The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, Mic09 said:

I live in a new built that had not even had a postcode available to wider public  when I ordered the internet. From the moment we ordered it took a week for engineer to come in, install 100mb internet and TV access with a phone line for £29 a month. 

But it's anecdotal. 

I'm not even sure of the point of your post.

The one to which you responded, pointed out that there are cases where things don't happen - he didn't say things cannot happen very quickly.

Indeed your two anecdotes set side by side would suggest that, at the extremes, there is a huge disparity. That's not a good thing.

Edited November 15, 2019 by snowychap

[snowychap]

11 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

To be fair, it's not all theoretical. We've already seen stage one where there are restrictions set by the government on how to view "adult content". Bloody Labour should never have natio...wait...

Indeed. The worry here that @Awol expresses is not unfounded at all.

I don't think the physical infrastructure provision and the service provision need to be looked at in the same way, though.

[blandy]

6 hours ago, snowychap said:

And that indicates an economy that isn't working properly.

If the cost of actually properly employing staff (i.e. giving them the benefits of being staff members rather than casual employees) makes the business unprofitable then there''s either a problem with that particular business or, if it applies across the industry, a problem with that industry or, if applies across the economy, a problem with that economy.

Well, yes. With the Music venue example, the problems are not with the individual business or the industry itself (live music) or with the economy in general. The problems are multiple and relate to the following factors (and others) - resident objections to "noise", increased rates, due to councils desperate for funds due to government cuts to their budgets and deliberately unevening the playing field - City councils (Labour) hit harder than tory ones. The same impacts affect retail generally (plus internet tax breaks etc - Amazon and other online shops...

It's essentially a consequence of government policies, an unintended one, but pretty dramatic. So you're right, I think, I'd just phrase it as not "the economy" or any of the other things you mentioned, but individual specific factors resulting from government policies in other areas having negative and unforeseen consequences (perhaps unforeseen because they don't think about it enough).

[Mic09]

34 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I'm not even sure of the point of your post.

The one to which you responded, pointed out that there are cases where things don't happen - he didn't say things cannot happen very quickly.

Indeed your two anecdotes set side by side would suggest that, at the extremes, there is a huge disparity. That's not a good thing.

One person says service is poor. Other persons experience is good.

Both are silly examples which don't add much to debate as they are anecdotal. 

Just like because your train is late that doesn't mean we should privatise railway. Because someone received good treatment in NHS doesn't mean they wouldn't have got better service somewhere else. Because civil servants receive massive pensions it doesn't mean we should make private businesses offer the same.

My point was that anecdotal examples and the initial, often emotional reactions to them are not good indication of government policy. Often issues run much deeper.

**edit - all the above are worth discussing. But we shouldn't decide based on individual anecdotal experience.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Mic09

[Sam-AVFC]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

The problems are multiple and relate to the following factors (and others) - resident objections to "noise", increased rates, due to councils desperate for funds due to government cuts to their budgets and deliberately unevening the playing field - City councils (Labour) hit harder than tory ones.

For rates specificly it depends on the type of music venue as many will be valued as a percentage of turnover so if their takings go down so will their rates, although not immediately. Sorry to only focus on 2 words and ignore the rest of your post!

[blandy]

5 hours ago, Awol said:

Fair enough. When it leads to economic disaster (as it always, always does) we’ll likely end up with sort of right wing regime that would make Cromwell blush.

Not sure how worried they’ll be about CO2 & workers rights. 

I half agree. Obviously there was a reaction within the tories and Labour a while back, and they've each moved more extreme in response to the other, but my feeling is that the next move will be more economically central and more environmental strident. The environment will continue creeping (and perhaps faster than creeping) up the agenda for people. Economic destruction/damage either through Brexity "Singapore style" or "Nationalise everything" idiocy will be seen for what it actually is - bonkers, over time. What is needed is better regulation, including environmental aspects on businesses and enterprises and services, not "nationalise it" or "free market, no red-tape freedom" 

[Sam-AVFC]

19 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

One person says service is poor. Other persons experience is good.

Both are silly examples which don't add much to debate as they are anecdotal.

To clarify, it was more making the point that what my dad experienced was completely unacceptable rather than a point about service generally being poor. The new development 300m across a field from him had similar timelines to you though so I guess you're just lucky not to be arbitrarily classified as rural!

If you have a problem with anecdotal evidence generally on this point, do you have stats to show how this has improved? I tried searching and couldn't find anything so rather than ignore it completely I relied on the only thing I had...what I know.

