Jeremy Corbyn

[Suff]

What Labour achieved is historical, yes, but it is important in understanding what it did to their voting base.

Simply put their achievements removed a lot of their traditional voters from their support base. So to appeal to those voters they needed to move more to the right. Exactly where they put these voters in the first place.

If Corbyn tries to move more to the left, he'll get back the more left leaning one's but lose ALL of the right leaning one's.

Personally I'm quite in favour of that. It reflects the reality of the current UK population demographics vis a vis core Labour values....

[Workingman]

If Corbyn tries to move more to the left, he'll get back the more left leaning one's but lose ALL of the right leaning one's.

Or maybe not. Polls over the past few years have been consistent with 2/3 of the public backing renationalisation in some form for energy, railways, water and the mail service. UKIP and Labour voters are higher at about 70%, but even some Conservatives, possibly the ex Labour voters, are also for it.

It Corbyn wins a lot will depend on how far and how quickly Labour moves back to the left. There is a lot still to play for as the other three are not liked by a lot of Labour supporters and the general public.

[Suff]

Well lots of people like the idea of getting something for nothing. But, honestly, nationalisation without compensation is nothing more than theft on a grand scale. In reality all the nationalisations in the UK were done at above market value except where the government rescued insolvent companies and there everyone had already lost.

It's a nice sounding fairy story but most people, when they come down to it, will realise that nationalisation is nothing more than the Government buying out the utilities at a price the market sets and nationalisation is a sellers market so the government always pays top price. It has been long enough that people have forgotten just how inefficient those nationalised entities were.

The last nationalisations without compensation I heard about were in Argentina, where they "nationalised" the Spanish Oil assets. As I recall our Labour government, plus half the world, called it "theft".

Of course the EU would try to block it and I'd like that battle. But I would not pay the cost of a left wing Labour party in power to do it.

[TheOstrich]

..... nothing more than theft on a grand scale.

Sounds good to me! Government's been doing it to us for years through taxes and national insurance, so why balk at renationalisation?

Of course the EU would try to block it and I'd like that battle.

The threat of renationalisation without compensation could be an interesting bargaining chip if the EU don't renegotiate on freedom of movement, the ECHR and all the other things we need to get rid of ....

[Workingman]

Renationalisation does not have to be a something-for-nothing deal, there are many ways and many forms of nationalisation out there. Take EDF in France as one example. It is 80% owned by the French state, but operates as a commercial enterprise. In the UK Lloyds and RBS are also part state owned, as was Royal Mail at one time.

The railways, as I pointed out earlier, could become state owned once the franchises run out. The franchises were put out for tender over a number of years and the winners hoped to make money over that time. Once their time is up there is no need to renew - from both sides.

With energy the state could build the new generation plants when the others reach their end of life. Government can get more capital finance at cheaper rates and for longer periods than any of the Big Six. The government would own the means of production with the current companies becoming suppliers.

I cannot for the moment work out how to renationalise the water utilities outside of market rates, and I have no clue as to what they might be. As so many of them are not fit for purpose I assume not much.

The old Royal Mail was sold at a song and is now trading at £5 per share. That would be an expensive buy-back, costing approximately £3bn, but the SNP and others see it as an essential public service, so who knows.

[Suff]

It might at that Ossie, but then the EU might just decide to call our bluff so we'd have to be willing to go through with it, to the tune of spending hundreds of millions on setting up the process. It might be worth it in the end, but it would not be cheap.

WM, the rail argument is only partial. East Coast was already bankrupt so the Government could take over in that way. But the rest of them are not and the operators own the rolling stock. So the government would be forced to either purchase the existing rolling stock from the companies or buy new. This was the huge issue with the initial nationalisation by the Labour Government post war. The rail network had been left without real upgrades during the war years and the rationing and implacable determination of Labour to "break the class barrier" did not create the environment for investment which would not show a return. So they paid top whack for old and clapped out trains and infrastructure. Which is never a good bargain.

I could understand the initial nationalisation. The entire infrastructure of the UK needed to be refreshed and updated after the war years. The only body with the money to do that was the Government. However I could understand a Government only being willing to spend that money if they were to be the beneficiaries of the revenue it created.

What nobody allowed for is the "government" factor for people who work. If you work for the government, there is no profit calculation when it comes to wages. Just inflation and "want". I Want is about all you hear in negotiations between the state and state workers. Simply put they can be held to ransom by strikes because they are not going to go bust. So what if the services wind up costing tax money instead of creating tax money? What do they care?

France is another situation entirely. Germany, for 5 years, took over everything in France, ran the railways, electricity etc. Simply put they only put in what they needed and if it didn't suit the French then the French went without. At the end of the war France was in such a mess, financially as well as socially, that the Government had no choice but to hold things in the state. Notably the socialist governments in France have decided to hold these utilities in the state because they provide a useful vehicle for buying out the rest of the utilities in the EU...

I'm no fan of nationalisation. Mainly because of the way workers think when they work for nationalised companies. Especially today when the "pride" of being British and having good British services is almost non existent in the UK youth.

[cromwell]

If Corbyn gets in I wonder if we'll end up queueing five hours to buy a toilet roll, a la Venezuela?

[Workingman]

If Corbyn gets in I wonder if we'll end up queueing five hours to buy a toilet roll, a la Venezuela?

Calm down. There at thousands of boxes of unread manifestoes, from all parties, waiting to be used up.

[Workingman]

WM, the rail argument is only partial. East Coast was already bankrupt so the Government could take over in that way. But the rest of them are not and the operators own the rolling stock. So the government would be forced to either purchase the existing rolling stock from the companies or buy new.

No so. Most of the rolling stock is leased from Rolling Stock Companies who are also responsible for the heavy maintenance and overhauling of the vehicles.

But imagine if someone like Virgin owning the rolling stock. What would they do with it once their franchise was up? Scrap it? That would be a disastrous business practice. Sell it overseas to a third world operator? It is possible, providing export licences could be obtained, but either way there would be a huge financial loss. Maybe they could sell them to the already set up Directly Operated Railways who took over the East Coast line, but there would be hard negotiations over the price.

As for working practices in public sector companies; times have changed. Maggie broke the Unions good and proper, then brought in legislation to curtail such things as walk-outs, pickets and wildcat strikes. Had that not happened we would have seen massive strikes over the past few years when public sector pay rises have been pegged at 1%. Unions, such as the RMT, have found a way around some of Maggie's legislation so the new government is to bring in rules that at least 51% of members must take part in any ballot - and then win. Things in the public sector are nothing like how they used to be.

[Suff]

Hmmm, got that wrong didn't I. Although the government might find it more expensive than the independents to lease... Or maybe cheaper if they were inventive. But since when were Labour ever inventive except with taxes and spending money?

Massive renationalisation would lead to many of the bad practises which predated Maggies time. Labour would not put in real legislation to stop it either. Leaving the Tories to "do the dirty" all over again.

So Government could take the trains as the contracts expire, although Scotland has just given a 10 year contract for Scotrail. They could build power stations but they're not going to as it would cost too much. The rest of the utilities? They'd have to pay for them and a comparison with private and public ownership does not really show that a great benefit in either cost or efficiency would result.