An open letter to Sir Keir Starmer on public ownership

Profits impair patient care.

Profits to the greedy mean less for the needy.

Profit is a 4 letter word.

Fully support this letter. Without doubt private ownership of public service does not work in the public interest, it only works for shareholders and pension funds or hedge funds abd often foreign owned ones at that!

Together with strong local democracy

I support public ownership. As someone who voted for Keir Starmer as Labour Leader, I voted for his pledges - for the policies he promised to pursue. Not for someone who abandoned those pledges as soon as convenient.

Public goods are not a profit proposition.

We need public services to be run by the government for the good of the public, rather than for profit. Most of our services are totally unsuited to be operated by means of competition. What we're currently seeing in the energy industry demonstrates how important it is not to let the profit motive be the main factor considered by energy firms. I expect our government to protect us from fluctuations in price and supply, and nationalising energy would be an appropriate response to the present situation. Water and transport are two of many other sectors which should be managed by the government.

I back public ownership so that it doesn’t fall into the hands of private companies who are all about profit.

Public ownership is a no brainer!

I am a Labour member and councillor. Public ownership is central to public wellbeing and must be core policy.

Enough is enough the vast majority are having to put up with poor service at high cost to the financial benefit of the greedy parasitic few.

Public ownership of essential utilities is a must. It saves money, and the government can be held directly accountable, which is much more democratic than utility companies (some foreign-owned) being accountable to their shareholders.

Unfortunately, this letter might as well be addressed to Boris Johnson for all the good it will do as regards the present leader of the Labour Party. Keir Starmer would probably like to see the replacement of funding from the trade unions and the links with them weakened or ended. He would definitely want any idea of rightful common ownership of public services smashed. Having said that, the team at 'We Own It' are doing a great job to express what the mass of taxpayers actually believe, despite media and political misrepresentation.

It's a no-brainer. Why are Labour dragging their heels about this?

We must have publicly owned, well funded services. If the pandemic has show us anything it is that profit for profits sake is counter to the well-being of the country as a whole. Time to put these back at the top of the agenda.

Obviously.

Private ownership of utilities is an offensive corruption of our democracy. It must be stopped by a truly Socialist Government.

I have followed privatisation since its inception. I always thought it was a bad idea - after all, why invest in a new enterpise when you can invest in a monopoly flogged off at a discount with guaranteed profits because of its essential nature (water, power, etc). No wonder the country is underinvested. Then flogged off the the highest - usually non-British - bidder. So much for "Sovereignty'! How many privatised Building Societies - turned into Banks - still exist ? Almost none. How much self-regulation has succeeded long term ? - virtually none. How many scandals have we had ?- endless. Deregulation gave us the Banking /Credit crisis, and Grenfell.

Enough - time to be sensible and work for the general good, not private gain.

Industries and services critical to the running of the country should be in public ownership.

We need fully-functioning, fully funded public services, otherwise BIG BUSINESS will ransom us until we have parted with everything we own, while the wealthy will syphon off their riches to tax havens.

WAKE UP AND SERVE THE COUNTRY - WE EXPECT YOU TO DO WHAT THE PUBLIC NEED AND EXPECT.

Such a shame Starmer was elected Labour leader. He has abandoned all of Labour’s policies and the pledges he made when he was running for Leader. Starmer, Rayner and Nandy have all abandoned true Labour.

You need to get your hands off our NHS and our Buses and everything else otherwise when you need them you won’t be able to use them

Public ownership was and remains the way to ensure services and care for us all

At least pledge to restore the concept of Public Service at the heart of our social agencies

Saddly Starmer is a tory, no disguise needed.

Voted Labour all my life, 68 now but sadly, I can't support this imposter.

Wonderful but , as far as the NHS is concerned we need more . The Tories are far down the road of selling it off. Privatisation is spreading existentially & Keir Starmer is going to have to become as passionate about this as us (in a non barrister way!) Heart on sleeve at the Conference please !

I couldn't agree more with the contents of Cat's letter and the importance of getting this message to the Labour leader. If the Labour Party will not push for public ownership, who will? My concern since the change of Labour leadership was that, as with the travesty of a "Labour" under Blair, it would become Conservatism Lite. Britain already, god help us, has a Conservative party; it doesn't need another. It needs a bold alternative, and public ownership has to be part of that vision.

Starmer, by not emphasising, even ignoring, the importance of public ownership you are not representing the people who voted for you. It's continually being eroded. Stand up and fight for it!

Privatisation must be stopped by this corrupt government. They have no right stealing and selling off OUR things, that is THEFT and they should be held accountable.

