Labour nationalisation is absurd
It takes a special type of insanity for the Labour Party to state that it wishes to re-nationalise the railways, energy suppliers and the Royal Mail.
In the 50 years the railways were nationalised passenger usage fell by 20 per cent and freight carried decreased by 50 per cent.
In the 20 years of privatisation the railways have doubled the passengers carried and freight has increased by 50 per cent.
The reason the trains are so overcrowded is that the private train companies have been too successful in attracting customers.
The so-called high rail fares are a construct of the media, where they report walk-up fares instead of advance ticket prices which are comparable to those in Europe. UK is better at yield management, selling cheap tickets on empty trains and expensive ones on full trains. To put to bed another myth, the train companies make only about three per cent profit on average per year.
By nationalising the energy market, prices will sky rocket as the energy market will be inefficiently run by the state.
State corporations are inefficient because the corporation leaders are not business people but a chance created for one to be paid. The point that the managers did not invest even a single pound, breeds the ‘I don’t care’ attitude ‘provided I’m paid’.
Private companies in a competitive market are quick at innovating to improve customer service. I’ve changed energy suppliers easily and done my research in getting cheap deals with a fixed price.
If some people are too idle to do any research and stay on a standard variable rate, that’s their fault not the energy suppliers’ market.
The privatisation of the Royal Mail has allowed it to raise capital to invest in new technology, which is needed with more online shopping and to compete with its rivals such as TNT.
Of course one of the major disadvantages of nationalising any business is that any improvement in service or infrastructure is limited to how well the UK economy is doing. The rail, energy and mail companies are owned by global corporations that are not affected by local economic recessions in separate countries and can invest in their infrastructure and customer service all the time.
Joe Egginton, Wolverhampton
