tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9095270985170721876.post6251226710497496450..comments2024-03-24T23:22:43.753+00:00Comments on Tony's Musings: RIP: Margaret ThatcherTonyTheProfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486414706261508994noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9095270985170721876.post-68841684141563084762013-04-10T07:02:03.735+00:002013-04-10T07:02:03.735+00:00The Government had no reason to be heavily involve...<i>The Government had no reason to be heavily involved in running the business of planes, trains or automobiles.</i><br /><br />Actually, government had <i>every</i> reason to be involved in running trains. <br /><br />The whole model of privatised business relies on the private providers offering competing services which all ride on top of one infrastructure. This is true of all the privatised utilities - gas, electric, telephone - and is also particularly true of railways. <br /><br />The drive for cost control means that the service providers have proved unwilling to pay for the infrastructure they use. Look at Yorkshire Water, who paid massive dividends while losing 30% of their water in the pipes. Look at the failure to roll high-speed broadband out to large areas of the UK because BT don't want to pay for other people to have business advantage. <br /><br />Having also seen what happened when the Severn flooded in July 2007, I would not trust the private sector to manage an emergency breakdown in the infrastructure. The forces had to be called in to distribute bottled water and sandbag the local grid substation - had they not succeeded (and it was touch and go) a third of a million people would have been without both power and drinking water.<br /><br />On that basis, government ownership and management of infrastructure at least looks desirable. And the businesslike way in which BR ran Network SouthEast, Intercity and Scotrail from the late 1980s onwards suggests that any benefits from the service-provider plus infrastructure model over a properly integrated business are far less than the ideologues claim.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09194881271051758232noreply@blogger.com