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.
Only a truly democratic party can provide the space for the policies that are needed to transform society. Up and down the country, there is huge appetite for an economic reset. One that brings water, energy, rail and mail into public ownership. One that invests in welfare, not warfare. One that ends this government’s complicity in genocide and brings about justice for the Palestinian people. One that makes the wealthiest in society pay a bit more in tax to ensure that everyone can live in dignity.
This is the political vision that can inspire hope, not fear. The great dividers want you to think that migrants and minorities are responsible for the problems in our society. They’re not. Those problems are caused by a rigged economic system that protects the interests of billionaires and corporations. By scapegoating migrants and minorities for its own domestic failures, Labour has paved the path for Reform UK. This Labour government is here to appease Reform. We are here to defeat Reform. We are at a critical juncture, and we need an alternative, now.
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Think of what we could achieve together.
The future we deserve is no pipe dream. Look around you, and you will find proof that a better world is possible. We are not fighting for crumbs. We are fighting for real change – and we are never, ever going away.
dizzy: I need to spend time on other projects for the next few years. We need left bloggers and social media activists. It’s a hard slog to get established but go for the long term. Teams of 10 or more would be ideal because you could share the work, maybe concentrate on your own area of interest. Suggest that you change passwords regularly and drop and replace people who don’t pull their weight. In a few years, ready for the next election, you should be kicking and taking on number 10’s influence and influencers reported in this article.
A general view of British Steel in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, April 12, 2025
LABOUR has been urged to catch up with public support for nationalising services “just as strategically important” as British Steel.
Campaigners and unions have continued to call for the full nationalisation of the company after the government passed an emergency law on Saturday to seize control of its Scunthorpe plant.
The legislation was passed in a single day, empowering ministers to save the last plant making “virgin steel” direct from raw materials from imminent closure, as well as thousands of jobs.
But Labour’s action was likened to an expensive public bailout today amid growing calls for the government to stop the private sector from running other services into the ground.
We Own It founder and director Cat Hobbs said: “The government has sprung into action to protect British Steel as a strategically important industry, with nationalisation on the table.
“In 2020, Keir Starmer promised public ownership of rail, mail, energy and water — as well as ending outsourcing in our NHS and local government.
“These public services are just as strategically important as steel, as drivers of economic and social development.
“Since Thatcher’s sell off, many of our key public services have been handed over to foreign states, offshore funds and billionaires.
“If Starmer is looking to take back control of our economy, this would be a good place to start.
“The UK public overwhelmingly supports public ownership and it’s high time our government caught up.”
There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil climate protectors are being jailed:
The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that they be jailed.
There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil’s key single demand #NoNewOil has not been implemented by the UK government:
The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that the UK government reject JSO and instead max out UK North Sea oil and gas reserves.
For many climate protectors who do not read the billionaire owned tabloids (Mail, Sun,Telegraph) or watch their new far-right TV stations GB News and Talk TV, this may seem exaggerated. Many are unaware of the full-scale billionaire-media war being waged on UK climate action and how despite dwindling circulations, they wield enormous unaccountable political power over UK policy, including climate policy.
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, outlined to a Parliamentary Select Committee the direct impact the right-wing media had on Johnson’s decision making. The Climate Media Coalition in 2022 carried out an analysis of the process leading up to the UK government’s energy security strategy, drafted after the energy crisis provoked by the invasion of Ukraine.
We looked at opinion polling on eight energy policy issues covered by the strategy. We then analysed the coverage of these issues in the editorial and comment pages of the billionaire media. And finally, we looked at the government policy positions adopted by the published strategy. The eight policy issues were: onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, nuclear, fusion, insulation, fracking and new North-sea oil drilling.
The public by significant majorities supported onshore wind, offshore wind, solar and insulation. They opposed new North Sea oil and gas, fracking and nuclear. There was no polling on fusion. The billionaire media supported new North Sea oil and gas, fracking, nuclear and fusion. They opposed onshore wind, insulation and solar.
The government’s final strategy?
Every single policy position reflected the eight policy positions of the billionaire media! Only one item reflected what the public supported. The only one also supported by the billionaire media.
