#privatise

[nicklloydnow]

Privatise everything

“As an example of why we can't have nice things, a campground in Scarborough will not be opening its beach on a private lake to the public because the public can't behave themselves.

In a post on their Facebook page on June 25, family-owned and operated Wassamki Springs Campground off Saco Street in Scarborough announced that for the second year in a row, they will not open their beach to the public and it will only be available for campers. The reason for closing to the public yet again is that many people who used the beach and were not campers were not cooperative with the rules of the campground.

Visitors would refuse to leave the beach at closing time, would throw their trash on the ground, swim to the island in the middle of the lake despite a sign that it was not allowed, and a list of several other discourteous acts that people would display.

(…)

There's not much I despise more than unruly guests acting like they own the place. Most of the people in the comments section of the post were in support of the decision, even if it was unfortunate. Again, this is why we can't have nice things. Follow the rules or someone will take their ball and go home. I don't blame them.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

England is the only country in the world to have fully privatised its water system in a move aimed at bringing investment into the sector. However, most companies have slashed capital investment in critical infrastructure by up to a fifth in the past 30 years, according to research by the Financial Times. Over the same period the companies — which were sold off with no debt and handed £1.5bn — have borrowed £53bn, the equivalent of about £2,000 per household. Much of that has been used not for new investment but to pay £72bn in dividends.

Gill Plimmer, Anglian Water pays £92mn dividend to owners as customer bills rise

[ladyvaderpixetc]

Jon Stewart, hitting the nail on the head once again.

[generalelectionmusings]

[thoughtportal]

Social Security and Medicare and debt Manufacturing consent

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

[vamprisms]

private medical care shouldn't exist. you shouldn't be able to pay to get better healthcare than others. poor people shouldn't have to die because their health isn't profitable. quality and consistent medical treatment should always be free

[thelandofbritain]

The Tories caused this pollution crisis by privatising our water utilities.

Shareholders make £millions while we have no clean rivers, lakes and beaches.

[weirdowithaquill]

What are Sir Topham Hatt’s (and the engines) opinion on how privatization was handled? When I read about it, I always think how absurd it was to keep the track nationalized, but let other companies run the goods trains, then different run the passenger trains. It is a spaghetti mess. Sodor had the right idea to yoink the old Furness mainline.

Thank you for your ask! (and I'm really sorry for the long wait). This is actually going to be really fun to potentially answer, so let's see...

Officially, the NWR regards privatisation as: "an important milestone in Britain's railway history and the beginning of cooperation between the NWR and our partner railways throughout Great Britain." It's a very prim and proper way of saying "the only thing that changed was the name of the idiot company that keeps delaying our trains." In private however, reactions were very, very different.

For a few engines, it meant very little: Thomas in particular barely cared at all. "What'll change? Not my branchline, that's for sure!" he once snapped at Duck when the Western engine tried to goad him into ranting with him about privatisation. Duncan said something very similar to a visiting diesel, only his version was far too inappropriate to be put in writing. Ever.

In stark contrast, a lot of the engines had very loud opinions about the entire thing. Duck spent most of one night trying to tell anyone who would listen that it was "disgraceful, disgusting and despicable" that the GWR hadn't been reformed after privatisation. (Henry, James and Gordon had to be physically restrained by BoCo and Bear before they tore Duck a new funnel for stealing their catchphrases). Donald and Douglas both tried to convince the Fat Controller to send them to London to 'politely make a case for a fully independent Scottish network'... multiple times. They also managed to say such inappropriate things that Oliver had to double-head all of Douglas' trains for a month to act as a censor for his language!

Gordon decided to offer the press his own solution to the privatisation issue, which went something like this: "What we need, is four companies to look after trains in different parts of the country - like we used to." "Like the Big 4?" "Indeed!" "We can't do that, such a system is considered to be a monopoly, and the government won't allow it." "Alright then, how about this: we have one railway that runs in the North and the East... and down to London perhaps. Then we can also have one railway that runs in the Midlands, and in Scotland... and also down to London perhaps, so you have your competition. Then we could have a railway that is in the West, and one in the South-" "Like the Big 4?" "No! These companies would be completely different!" "Look, Gordon, the government has made it very clear that the Big 4 will not return." "Well then FUCK JOHN MAJOR AND ALL THE TORY PARTY! [...] There would be competition anyway, with the roads, don't those blithering idiots understand?! [...] If any of them took a train for once, they'd realise just how bloody stupid the whole thing is, the bunch of------" (About twenty minutes worth of ranting has been omitted, due to various constraints...)

It was no surprise to anyone that Gordon personally campaigned for the Labour Party in 1997.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Sir Stephen Hatt and his sister Bridget were frantically pouring over the old charters of the NWR, hoping to be able to keep the new companies off Sodor - and indeed they found they could, as a 1925 Government deal originally intended to keep the NWR independent of the LMS also (entirely by accident) meant that no private, standard-gauge railway company other than the NWR could operate on the Isle of Sodor. Sir Stephen happily shoved that document in parliament's face when they tried to privatise the NWR's various assets, and then got his deal for the Furness Line from a different parliament committee before anyone could cross-reference him. By the time anyone managed to question why exactly they were selling an entirely railway line to a man who had very loudly told them to 'shove off and leave my railway alone', Sir Stephen had already taken control.