Edit - deleted further anecdotal evidence of absolute shite behaviour as it's probably not a good thing for me to use as an example and get into a "yeah, but that's only what you said" argument with.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Sam-AVFC

[blandy]

5 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Where exactly does this nationalisation drive stop. I can agree that there's a case for intervention in certain natural monopolies but not all, Labour are really flirting with the idea of nationalising the lot. To absorb the lot would be an enormous cost, requiring intensive borrowing and taxation, and taxing the Amazon's of the world alongside the billionaires will not be enough, the burden will fall on most of us directly or indirectly. All this for services which will hardly be better than how they are currently run.  

Absolutely right, IMO. I'm less fussed about the philosophy of private or public ownership being the "virtuous" way to do it - arguments about market efficiencies or national asset or whatever and much more concerned about the practicalities of any situation. If Utilities are taking the mick with profiteering then regulation with teeth seems far more likely to be the simplest way to address that. I wouldn't have privatised any of the genuine utilities - water, power, rail, post office etc. But once they were, it doesn't follow that returning them to government run would make them "better" or "cheaper". A strong argument can be made for allowing rail franchises to lapse and be returned to government ownership - there's nil cost, essentially and a clear upside. The same isn't the case for e.g. Gas or water or Telecoms (including internet). If we want universal internet/broadband then either setting up a state union to provide it (fibre) where the market doesn't (remote locations) or legislating to make the telco's do it seems more efficient than bulk nationalisation. And it may all be overtaken by 5G and future tech anyway.

Both Labour and the tories are touting solutions/philosophies to something which isn't the actual problem. If the problem is high prices or no service it is not necessary to nationalise everything. If the problem is lack of investment in unprofitable services in remote areas, the solution isn't "more privatisation, or more free-market, or worse T&Cs for workers, or higher prices and bigger profits.

If the NHS is in a mess (it is) I'd rather gov't of whatever shade sorted that, than spent their parliamentary time and money and efforts bringing about nationalising BT, because a small percentage of people don't have fast broadband.

[Mic09]

13 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

To clarify, it was more making the point that what my dad experienced was completely unacceptable rather than a point about service generally being poor. The new development 300m across a field from him had similar timelines to you though so I guess you're just lucky not to be arbitrarily classified as rural!

If you have a problem with anecdotal evidence generally on this point, do you have stats to show how this has improved? I tried searching and couldn't find anything so rather than ignore it completely I relied on the only thing I had...what I know.

Edit - deleted further anecdotal evidence of absolute shite behaviour as it's probably not a good thing for me to use as an example and get into a "yeah, but that's only what you said" argument with.

Not that I have a problem with it - I just think opinions on privatise/make public should not be made on such examples

No, I do not have data on it, I am arguing out of principle of being able to freely choose a service provider. The fact that lines are often controlled by BT which is heavily government regulated might be one issue. Maybe less regulation in a service like that might open a niche in the market for a provider that will open lines much sooner than what your dad experienced?

I hope he got it sorted though! 

Edited November 15, 2019 by Mic09

[blandy]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

The discussion, both here and in the twitter threads you linked, has been about the broader issue of public vs private ownership and control of infrastructure but also using broadband as a very current example, rather than about any technical or structural issues that might make broadband a special case distinct from other types of infrastructure (do you think there are any?  I wouldn't have said there were). 

Each is very different technically and structurally IMO. As an example for what I mean, water - clean water has a number of aspects - it's genuinely critical to life - people die if it's poisoned, or stopped. Management of reservoirs, dams, flooding, sewage and so on is entirely different to provision of fast internet - as much as we who've got OK internet appreciate it, if we lose it for a few days our infants aren't in peril, no one is poisoned or harmed. Many can go to a local wi-fi thingummy - cafe/ library/ shop/ MacDonalds or use their phone or whatever. Inconvenient and very inconvenient if for a long time.

Rail, is not a universal service - buses, taxis cars etc proved "transport". Clearly rail has advantages and disadvantages re green issues and stuff, but as Chrisp said earlier, hopefully people aren't having to go to London to do business in 2030 as much as they do now. Rail (and tube) is also, like water, critical particularly, but not exclusively, in cities for people to get from home to work. Northern Rail and Southern rail clusterporks of the summer showed just how much. Management of rail is about timetables (massively so) and integration with other types of transport and safety and capacity to move people fast and efficiently. Broadband and networks is more about technological advances.

We once had some high up management bod come into where I work (Aerospace) and tell us that there was no difference between making aircraft and making Mars bars. Fundamentally, he said, it was all the same underneath. The dickhead. Dunno what happened to him, but needless to say he had a few things to learn.

