Would nationalisation of key sectors lead to better service and lower prices?

Interview with Dr Steve McCabe, politics expert.

Transcript

00:00Well, the history of nationalisation, it sort of came in the post-war period, well of course

00:08most people won't, but the view of the government was that private enterprise was somewhat disparate

00:13and of course the idea of bringing organisations together, a really good example of this would

00:17be British Rail as was, or National Rail as we know it today, separate rail companies

00:22but of course there were lots of inefficiencies, you put it together and then the whole belief

00:26was of course you sort of run it in the national interest, but the problem was of course many

00:32sort of nationalised industries became stodgy, I've mentioned sort of British Rail, it was

00:35sort of a byword for inefficiency, perhaps if I also mention a company called British

00:41Lightning which was lots of separate companies that were put together and of course British

00:44Lightning was beset by sort of poor products, poor industrial relations and Margaret Thatcher

00:49who of course was very much a sort of a product of the sort of the monetarism, well of course

00:54that was her ideology, she came to power in 79, in an election where she proclaimed that

00:58of course free enterprise was the way forward, so sort of getting rid of sort of nationalised

01:03industries was the sort of the belief and indeed sort of all the utilities or many of

01:07the utilities, British Gas was an early sort of victim but was a product of this and as

01:15was British Lightning was sold off and indeed very few of the sort of the nationalised industries

01:21survived this process and of course they ended up in sort of private speculative sort

01:27of investors hands, originally of course you know the idea was it was supposed to be about

01:31sort of shareholders, you know we'd be a shareholder of democracy, so the shares were sold to us

01:36as individuals as a sort of discount, but of course very quickly people sold them off

01:40indeed some sold more or less immediately, made a profit which of course they thought

01:44was good, but then of course the sort of the big corporate entities they took control,

01:49so now we have a sort of a situation where sort of many of the things that we sort of

01:52take for granted, perhaps water is the sort of the best example, we cannot survive without

01:56water but of course it's in the hands of sort of companies.