Margaret Thatcher dies

[rauschwerk]

It would be great if we could believe in the virtues of public ownership of any activity but almost everything government (left or right) touches soon becomes a sink for money badly spent.

Many can clearly remember what the UK telephone system was like in the 1970s, but it is simplistic to blame public ownership per se.There are many ways of publicly owning a company, and the one generally chosen in the UK was, I believe, due to Herbert Morrison. It resulted in woeful underinvestment which, because much telecoms equipment had a planned lifetime of 25 years, showed its effects for decades. Knackered old Strowger exchanges were kept in service for up to 40 years! Even after the Post Office became a public corporation in 1969 and was allowed to keep and reinvest its profits, there was constant government meddling, mainly through price restraint. An under-investing monopoly, even one with controlled prices, is no good to anyone and the telecoms branch of the Post Office should probably have been deprived of its monopoly in certain areas in the 1960s, if not before. Does anyone remember those PO modems, built like brick outhouses and costing probably £1,000 each? They had to be engineered that way because of the monopoly.

I must say that working for Post Office/BT before privatisation didn't feel much different from working for a private company. As I recall, there was no worker representation on the board, which consisted largely of the great and the good.

Privatisation worked for telecoms, partly because the whole market was changing under the impact of digital transmission and switching, to say nothing of mobile services. In any case, it was not a natural monopoly. In the case of water, however, we now have this kind of thing:

http://www.independent.co.uk/money/t...internalSearch . The government clearly doesn't give a toss.

[ahinton]

Not by central government, but by local government. Cutting the housing stock was therefore a way of cutting councils' 'need' for money (by way of central grants, which were also cut - hence the problem in Liverpool). None of the support for the policy and the switch to private landlords tackles the need for rents which are affordable to the poorly off as distinct from market rents which private landlords are entitled to charge.

And there was a time limit of - was it only three years? - after which tenants who had bought their cheap council houses under the right to buy legislation were allowed to sell them on and make very big profits. And people did. The fact that they were sold cheaply was effectively giving away local people's (poll tax) money, publicly owned property. The state of their gardens is irrelevant.

Correct in all particulars. Again, I had and have no issues with the entitlement of tenants of social hosing to purchase it if they so wish; my concern is that, as government policy, not the slightest attempt was made to consider and address any possible adverse consequences of it.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

The fact that they were sold cheaply was effectively giving away local people's (poll tax) money, publicly owned property.

You can put it like that. Another way would be to note that the capital cost to build the housing was a sunk cost that had been recovered years previously and thus selling the houses (a) removed a recurring revenue administration and maintenance charge on the council and (b) improved the capital state of the council. So it was far removed from giving away public money.

[french frank]

(a) removed a recurring revenue administration and maintenance charge on the council

And removed the cash flow revenue,

[Flosshilde]

In other words, the operation was a success - it's a pity the patient died.

The sale of council housing was a hand-out. It miught have been acceptable if councils were allowed to use thge revenues to build more housing, but they weren't. The stock of housing that people on lower incomes (especially in London) could afford to rent was greatly reduced.

But then all this has been said before, & you either don't understand or don't care (I suspect the latter) so there really isn't any point in explaining it again.

[Pabmusic]

I remember the greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees from relatively well-off workers long before Thatcher came to power. Dead lying unburied, rubbish uncollected, buses and trains frequently grounded due to strikes, leaving many, including the old and infirm, stranded. And all under the previous Labour Government. That was certainly true.

Jackson's opportunistic moral preaching conveniently ignored any of that. Fortunately, Miliband perfectly represented the official, reasonable and considered voice of Labour on this occasion.

I am afraid you rely again on a logical fallacy. Yes, the 'winter of discontent' was awful, as were the attitudes of trade unions that had flexed their muscles so often in the previous decade. You do not approve of that and think it was right that government tackled it (I'm assuming here, of course) and so you advocate someone whose policies demonstrated a similar disregard for 'humanity' and a similar endorsement of greed. This is the tu quoque fallacy that I've raised before - two wrongs don't make a right, especially when one party is the government.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

And removed the cash flow revenue,

You're not implying the councils made a profit from renting people houses are you!

[french frank]

This further makes my point about the centralising tendencies of the Thatcher government and the reduction in block grants and controls on council powers.

[eighthobstruction]

This may be a good place to point out that - The Growth and Infrastructure Bill passed the third reading in the House of Lords on March 26th....It appears to be about Local Planning Applications....the sum total appears to be that part of the Bill, will take out hands the LOCAL Planners to be able to decide their own vision for their area ....and will put a lot of it in the hands of the Secretary of State (Eric Pickles at the mo'), to see able to sneek developers plans through without redress to Law....

I am not exactly up on this....if anyone can put more meat on the bones (not difficult) I'd be obliged....as I like to write a coherent letter to my MP about it.....

[ahinton]

In other words, the operation was a success - it's a pity the patient died.

The sale of council housing was a hand-out. It miught have been acceptable if councils were allowed to use thge revenues to build more housing, but they weren't. The stock of housing that people on lower incomes (especially in London) could afford to rent was greatly reduced.

But then all this has been said before, & you either don't understand or don't care (I suspect the latter) so there really isn't any point in explaining it again.

Be that as it may, all of these consequences should have been considered fully before launching the policy; had they been so, I believe that it would have been possible to address them in order to remove all possibility of the kinds of disadvantage that arose from that policy as introduced, so that the ability to purchase one's social housing need not have ended up as the bad idea that, for many, it ultimately proved to be. As it was, it was almost like the government deciding that, as what mattered was that it would be nice to have a game of cricket, the fact that there were no stumps, bails, protective headgear, shinpads, balls or bats available need not interfere with this.

[amateur51]

Good old Glenda hasn't been seen or heard of in some years now. I wonder whether this tirade was Glenda's idea to get back in the lime-light or her agent's. Some people cannot grow old gracefully.

Farmers playing up, Beefy?

[french frank]

You're not implying the councils made a profit from renting people houses are you!

I'm saying they provided a regular revenue and without the housing stock they cut the value of thei capital assets anyway.

The main purpose was to provide acceptable housing for those who needed it: it was no time to be givng public money away.

[ahinton]

You're not implying the councils made a profit from renting people houses are you!

Of course she isn't; she's simply pointing out that the cashflow from rents reduced in accordance with the proportion of council tenants who purchased their homes.

[Julien Sorel]

Hampstead is Glenda Jackson's constituency.

She's MP for Hampstead and Kilburn. The electoral wards are

Belsize, Fortune Green, Frognal and Fitzjohns, Hampstead Town, Kilburn (Camden), Swiss Cottage, West Hampstead the London Borough of Camden, Brondesbury Park, Kilburn (Brent), Queens Park the London Borough of Brent.

But, I suppose reality has no bearing on this subject.

[rauschwerk]

You're not implying the councils made a profit from renting people houses are you!

My understanding, based on a conversation with someone who actually worked in a council housing department, is that, yes, they did make a surplus.