> The new research has found that a total of 55% back the renewed public ownership of energy, while just 8% said they would oppose the policy. 23% said they neither supported nor opposed it, and 15% said they did not know.
Great to hear, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of privatisation in general, but I could never understand the argument for privatising public services.
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Either that or continue to allow the Billionaire Boys to take care of the citizens. Should be an easy choice.
Add P&O and any other company that fires and rehires our people to the list as well.
The last person that talked about nationalising anything in this country and got near power got attacked by the press and ridiculed. Everyone jumped on the wagon believing the press and social media and voted for the other guy.
Same will happen again to the next person that talks about nationalising essentials like energy, water, health or transport. Its up to the public to see through the agenda and propaganda and vote correctly.
The private sector can have retail and other markets but things like energy should be owned and regulated by the people it serves.
Never going to happen, the government much prefer the trickle down economy theory.
The one where the wealth is given to the already rich and a small little bit might trickle down to the hungry masses, like peasants under the golden showers of their masters…
Back to the 70’s! Three day week! Strikes because the cat hasn’t been fed! Blackouts and power cuts!
Etc.
Nationalise it all, fuck nihilistic capitalists and profit.
Hahahaha… And they will still vote tory because most of them are fucking morons
If we nationalised the Power Industry, and took the profit margin out, we would get cheaper power. The rationale for not doing so is that capitalism needs to be *seen* to work, even when it doesn’t work. In a nutshell, ideology.
Of course we should, I don’t mind them running at a slight profit providing they plough that back into something good.
They also backed Brexit, and we’ve all seen – well, those of us who don’t wear blinders – what a clusterfuck that’s resulted in.
Can’t trust shady billionares who might actually be Putin’s puppets.
Weird, im quite happy to be ground into the dirt for their record profits.
Look I’m no lefty, this form of capitalism is perverted and is going to lead to riots eventually.
They are state owned though…. But only when it’s losing money. When it’s making profit it’s privatised.
A majority backed brexit too…
Maybe it’s stupid to ask the public about things they don’t understand the finer details of?
Energy firms have literally eaten shit because they’re paying more for gas than they can charge their customers. That’s why so many failed. The government can’t magically buy gas for less than the energy companies can…
Throw in typical public sector inefficiency and you’ll be paying more through taxes for energy than if it were privatised. But of course, the majority think that richer taxpayers will foot the bill, right?
I wonder if it was explained to them that public ownership of energy firms would not entail their being owned by members of the public.
I’m all for private profit based energy firms but they better actually be providers. What I have a problem with is all these resellers.
I think it’s time the charade has ended though.
Here’s the elephant in the room with this
The old public utilities made a profit, for **the exchequer*/treasury**. Then they had to beg for investment from the treasury. They didn’t get to retain their profits to invest, that was at the whim of the political masters.
Now say the schools/NHS/transport/prisons/social security need cash, the chancellor has two choices, *starve* the public utilities of cash **or** put up taxes. How many politicians want to put up taxes? answers on the perforations on a stamp
This is the problem.
What happened as well was there was a massive clean up coming and that was going to cost a LOT – acid rain clean up, sewage dumping at sea / blue flag beaches. How did the government pay for all this work? Simple they sold off the utilities, got some cash, and let the now private companies borrow the money! The borrowing wasn’t government borrowing rather private borrowing – that and the cash raised meant they had more money to spend /cut taxes.
Some poor sods were going to have to pay the bills for the clean up – we either paid through our taxes or through the bills.
One thing that was done was the cull of *empires* within the utilities. Overmanning was rife and a shake up was due but there was little incentive as pay/rewards were controlled via the treasury. In private industry they could look hard at cost cutting.
Can someone please explain to me how nationalising the energy companies would work, practically?
Like, I assume the government can’t just say “This is ours now.” Do they/we have to buy out all the shareholders of every company, with the shareholders being forced to sell even if they don’t want to? Can they jack up the share price at point of sale in order to make a killing?
Sorry, just curious as to how it works. Not sure I’ve lived through privatisation before (I’m 39) but seeing my recent energy bills I have to say I like the idea in principle.
Watch everyone vote Tory again and ruin this however.
If this ludicrous price hike doesn’t do it nothing will.
I’m always surprised how closely the poles reflect broader public opinion, they’re obviously a well integrated group.
Trade union action would be disastrous. Look what happened in the 70s and 80s when energy sector workers were used a pawns in the Cold War.
Nothing to say there can’t be a publicly owned (government backed) energy company as well as the existing private companies.
In fact some of the smaller council backed companies are (or were) some of the best.
Extreme capitalism doesn’t make a better society
The basic essentials we all need should not be produced at a profit for private enterprise to sell back to us
Extreme privatisation of public assets was the lunatic tory dogma of failure
Tories fucking raped us when they privatised utilities. The lie about greater competition reducing consumer costs must be plain to see now for everyone. You can’t add profit into the mix and expect things to get cheaper. That has never happened.
I think we need a mix we need a public company along with private options as well for competition.
Yh cus everyone’s preparing to get fucked by energy companies
But sadly we don’t have a functional government that listens to its citizens. We just have a dictatorship run by a moron, who in turn is owned by people like those that own the energy companies. So polls like this are just as worthless as Bojos barber.
*ALL* critical infrastructure should be publicly owned!
This has been the case for years, no? Nobody fucking cares what the public wants.
You think the UK government should get MORE responsibility? Huh
The fact that there is a need for an energy price cap supports this argument. If privatisation was the best route for energy there would be no need for a cap.
