figures released on October 12, show that as of the end of August there were 8,998 people waiting for treatment for over 18 months, a sharp increase from 7,289 in July. Overall waiting list figures have reached a record high, with 7.75m people waiting for treatment at the end of August, up from 7.68m in July, marking the highest figure since records began in 2007.

The government had promised that all patients who had been waiting for 18 months for an operation in hospital would be treated by April. The following month, the health secretary Steve Barclay admitted that the government had not met its target. Failure to eliminate 18-month backlogs is embarrassing for Sunak, who made ‘cut waiting lists’ one of this five key promises. In January, the Prime Minister had said that “lists will fall, and people will get the care they need more quickly.”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/10/nhs-waiting-list-surges-despite-sunaks-pledge-to-cut-backlog/

Continue ReadingNHS waiting list surges despite Sunak’s pledge to cut backlog