[Sam-AVFC]

1 minute ago, Mic09 said:

Not that I have a problem with it - I just think opinions on privatise/make public should be made on such examples

Oh, I agree. My point wasn't in support of nationalisation, it was simply that if 6 week waits from before privatisation (and before I was born) were seen as an issue then from what I see not a lot has improved! I do think nationalising infrastructure should at least be explored, but that post in itself wasn't in support - just pointing out it can still be dreadful.

5 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

No, I do not have data on it, I am arguing out of principle of being able to freely choose a service provider. The fact that lines are often controlled by BT which is heavily government regulated might be one issue. Maybe less regulation in a service like that might open a niche in the market for a provider that will open lines much sooner than what your dad experienced?

There doesn't seem to be any data. Presumably only the companies providing these services are the only ones who could easily access it which I find interesting in itself.

I think most people are only talking about nationalising the infrastructure and keeping competition with service providers...although presumably not when talkg about providing it for free.

8 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I hope he got it sorted though! 

He did, and it only took 14 months from start to finish!

While I'm moaning on his behalf, I think I can say it effected me more without being too self centered. Try having exams in this day and age where everyone is expected to have internet access and you're going home to persist with dial up every night and really struggling to get anything done. It's definitely not the reason I did worse on those exams than I should have, but it didn't help. This is the argument for free broadband I can understand as any kid without it in school now would not be able to stop falling massively far behind.

[AshVilla]

I don't know how anyone can take Jo Swinson seriously with teeth like that. You could drive the lib dem campaign bus between them.

I'm not sure how much of the labour/con vote she will take.

Edited November 15, 2019 by AshVilla

[peterms]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

clean water has a number of aspects - it's genuinely critical to life - people die if it's poisoned, or stopped

The same is true of food.  The difference is the infrastructure required for distribution.  It's the ease of delivery via pipes, and the lack of efficiency in having multiple competing sets of pipes going into a home, that makes water infrastructure a more obvious candidate for monopoly supply of infrastructure than food.  Though of course there is massive waste, duplication, inefficiency and environmental damage in the way food is distributed - the answer to that wouldn't have to be taking distribution into public ownership.

13 minutes ago, blandy said:

Management of rail is about timetables (massively so) and integration with other types of transport and safety and capacity to move people fast and efficiently.

Yes.  And provision of rail infrastructure can only sensibly be done on a monopoly basis.  A comparison with buses is interesting.  There's no requirement for an infrastructure monopoly with buses (I mean of vehicles, not roads, which is already a publicly controlled resource), but deregulation and competition for profitable routes and neglect of less popular routes suggests that even with timetable management, central control will produce better outcomes than letting the market do its thing.  That could be done via regulation rather than ownership, of course.

To the extent that broadband requires physical infrastructure that needs to be laid, maintained, renewed, I suppose it's much less disruptive and intrusive, cheaper and more efficient to have one lot rather than many, so I imagine there are practical reasons for treating provision as akin to a natural monopoly.  The argument for having provision socially controlled however seems largely about the poor outcomes we have seen compared to what other countries have achieved, the increasingly important part this service plays in people's lives, and the need for intervention to deliver better and more equitable outcomes.

[PompeyVillan]

"It won't work"

Isn't true, in my opinion.

There are many examples of successful nationalised services, if you care to find them. South Korea is one the examples given by John McDonnell today regarding fibre services. He's saying it's nationalised and it's really good. 

Nationalisation of services needs to be done well, if it is, it can provide a better service to more people than a private enterprise could. 

[Brumstopdogs]

16 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

I don't know how anyone can take Jo Swinson seriously with teeth like that. You could drive the lib dem campaign bus between them.

I'm not sure how much of the labour/con vote she will take.

Not sure what you mean

 

[StefanAVFC]

And you wonder why more and more MPs aren't running this time round.

[bickster]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Sure, this is a theoretical risk.

Its an absolutely obscene risk. Putting the internet in the hands of government is possibly THE most dangerous thing any democracy can do!

[bickster]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Fibre-laying to rural areas is a natural monopoly, so breaking it up isn't really an option.

Not in terms of provision of service it isn't, microwave technology can overcome an awful lot of the rural broadband problem in the UK

We've already started using microwave at work to communicate between different offices and its far more problematic in cities than the country

[chrisp65]

If we didn’t already have the NHS the obvious argument would be that it is too vast and too expensive to nationalise health. It wouldn’t be fair on BUPA or back street abortionists. The last thing we’d want would be government access to a central register of our health.

But we’re falling behind in business, falling behind in infrastructure, relying on physical transport. Sometimes you’ve got to make a leap.

[chrisp65]