Originally posted by P. G. Tipps
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But I couldn't possibly comment.
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Many people might consider, and it must be said with some justification, that our present lawmakers have quite a lot in common with the criminal underworld.
But I couldn't possibly comment. -
These 'contracts' have no real legal basis though bored, time-free millionaires might well be able to mount a successful challenge from time to time. Powerful tit-for-tat financial bullying is certainly one possible solution.Originally posted by wenotsoira View Post
As for relatively impoverished, hard-working, time-consumed humanity ... hmmmmm ...
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Yes, but what about when contracts don't fail or haven't failed? It's no good assuming that all such contracts have failed just because the government of the day happens to decide (if indeed it does so) that it will seek to undermine and replace them (which in any event it might find itself unable to do because of rafts of legal constraints over few if any of which it has ultimate power).Originally posted by antongould View PostComment
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Never mind what anyone might or might not think of it - and it need not necessarily fall into such a "laissez-faire" arrangement anyway - we still have UK HRA and ECHR and UDHR if need be to throw spanners into the himan rights works of any and all of the kinds of thing that governments might attempt to change when contracts, whatever their relative and respective worths might or might not be, are in play and can therefore not be ignored.Originally posted by antongould View PostComment
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There is no way this would happen overnight and all the fixed term contracts would expire in the transitional period ....Originally posted by ahinton View PostComment
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No, it certainly wouldn't happen overnight, but the point is that customers will long since have become accustomed to customer choice in energy procurement, however flawed it might be and will therefore not so easily accept just whatever might be put in front of them if the government of the day suddenly says to them "sorry, folks, we're your supplier now, like it or not" - hence my remark about "see you in court". The main point behind this is that each customer now regards him/herself as a customer and would continue to do so in the event that a government "nationalised" one or more of the services that said customer procures. Market, right? Governments of all kinds are as subject to such things as are customers.Originally posted by antongould View PostComment
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If what the market/competition has cost the customer is properly revealed only those of the far right (and Scotty) will still wish for the free market .....Originally posted by ahinton View PostComment
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Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
IMO different but also very sad ball game .....Comment
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But why would it be expected to be any different if the state ran the business? Whatever the state might seek to procure from whomsoever, they do it in the market place just like everyone else does, so they're in competition just as is everyone else; NHS, the armed service et al might be state run but that state has to procure their supplies in the market place. Likewise, state distribution and supply monopolies are the enemy of customer competition and the term "free market" misleads to the extent that nothing material in the world is free.Originally posted by antongould View Post
Whoever runs businesses that procure and supply, there will always be room for advantage taking, but customers have for the most part become rather more savvy about such things than once they were and, as long as they can continue to go elsewhere for what they want, they will as and when they wish. Likewise, whether state enterprise or private enterprise runs particular operations, things can go wrong through incompetence, inefficiencies, wilful mismanagement, corruption and the rest; public or private, they're alway run by people, after all.
In view of all of this, I really don't see any remotely electable political party going far down the road of nationalisation and renationalisation beyond uttering weasel words about it at times when they're in no position to back them up with actions and, even then, as so few people are uttering such words in the first place, why ascribe undue importance to the possibility?
That said, if the Tories and others who appear to have paid their few pence in exchange for entitlement to vote in the Labour party leadership election with a view to screwing up the result are likewise "properly revealed", one might imagine that very few would still wish for the free vote! I'm not about to lose sleep over it, anyway; I don't subscribe to any political party and, in any case, to the Labour party, the most important aspect of their leadership election is surely whether the result will likely make them more electable so, if the outcome doesn't do that, it won't really matter too much in the long run who'll have won it.Comment
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The difference isn't on the procurement side but on the supply that is billing and collection side. An indicator of efficiency is how much of the electricity produced in kWh terms is actually billed and beyond that paid for. In my nationalised days the kWh written off was laughably small - now it is a very significant % for the reasons I have detailed and customers like alycidon come across everyday........the level of inefficiency is unbelievable .....Comment
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I have to disagree with all this 'nationalised electricity is good' stuff. You are all ignoring the fact that there are two entities involved. Who you pay your bill to (the parasites like N-Power) and who actually rolls their sleeves up and gets their hands dirty like the superb Western Power. When I compare the number of power outages when it was all nationalised then under the MEB with today, there is NO comparison. The free-market works exceedingly well when companies like WP are involved.Fewer Smart things. More smart people.Comment
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Agreed the case for nationalising the parasites is very much stronger but a lot of the reduction of outages is due to under grounding of cables a process begun under the nationalised boards that would probably have proceeded more quickly had they remained in place ......Originally posted by Anastasius View PostComment
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P. G. Tipps, for one, is a Pragmatic Centrist. As far as the major utilities and nationalisation and privitisation are concerned it has always seemed to him largely a question of choosing between two 'evils'. Many of those of us old enough to remember nationalisation do not have particularly happy memories of those days. There may well be a case for returning the power companies to state control because of the vital importance of supply but I haven't been convinced either way, tbh. Nationalisation and 'efficiency' were certainly not automatic bedfellows in my past experience.Originally posted by antongould View Post
As for, say, the railways I am in much less doubt. The current system, for all its undoubted faults, is much more efficient and customer-orientated than it ever was under state control, imvho. However, if that were to change so might my opinion!
So, every case on its merits is my simple-minded, non-political view and the labels 'far right' or 'extreme left' are completely irrelevant to me, believing them to be tatty worn-out old badges lovingly cherished by the political dogmatists ...
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