Tefflon Tony Blair

[Xtractorfan]

Thatcher sold off the utilities and every other thing that wasn't nailed down, not to enhance the prospects of the ordinary citizen, but to improve the wealth of a few of her wealthy friends. This was a much more flagrant breach of power as it affected practically everyone in the country, and still does, Yet it never seems to get much press.

 

[davemercedes]

You're right - and many people who could not stump up the cash to buy shares in gas/electric/water companies - mainly because we needed the cash to pay for little luxuries like food and clothes for our kids etc were effectively robbed of our stakeholding as individual taxpayers. Along with a few other things of the time, this was just one of the items that can be summed up as the "unacceptable face of capitalism".

As a nation of all political shades today, we need to pay great attention to all such flagrant breaches of power. The behaviour of the present incumbent of No 10 who would do everything her own way if she could and uses every diversionary tactic available to move attention from her dictatorial manner (as borne out by the utter shambles of the Brexit Appeal Court and each of her "injustice" flag-waving crusades - whilst simultaneously denying the NHS is in crisis - because she might have to actually do something about it!) comes across to me as such a flagrant breach of power. Meanwhile this week there are companies forecasting bankruptcy due to the revisions in the business rate demands and the government denies there is anything wrong and is implying that the reports are untrue... "Enemy media" has a funny but familiare ring to it huh?

I hope I stay alive and "aware enough" for another for 10 years or so - that should be just long enough for her to sail off into the sunset and leave the taxpayer to pick up the mess - and just as the opinions of George Broom above, we will be able to see the judgment on Theresa May and her cronies ...as we pay for everything that went wrong - but then, what else is new?

 

[Frontstep]

Privatisation was a great con the countries assets were flogged off instead of being reformed in house.

The retreat of the water companies responsibilities from tap to boundary, the ludicrous situation of dozens of companies selling the same thing to the lesser known scandal of the nations defense intellectual property in Dera Quinteq going to the carlyle private equity group.

We have been royally shafted, repeatedly.

 

[JBell]

For Blair to lecture the British people about truth is an affront to memory, decency and reason

 

[Craiglxviii]

Privatisation was a great con the countries assets were flogged off instead of being reformed in house.

The retreat of the water companies responsibilities from tap to boundary, the ludicrous situation of dozens of companies selling the same thing to the lesser known scandal of the nations defense intellectual property in Dera Quinteq going to the carlyle private equity group.

We have been royally shafted, repeatedly.

The worst thing about the water companies was the removal of clearly defined and enforceable service standards. So profits were rolled out to shareholders rather than fixing leaks or otherwise maintaining infrastructure. I can remember very clearly a number of senior procurement meetings with Thames Water when the contractors I then worked for was doing work for them- replacing water mains and fitting new manhole covers. They insisted on having each manhole cover 3-D laser scanned in situ using the tech of the time (2006- nowhere near as far advanced as it is now) to determine if each specific manhole needed replacing, for instance. The scanning cost was greater than the manhole cover replacement itself, and when I pointed this out (the net costs were running at something like 140% over the original projected tender due to this at the time) there was an awkward silence, lots of side to side eye contact around the room, and only later did I find out that the laser scanning company was a minority shareholder with nasty fingers deep in several pies around Reading. Hmm.

QinetiQ is one that completely baffled me. Never mind privatizing it- ridiculous in itself- the rebranding alone cost £50 million.

 

[prwales]

Thatcher sold off the utilities and every other thing that wasn't nailed down, not to enhance the prospects of the ordinary citizen, but to improve the wealth of a few of her wealthy friends. This was a much more flagrant breach of power as it affected practically everyone in the country, and still does, Yet it never seems to get much press.

It gets no press because our "free press" consists of a few billionaires and the view of these tax fiddling rouges coincide with the views of owners of three of our main political parties.
When the chips are down even the pretend soft left Guardian says vote Liberal Dem. Barclay bros say vote Tory, Murdoch says vote Tory, Rothermere says vote Tory, Dirty Desmond says vote UKIP, but no one reads the Express so he doesn't matter that much. BBC is stuffed full of smug public school products that invariably tow the Establish line, the slight criticism our rulers ever get comes from Channel 4's Jon Snow and he won't last forever

 

[Yugguy]

like I've said before, imo public utilities and transport should be state owned and controlled.

 

[Craiglxviii]

like I've said before, imo public utilities and transport should be state owned and controlled.

Maybe not owned, but the state should have "some" form of whip hand in the say on how they're run. Example, French utilities are privatized but the government has a pretty significant say in the direction that those businesses must take in order to provide service levels.

 

[Frontstep]

Aah we have the mighty Ofgem Ofwat et al regulators of paperwork and self interest.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Aah we have the mighty Ofgem Ofwat et al regulators of paperwork and self interest.

Ofwat. Now there's interesting. Or not as the case may be. The look on their regulatory validation team's faces when we told them that they were presiding over the net loss every year of, from memory 9% of national potable water reserves, was priceless.

 

[Frontstep]

As I said regulators of self interest, theirs first

 

[Craiglxviii]

As I said regulators of self interest, theirs first

The first responsibility any public-mandated organization is either given, or self-assumes, is that of perpetrating itself out to infinity. Once that si taken on, then comes expansion. Only after those are considered do external interests (like customers) come in.