We are the only nation on earth to have had a de facto ban on onshore wind for the last decade after the Telegraph and Mail demanded it be banned. This evidence graphically demonstrates the raw climate-trashing political power of the UK’s billionaire press and the threat it poses to humanity and what is left of nature.
Murdoch (owner of the Sun) and Rothermere (owner of The Mail) abused their power by bullying the police and government into introducing not just one but TWO new Acts of Parliament, to punitively try to destroy Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion and are actively lobbying for a third, following the peaceful Palestinian protests.
The Guardian has reported that distinguished international scientists identified Rupert Murdoch, as one of the key media billionaires endangering humanity.
Prof Lesley Hughes, Australian Climate Change Authority said:
“Rupert Murdoch bears enormous responsibility for the world’s lack of action on climate. His outlets promote scepticism about climate science that undermines the need to act.”
Prof Michael Mann, University of Pennsylvania, said Murdoch is
“one of the most destructive forces in modern history when it comes to climate action”. He wields his media empire as a cudgel to sow doubt about science and solutions. He is one of the greatest climate villains.”
Dr Friederike Otto, Grantham Institute said:
“Murdoch leaves a terrible legacy, that people are paying for, with lives and livelihoods. Climate protesters are portrayed as people trying to make life difficult for the average person, whereas of course they try to make it better”
So what strategy should the climate movement now move forward with?
What are the four pillars of the fossil fuelled economy? They are the government that regulates it, the oil industry that operates it, the banks that fund it but most importantly the corporate media that give it the social and political licence to operate. The media pillar is THE foundational pillar on which the other three depend.
And the UK’s media billionaires Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, the Barclays and Paul Marshall have captured that pillar. Therefore, the climate movement’s TOP-PRIORITY must be one way or another to remove the billionaire climate-trashing media and instead create a free Fourth Estate that backs the urgent climate action and wildlife repair necessary.
We must replace a bought press with a free press!
The world has recognised how Ukraine has a right to self-defence from the brutal Russian invasion. It is time for the climate movement to recognise that all of humanity has a far, far -greater right to self-defence from the media billionaires’ war to destroy the climate, upon which nature and all future generations’ lives depend.
But excitingly, in this battle there is a huge coalition out there gagging for leadership. Not least, the 76% of the UK public horrified by the billionaire-media backed Gazan genocide. There are deep chilling parallels between their support for the horrific Gazan genocide and their support for climate genocide and how both usurp British democracy. In the crucial parliamentary vote, 71% of MPs backed the billionaire media’s opposition to the ceasefire and betrayed their own constituents!
There is hardly a section of the population that the billionaire media have not vilified at one time or another. These include NHS staff, gay people, trade-unions, wildlife protectors, freedom of the press campaigners, human rights advocates, refugees, immigrants, EU residents, civil servants, locally elected councils, the disabled, the unemployed, travellers, Muslims, women, cyclists, the Church of England, etc etc.
When Extinction Rebellion successfully blockaded Murdoch’s printing works for just 12 hours in 2020, a ripple of excitement ran across the nation. Finally, somebody had stood up to the billionaire media dictatorship brutalising Britain. Just imagine what would happen, if we broke the hold they have on our democracy? Imagine if every front page constantly screamed for action on climate and wildlife?!
The fossil fuelled criminal establishment would be gone within a year.
The banks would be funding the renewable energy economy, the government would regulate for a net zero economy by 2030 and the oil corporations would become renewable energy corporations.
If Just Stop Oil and the wider climate movement are to win (and we must!) – then it needs to now focus, focus, focus on the one key positive and uplifting political revolution that can enable our success – peaceful direct action and building a pan-societal coalition to win the media battle for human and wildlife survival.
Donnachadh McCarthy, is a director of the Climate Media Coalition (climatemediacoalition.org.uk) and was in 2015, one of the first people to be arrested for a peaceful direct action demanding the criminalisation of investments in new fossil fuels. He is a former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats and the author of The Prostitute State. (theprostitutestate.co.uk), E-book version is free to JSO activists & supporters from contact@3acorns.co.ukPost navigation
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.
