Councils Should Run Services...

[mushroom25]

...so says Jeremy Corbyn
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35508740

but are local politicians (of whtever political colour) really the sort of people you'd entrust essential services to?

[mikey4444]

I am all for bringing public services back under local ownership.

Take water for instance. All of the water supplies were instigated by local councils and cities. Take the Elan Valley reservoirs as an example. But when these were all stolen from us and given away to private companies, any sort of local control became impossible.

These privatisations were sold to us by the Tories in the 80's, by the spurious reasoning that it would give us more competition. But its the same rain that is still falling, going into the same reservoirs, and through the same pipes to our houses, but now private companies, a lot of them foreign-owned, are charging us a fortune and making huge profits for the shareholders.

Like bringing the railways back into public ownership, maybe Corbyn is right.

[mrblear]

In general privatisation has been a good thing but not in the case of the water companies - privatising monopoly suppliers is completely wrong.

[ToraToraTora]

personally I'd abolish all the councils of Britain and replace them with a dozen well paid experts to run local services, save a fortune.

[mikey4444]

That was obvious from the start mrblear, but it didn't stop the Tories doing it did it ?

They successfully bribed lots of people into giving up their heritage for a handful of silver pieces, in the form of a small profit from the shares they bought.......in an industry that they already owned ! They stole it from us than made us buy it back !

[mushroom25]

//Take the Elan Valley reservoirs as an example//

that's an odd example if your idea is to support local control - the reservoirs never belonged to Powys or its predecessors, or to Rhayader, but to Birmingham Corporation.

[mikey4444]

Those reservoirs were built for and paid for by the Brummie ratepayers, which was my point. Its the same with most of the reservoirs in Wales. The ones that still serve me here in Swansea, were paid for Swansea ratepayers.

[EDDIE51]

At least if they are not up to the job we can vote them out, unlike with a private company.

[mikey4444]

Good point Eddie !

Power to the people !

[Old_Geezer]

I'd trust politicians that are answerable to the people in preference to private commercial companies that are answerable to their investors and see the public as a money source to tap. No solution is perfect but it is the lesser of two evils, and puts the supply of essential services/utilities back as near to the community as possible.

The only real concern would be if the power was at too low a level one might get a postcode lottery on supply. There needs to be a framework defining the minimum that must be done such that all UK citizens are treated well.

Maybe we could then get rid of all these meters and have the community's kitty pay for the supply of the community's needs, at least as far an extent as our seemingly wiser past generations arranged.

[Jackdaw33]

I remember the Electricity Board, the Gas Board, each of whom had showrooms on the High Street where you could go to pay your bills. To pay the phone bill you went to the GPO. Days long gone.

[cassa333]

I would nationalise them but not have a politician go within a mile of them. Politicians are not capable of running business. They are all one hit wonders with a view of making a name for themselves and in any case should be spending their time running the country and generally picking up expenses

Let proper, bona fide business people run it. If they don't make enough profit to put back into the national coffers they get canned. But politics shouldn't be allowed to interfere unless there is something wrong.

[Haggisdj]

Before the buses and trains wer privatised they timetables all matched. You could get off a bus and onto another bus or a train. In some instances now you have to wait up to fifty minutes for a connecting bus.

[modeller]

Can anyone tell me a state owned organisation that doesn't cost the taxpayer a fortune. ? Anyone who works for the state will tell you of gross inefficiency and waste , the NHS is possibly the worse .
A friend of mine who worked for a drug company told me the cost of the same drug varied widely . e g from £10 TO £180 for the same 56 tablets, . Same packet , same company . The only difference was the NHS Trust .