I've never been a believer in the 'all or nothing' philosophy, probably a good thing as I always listen to both sides of an argument and try to reach a balanced and informed opinion.
When it comes to privatisation I can see both the pros and cons, there certainly has been successes, the telephone companies now offer choice and value and the old monopoly of BT is thankfully a thing of the past.
If properly regulated, the power companies could offer a great range of services and choice for the consumer, sadly these companies working in conjunction with each other are allowed to raise prices at will and for many people, heating their home has become unaffordable, when the winter death toll among the old is published later this year the government will get a wake up call.
For me though the one industry that must be taken back into public ownership is the national rail network, each rail route has only one operator so straight away any competition or choice is absent, the industry should be a public service but is currently run as a business to financially reward the directors and shareholders of these companies who frequently see their entrepreneurial schemes fail through lack of investment and subsequently have to be bailed out by the long suffering taxpayer.
I'm sure many of us have travelled on the more reliable and cheaper nationalised trains throughout Europe and wondered how the hell the UK public put up with the over priced shambles on our railways.
And last but not least the great bloated NHS, I hear that 9,000 managers are to lose their jobs which will save £250m, I'm sure this can be done and hopefully the 'real' front line staff will be left to carry on doing the jobs that are truly needed.
Any thought of wholly privatising the NHS would be political suicide for any serious politician but I have a feeling that David Cameron and his Eton inner circle are looking at ways to do this before the coalition government term is up.
Just how far will the British public be pushed? Things could get very interesting.
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I completely agree about renationalising the railways, as a former British Rail employee I've seen things gradually get worse over the years and safety issues have become secondary to profits.
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