Ignore the fond hope rhetoric from the far left (they are responsible for the obscene strength of the current Government.) Put simply, utilities should not be in private hands :they are monopolies. In spite of the reassuring Tory posters, the NHS is crumbling in their hands and the privatising vultures are catching the bits.

I Endorse this

We need public ownership to help solve many huge problems in the UK at the moment

The privateers are harvesting what is left of public assets.

I’ve written to Kier Starmer 3 times. He won’t listen.sadly he’s as bad as Boris.

Never felt as let down never voted Tory never will but feel I can’t vote for the Labour as it is now.

He’s just bull headed along with the right and centrists of the party. Or as I call them k**bh**ds

Vital services should be run by and for the people.

Services for the people not for the private sector.

Privatisation makes profit for the rich, and little else. The economic books can only balanced through investment in infrastructure, education, and innovation, not short-term sell-off of public assests. Germany makes its own steel that goes into its own cars. This is investment, not sell-off. We, on the otherhand, no longer have a car industry nor a steel industry to talk of.

Dear Sir Keir, Please read this letter and take it on board as your next brief. These policies are the reason so many people joined the Labour party recently. Not for Corbyn as a person but for the aims laid out in this letter. I fear you will lose the support, electoral and financial, of very many if you disenfranchise us from electing the party leader. You should glory in the fact that so many people were able to vote for you. Don't listen to those of your advisers who want to return to the bad old days.

Have confidence in youself, don't let the party drift back to trying to attract the haves, its the havenots who need you.

I have voted Labour since 1964, I have eleven grandchildren from two to twenty, I fear greatly for their futures if the privatisation of the country is not curbed and reversed.

do you really want us to be like the US for healthcare, where only the well off can get high quality care, and the rest queue for days for whatever free care is available. where health insurance basically depends on not being really ill, when they can turn you down for not dying quickly enough? where people who thought they were safe because they had insurance found out that insurance is aimed at not having to pay out? we all use the NHS, pay for it, and need it. having been privatised several times at work, I can tell you it actually cost the council more to run a department through a greedy private company than it is to run it themselves. as we have seen, selling off utilities like water and energy have dropped us into the appalling situation we are now. for reasons of economy as well efficiency and control of prices, they should be publicly owned and run. anything else is inefficient and ends up costing more

One of the many problems of privatisation (say, of the railways) is that passengers never quite know for sure WHO they are dealing with, who to comment to when things go wrong (or right), etc. In other words, privatisation disenfranchises the passengers. In the good old bad old days, we always knew it was British Rail who were ultimately responsible, and we were able to approach them to get problems sorted.

I agree 100% with all comments made so far.

The Tories sold off the family silver now it's time to take it back. Any profits made by these companies should be plough back in to the country.then people would play a little bit less tax.

Although it is impossible, and it makes no sense, for the NHS to provide every one of its immense number of services from inhouse resources, we must resist the taking over by private, especially American-owned, companies, of NHS services purely for profit, with no advantage to either efficiency or economy, or benefit to the patient.

I was sent by my GP to two such organisations, one for muscular-skeletal problems and one to help me stave off type 2 Diabetes. Both were clearly under-funded, poorly organised and entirely dependent on the good will of some of their more able and dedicated staff, together with some useful literature (haphazardly available) to be of any use at all. It was clear to me that I that I was no longer in the hands of a serious, competent, vastly experienced, publicly owned and publucly accountable body. I was in a shifting world of fly-by-night business deals, focused on profits and only partially connected with medical outcones, on a tick-box, 'this will do' level. If a less well paid, lower-level'operative' can 'seem' to do the job, let him or her replace the fully-trained one with years of experience. All we to do is to be able to tick boxes. And make sure staff do just what they are told to do. Don't give them the opportuniy to develop an independent ethos which puts good medical service and the patient first. Keep changing staff and rotas to avoid the creation of a professional team which insists on professional values. Get rid of staff whenever possible, especially the more costly, experienced and better trained ones, with minds and standards of their own

Thus we have achieved a second-tier service for the ordinary man, woman and child. If you need anything, better, you'll have to pay for it. And, of course, using profits made from not providing a decent service to NHS patients, we can now offer you, silver, gold or even platinum levels of medical care at our prestige private clinics. And if anything goes wrong in one of the luxury sites, as can and does happen, we can always rely on the superior emergency resources and expertise of the NHS to bail us out.

This is the brave new world that the current Tory health bill is taking us to.

Resisting must be a top priority,

Michael Phelan