Tell us what you think

Try taking action against a government department when they have behaved illegally. Why is it that it takes so long to receive justice when a supposedly accountable government body is involved? Politicians of all parties immediately act against private bodies because they have nothing to lose whereas public bodies are protected.

Land Registry takes ridiculous amoounts of time to register properties.

Those who died in the Sheffield Liverpool match received no justice.

Grenfell victims tried to complain before they died in a fire caused by goverment failures.

The list is endless. It takes decades to get compensation for haemophiliacs given contaminated blood.

Hi. I'm 89. I knew when Thatcher was in power. They had no legal right to sell our Utilities. . Government owns Nothing. We the People invested all our lives. In using our Utilities.

But it is difficult. To stop Capitalists stealing What is Not theirs.

We are not a Democracy. We are controlled by Capitalists. In all Political Parties.

I am sick to death of hearing about all the massive profits these private companies are making and the huge bonuses that are being given to the CEOs and shareholders. It is time everything that was publicly owned is once more publicly owned. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

My lovely neighbours tell me, from their daily reading of the Daily Mail, that everything the Labour Party says is lies and that I am stupidly believing these lies and actually the government is doing a brilliant job and growing the economy means I will have double my old age pension any time soon. We must shoot down these lies

I am all for nationalising the utilities, including Bulb, but to suggest nationalising Bulb will lead to lower prices is wrong, unlike EDF (in France), Bulb is not and energy generator, they are an energy seller. Even in public hands they would still have to by leccy and gas on the open markets. Only by nationalising UK gas and energy production could prices be brought down.

EDF - I moved into an over 55's flat, informed EDF and received no acknowledgement. I received bills in the name of previous tenant but none in my name, despite having written to inform EDF. Years ago, before electricity was privatized, there were meter readers; you moved into a new flat, informed the local electricity board and someone would be round to read the meter - simple. Our local electricity board in Walthamstow is now flats. Three years after I moved in, someone from EDF actually came round ! He quoted the name of the previous tenant of the flat...nothing he said indicated they knew the tenancy had changed hands. The bill I received was for £900. Having done some renegotiation, assisted by Clarion Housing, Landlords, the bill was quoted as £600. This I duly paid by instalments. EDF were supposed to fit a "smart meter" but it has never worked ! My flat is very small and very warm and I'm lucky not to feel the cold so quite how the original bill was £900 I'll never know!

I'm an Octopus customer. I like Octopus, they're a decent enough company, I raise an issue, they deal with it, but they seemed to struggle after "adopting" 250,000 customers a while back.

My bills were just not right. At first, they assured me they were, but eventually they had to concede that my "Smart" meter wasn't communicating properly. I benefited, in that I was being less than I owed, but imagine, had someone living on the financial edge been billed low, and been obliged to repay a shortfall? As it is, I've doubled my monthly payments this year and am about to raise the payment beyond that...

Really a good company, I like them, but I fear they haven't got the resources to handle another 250,000? customers, and...they need public money to do it?

Their billing is fairly opaque too. They take money from my positive balance at odd times, not simply monthly, and it makes my life difficult analyzing my costs per month. With BG, a company I hate with a vengeance at least that analysis was simple... And...I cannot separate out the cost of charging my electric car from the "general" electrical cost. I have to trust the car's data, displayed quite simply on the dash. Would be handy to have Octopus' data separated out for comparison...

I've just read the piece by Cat Hobbs in the Guardian regarding current Labour policy towards public ownership and agree wholeheartedly with the comments. I now live in Austria where nearly all the public services are still owned by the State. Not even the Austrian Tories (OEVP) would contemplate privatising although they taken some small steps in that direction. I hope that is all it is.

At dinner the other night, I spoke with a friend who had just installed solar panels on his roof to generate electricity. He will shortly have power for nothing and hopes to sell any surplus to the grid. To my mind, this is a perfect example of what a 'green' utility owned by the State could help out with by providing grants and advice whilst helping to grow the green economy. Other householders could get together and supply houses in the area forming a self sufficient hub of power generation. Simples, right?

Keep up the good and important work.

D.

While I personally agree with a vast majority of arguments against privatisation of UK's public services while at the same time improving the level of efficiency of management of these and reducing the waste of public money, I also believe that only essential public services should remain public which includes infrastructure, health and education.

To go even further, most if not all already privatised public services should be reverted back to become public, including for example trains, communication infrastructure and care for people with learning disabilities.

Having said that, television including Channel 4 and BBC do not count as essential public services with the exception of parts of BBC responsible for education, culture (in educational sense) and information (BBC News) mission. Please do not push for these to remain public as we are talking about taxpayers money spent on entertainment programs at the benefit of people watching these but at the expense of everyone else.