For a great example, see the BBC.

 

[prwales]

The first responsibility any public-mandated organization is either given, or self-assumes, is that of perpetrating itself out to infinity. Once that si taken on, then comes expansion. Only after those are considered do external interests (like customers) come in.

For a great example, see the BBC.

Its the rule of any bureaucracy I'd argue that many of our Nationalised Industries were run at a loss to subsidise other parts of the economy, Steel Coal and the Railways as obvious examples of this

http://www.economicshelp.org/macroeconomics/privatisation/nationalisation/

 

[AMGeed]

Google....... "Anthony Charles Lynton Blair + Miranda" for results.

I know this can't be public knowledge to everyone, but is it such a hot potato that nobody comments?

To save the trouble of using Google, I'll put this up for comment about dear Tony and his pal Brown.
Click and scroll past the photos for the dirt

 

[prwales]

I know this can't be public knowledge to everyone, but is it such a hot potato that nobody comments?

To save the trouble of using Google, I'll put this up for comment about dear Tony and his pal Brown.
Click and scroll past the photos for the dirt

Fairly well known stuff; Frank Beck was clearly a threat to Janner and Janner was very well connected. The security services love having people like this in their pockets as they are so controllable. Ask yourself why was Lord Tonypandy so docile as Speaker when Margaret Thatcher was pm, less obviously Betty Boothroyd has faced allegations that she's lesbian, no big deal today but 30 years ago..scandalous

 

[AMGeed]

Betty Boothroyd has faced allegations that she's lesbian,

Get away! You'll be telling us Ted Heath liked boys next

You are obviously more versed on the shady pasts of some of our ex and current MP's. The exposure of Mandelson, Blair and Brown however was news to me.

 

[Frontstep]

Its the rule of any bureaucracy I'd argue that many of our Nationalised Industries were run at a loss to subsidise other parts of the economy, Steel Coal and the Railways as obvious examples of this

http://www.economicshelp.org/macroeconomics/privatisation/nationalisation/

Most large organisations "cross subsidise" as looking at the whole for the long term makes sense.


Germany runs a very successful economy (which is in surplus) by realising that short term gains of shutting capacity or outsourcing does not always help long term.

Most of us now realise the folly of selling off the nations "silver" for often perceived short term gain.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Most large organisations "cross subsidise" as looking at the whole for the long term makes sense.

Germany runs a very successful economy (which is in surplus) by realising that short term gains of shutting capacity or outsourcing does not always help long term.

Most of us now realise the folly of selling off the nations "silver" for often perceived short term gain.

Running system analysis of a bussiness' economy is pretty much standard practice. A great example is Walmart, who always run significant loss-leaders at the entrance to a store, or Costco who only make 10% gross margin on 60% of their sales volume (and 15% on the rest)- and 2% net margin overall on sales, but with 65 million members worldwide, and a 90+% retention ratio, makes 98% of its profits from membership fees.

Germany was very smart (and ironically, it took their economy being hammered into the ground and then rebuilt to make them that smart) in how to best utilize its growing capacity. Rather than close or mothball plant, they would put it to other, less or non-profitable use just to keep it open. We could do well to follow that kind of example.

 

[Frontstep]

Running system analysis of a bussiness' economy is pretty much standard practice. A great example is Walmart, who always run significant loss-leaders at the entrance to a store, or Costco who only make 10% gross margin on 60% of their sales volume (and 15% on the rest)- and 2% net margin overall on sales, but with 65 million members worldwide, and a 90+% retention ratio, makes 98% of its profits from membership fees.

Germany was very smart (and ironically, it took their economy being hammered into the ground and then rebuilt to make them that smart) in how to best utilize its growing capacity. Rather than close or mothball plant, they would put it to other, less or non-profitable use just to keep it open. We could do well to follow that kind of example.

I can comment on Costco having stood beside its buyers at a trade show and buying from a friends company they were marking up 25% the norm was to double up.
The goods in question I saw on display in their Liverpool Warehouse sometime later.
They used to be cheap when they first opened not so much now.

 

[davemercedes]

I can comment on Costco having stood beside its buyers at a trade show and buying from a friends company they were marking up 25% the norm was to double up.
The goods in question I saw on display in their Liverpool Warehouse sometime later.
They used to be cheap when they first opened not so much now.

Quite frankly I find it's necessary to shop around for anything these days.

As you say, Costco seemed cheap at first but on a lot of stuff they just can't compete with chains like Tesco. We still do a shop there about once a month and I think we do okay on what we buy.

Over the last few years they were the "ace" supplier for TVs - good prices with a clincher of a truly superb in-house 5-year warranty and "concierge" service for problem solving (they both really work - I had to use it and was astounded to be refunded in full after two years - and we immediately spent the refund on another TV!).

But in January I decided to replace our TV before the dollar-driven anticipated increases and after shopping around we ended up buying an LG 4K "Smart" TV from Richer Sounds - it had the best price from searching on google and it's backed up by a SIX year in-house warranty (customer feedback shows this works well too)!

Years ago I had buying cards for a couple of "trade" warehouses in the East End of London - they offered some things at apparently fantastic prices but you really had to know what you were buying... and on a lot of branded items, they were generally no better than big chain stores.