Their opinion: "Why treat a railway like its an airline? Honestly, it'll just wind up causing more problems in the end. A railway is a public good - yes, it makes us a lot of money, but we still run it for the people of Sodor, not for - no, we don't know why they divided British Rail like that, it makes no sense to us either - please stop asking more questions before we can finish our thoughts."

Also, a small rather large side note - Britain's railway privatisation is a complex and very unique affair that really showcases how exactly not to privatise a railway network. For example: for around seven years, the railway infrastructure was owned by a private company called RailTrack... which was terrible at doing its job and caused a number of major railway accidents (See Hatfield, 2000; Southall, 1997; Ladbroke Grove, 1999) and then panicked after the Hatfield crash and basically shut the network down, leading to questions over its competence and the finally its re-nationalisation because - surprise surprise - a private company trying to produce profits really shouldn't be in charge of the safety of millions of people with almost no proper accountability. Worse yet, the monopolies that the Tories wanted to avoid by breaking up the system happened anyway - see EWS, which bought up almost all the freight franchises and created a monopoly, only to be bought by Deutsche Bahn, which created an even bigger monopoly as it also owned (at the time) Arriva (they sold Arriva in 2024). To worsen the spaghetti, the system was divided into three basic sections: the infrastructure (RailTrack), Train Operating Companies (who owned the trains) and Franchises (who ran the trains and hired staff). In other words: a ticket in the UK is so expensive because you are paying for: the train crew, renting the train, renting the track, renting the platforms and producing profits for shareholders.

Oh, and suddenly freight and passenger trains owned by different companies are all competing to have priority at every. single. signalbox. in the country.

Now, I am not an expert in fixing extremely broken railway systems, but even still, I feel like I could probably do better than this mess!

Thank you for reading!

[bloggingboutburgers]

Je suis contente pour toi :3

J'espère que ça vas mieux depuis qu'on c'est parler. Tu as finis aromantic love story finalement ?

Il y a des yuri ou elles sont ace comme dans la belle et la racaille et l'amour au menu qui sortent chez Akata

Heyyy ! Ça va un peu mieux déjà oui, merci TwT J'espère que tu vas bien aussi !

Je n'ai pas encore fini Aromantic Love Story (je suis méga-lente) mais j'ai la pile de mangas à côté de moi sur mon lit, c'est mon objectif de lecture du mois èwé (...Sérieusement je suis beaucoup trop lente)

Merci aussi pour les autres recos, je suis très difficile sur mes lectures donc pour le coup je ne suis pas sûre d'y jeter un œil super-vite pour être très honnête TwT Mais c'est toujours bon à savoir !

Et oui, je vais à la Japan Expo cette année, on sera au stand S662 avec Better Together comme d'habitude^^

Pour la pride... Peut-être ! Y en a qu'une seule jusqu'à présent dans laquelle je me sens à l'aise, la Pride des banlieues de Saint-Denis, c'est typiquement le genre de pride qui coche mes cases de "less like a party, more like a protest" et où les gens que j'y voient risquent moins d'intimider et plus de résonner avec la sex-repulsed que je suis... Bon après je ne suis pas allée à énormément de prides, ça me rassure jamais non plus (again, le côté sex-repulsed qui ne facilite pas les choses parfois), mais celle-là me parle énormément.

Après... Ouaip, c'est très personnel dans l'ensemble. Donc c'est juste mon expérience!

[probablyasocialecologist]

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has found that United Utilities can be held to account for the damage caused by sewage discharges. The ruling has set a watershed precedent which now breaks the shield around polluting water companies – leaving them open to a potential deluge of legal action. This major win comes after we supported the Environmental Law Foundation in a case the water company launched in 2018.

2 July 2024

[kropotkindersurprise]

March 3, 2023 - Thousands of protesters angry about the deadly train crash, that was caused by privatisation and government inaction and killed 56 people, took to the street, clashed with police and burned a cop car in Athens, Greece. [video]/[video]

[nando161mando]

[tweetingukpolitics]

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

Today I got to send the lovely message of "I'm not pregnant, no one is pregnant, not even the dogs, and the same true for adoption. I am so unpregnant, google is refusing to show me something related to pregnancy. Would you, as a newly mommed mom, do me a favor and see if you get results for custom birth announcement cards?" to a friend.

In other news, I'm thinking of starting a petition where German mail carriers deliver mail based on city name, street name and number, rather than zip code and the exact spelling of name on the letterbox, because I've just seen the price of having to inform 30+ people that my wife is giving up her maiden name after a decade of marriage. And it took several years to inform them that, no, the postman will chuck your Christmas card if you don't put the full legal name of all the persons on the address line.