I didn't send letter because this is Islington North,they know. Every time there is a gov reorg of the NHS eg. 2012 they are sneakily bringing it ever closer to a US model. I bet the money they profess to spend on NHS is also used to build and establish an ever increasing number of private facilities. Is this a losing battle.?. The Euroean model where the state runs non profit insurane scheme with built-in protections worth studying. Campaigning for this could achieve more and alarm a profiteering greedy govt. Campaigning for something rather than reacting and never catching up with gov's machinations.

I am partially sighted

It's much worse

“Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation.   Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.  When, through process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of the government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers.   These truths are well known among our principal men, who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world.   By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance.   It is thus, by discrete action, we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.”

Montagu Norman – Governor of the Bank of England – addressing the United States Bankers’ Association, New York City, 1924

Scary

You say "privatisation is not wrong per se", well it is when applied to strategic requirements of the UK nationally, or people individually, in terms of services/goods essential to life. I never imagined that water, energy, rail, housing (selling off of council houses), health care would ever be privatised, I thought the public would not stand for it. However offer shares at a low enough price, or houses at about half price or so, and thoughts of the future consequences were ignored. Very sad what people can be bribed to do.

All energy companies must be under UK government so that it should be make as cheaper and the profits should go the government not into the private hands.....thanks.

It's time that the public had a say in energy suppliers and our water companies

I am fully in agreement about public services being run for the good of the country rather than for private profit.

I would, however, stipulate that they should be run independently of micro-management by any Government and not interfered with for political advantage.

Any Government should only be allowed to make general guidance as to the way the service is run.

These shysters would sell off their own children. Absolutely devoid of integrity.

Thank you for the presentation today. It was clear and easy to follow. In principle I agree with nationalisation and socialism. I live in Wales where the only water supplier available in Welsh Water who claim to be a not for profit organisation however the prices are still high and we still have a big sewerage discharge problem. Obviously there is some kind of corruption going on and I think you would strengthen your case if you could point to this as one of the possible dangers of nationalisation and explain measures that could be put in place to root this out.

Hi. To be paying the same amount,. We must all be taxed. 1 percent of our earnings. NO OPT OUT BY THE WEALTHIEST.

I believe in public ownership for all utilities, buses, trains, NHS etc

My only proviso is that union power should be partially curtailed by law to prevent the excesses of the 70s

1. Wonderful that you exist.

2. Glad to discover you.

3. Disgusted with uk political corruption I joined the throng exiting Britain last year. I think that if you target British Expats in the EU, like me, you will gain further support.

We are still entitled to vote in UK national elections..... M

Because I get the bus to my local swimming pool for much needed exercise I have to put profit into other peoples pockets. I'd like to do it more often but can't because the shareholders (who can afford all the exercise in the world) need more profit. The cost of getting into the swimming pool for one hour for myself is £4.60! It's only a 25 metre lane pool. How much of that is for the shareholders

I am an historian of public welfare and modern states. The ‘battle’ to build welfare-states which enshrine the rights of individuals to basic rights of security and protection in poverty, old-age, and sickness took centuries. In this country, the outcome was one of the greatest achievements of the modern period - a free and universal National Health Service delivering care to all, without regard to income. We are by stealth and secrecy losing our NHS as private companies colonise it for profit. To go further down the American path would be truly epic and disastrous for all.

I was in hospital with a broken hip at Christmas 2020. It was awful, Covid was rampant, after 2 days visitors were banned. We were alone with the staff... Everyone from the tea ladies upwards were worked to the bone. There was little time for nurses to socialise and because the staff were stretched to breaking point, patients were sometimes ignored for longer than was comfortable. Wearing masks made communications difficult, particularly for the seriously ill, elderly, deaf or demented. Jobs have been split up so that some of the people who make the frequent temp, blood pressure, sugar etc tests, have no authority and were so busy keeping track of their tasks, that they have no time to find someone with authority and pass on any patients requests or queries. These tests are the very important monitoring of patient progress or decline. And I was shocked to find out these important people were being paid below the living wage!

Many staff were off sick with Covid, the nurses said most of them had had it already, and were still experiencing side effects such as loss of sense of smell many weeks after, and exhaustion. I was unable to have physio in the usual room set aside for it, as the hospital was so full that that room had very poorly people in it. Gradually Covid came closer and closer as each ward in turn got the infection. I was discharged in a hurry. not soon enough it turned out to prevent me bringing Covid home and giving it to my partner and youngest son and his wife. Some weeks later I found out that a lovely lady i had made friends with, also a broken hip patient, 91 BUT with all her marbles, also got Covid. After 2 weeks they sent her home. She lived alone. There was no adequate care package available. She died.

I haven't even mentioned the torn bed curtains, the lack of spare pillows, the atmosphere of panic and fear amongst the staff...

Lack of funding over years of neglect has led to a shortage of nursing staff, staff becoming victims of the pandemic due to lack of PPE, the toilets needing serious upgrading and modernisation...