Shame we never had a candidate running against Johnson before that advocated this.
Oh wait…
So many energy firms are closing down, isn’t that indicative that the price is right? As painful as the prices are? If they are price gauging then public ownership can ease that of course since energy is such a huge part of our lives
Remind me how much did the tax payer pay on Robin Hood Energy?
37 comments
> The new research has found that a total of 55% back the renewed public ownership of energy, while just 8% said they would oppose the policy. 23% said they neither supported nor opposed it, and 15% said they did not know.
Great to hear, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of privatisation in general, but I could never understand the argument for privatising public services.
[removed]
Either that or continue to allow the Billionaire Boys to take care of the citizens. Should be an easy choice.
Add P&O and any other company that fires and rehires our people to the list as well.
The last person that talked about nationalising anything in this country and got near power got attacked by the press and ridiculed. Everyone jumped on the wagon believing the press and social media and voted for the other guy.
Same will happen again to the next person that talks about nationalising essentials like energy, water, health or transport. Its up to the public to see through the agenda and propaganda and vote correctly.
The private sector can have retail and other markets but things like energy should be owned and regulated by the people it serves.
Never going to happen, the government much prefer the trickle down economy theory.
The one where the wealth is given to the already rich and a small little bit might trickle down to the hungry masses, like peasants under the golden showers of their masters…
Back to the 70’s! Three day week! Strikes because the cat hasn’t been fed! Blackouts and power cuts!
Etc.
Nationalise it all, fuck nihilistic capitalists and profit.
Hahahaha… And they will still vote tory because most of them are fucking morons
If we nationalised the Power Industry, and took the profit margin out, we would get cheaper power. The rationale for not doing so is that capitalism needs to be *seen* to work, even when it doesn’t work. In a nutshell, ideology.
Of course we should, I don’t mind them running at a slight profit providing they plough that back into something good.
They also backed Brexit, and we’ve all seen – well, those of us who don’t wear blinders – what a clusterfuck that’s resulted in.
Can’t trust shady billionares who might actually be Putin’s puppets.
Weird, im quite happy to be ground into the dirt for their record profits.
Look I’m no lefty, this form of capitalism is perverted and is going to lead to riots eventually.
They are state owned though…. But only when it’s losing money. When it’s making profit it’s privatised.
A majority backed brexit too…
Maybe it’s stupid to ask the public about things they don’t understand the finer details of?
Energy firms have literally eaten shit because they’re paying more for gas than they can charge their customers. That’s why so many failed. The government can’t magically buy gas for less than the energy companies can…
Throw in typical public sector inefficiency and you’ll be paying more through taxes for energy than if it were privatised. But of course, the majority think that richer taxpayers will foot the bill, right?
I wonder if it was explained to them that public ownership of energy firms would not entail their being owned by members of the public.
I’m all for private profit based energy firms but they better actually be providers. What I have a problem with is all these resellers.
I think it’s time the charade has ended though.
Here’s the elephant in the room with this
The old public utilities made a profit, for **the exchequer*/treasury**. Then they had to beg for investment from the treasury. They didn’t get to retain their profits to invest, that was at the whim of the political masters.
Now say the schools/NHS/transport/prisons/social security need cash, the chancellor has two choices, *starve* the public utilities of cash **or** put up taxes. How many politicians want to put up taxes? answers on the perforations on a stamp
This is the problem.
What happened as well was there was a massive clean up coming and that was going to cost a LOT – acid rain clean up, sewage dumping at sea / blue flag beaches. How did the government pay for all this work? Simple they sold off the utilities, got some cash, and let the now private companies borrow the money! The borrowing wasn’t government borrowing rather private borrowing – that and the cash raised meant they had more money to spend /cut taxes.
Some poor sods were going to have to pay the bills for the clean up – we either paid through our taxes or through the bills.
One thing that was done was the cull of *empires* within the utilities. Overmanning was rife and a shake up was due but there was little incentive as pay/rewards were controlled via the treasury. In private industry they could look hard at cost cutting.
Can someone please explain to me how nationalising the energy companies would work, practically?
Like, I assume the government can’t just say “This is ours now.” Do they/we have to buy out all the shareholders of every company, with the shareholders being forced to sell even if they don’t want to? Can they jack up the share price at point of sale in order to make a killing?
Sorry, just curious as to how it works. Not sure I’ve lived through privatisation before (I’m 39) but seeing my recent energy bills I have to say I like the idea in principle.
Watch everyone vote Tory again and ruin this however.
If this ludicrous price hike doesn’t do it nothing will.
I’m always surprised how closely the poles reflect broader public opinion, they’re obviously a well integrated group.
Trade union action would be disastrous. Look what happened in the 70s and 80s when energy sector workers were used a pawns in the Cold War.
Nothing to say there can’t be a publicly owned (government backed) energy company as well as the existing private companies.
In fact some of the smaller council backed companies are (or were) some of the best.
Extreme capitalism doesn’t make a better society
The basic essentials we all need should not be produced at a profit for private enterprise to sell back to us
Extreme privatisation of public assets was the lunatic tory dogma of failure
Tories fucking raped us when they privatised utilities. The lie about greater competition reducing consumer costs must be plain to see now for everyone. You can’t add profit into the mix and expect things to get cheaper. That has never happened.
I think we need a mix we need a public company along with private options as well for competition.
Yh cus everyone’s preparing to get fucked by energy companies
But sadly we don’t have a functional government that listens to its citizens. We just have a dictatorship run by a moron, who in turn is owned by people like those that own the energy companies. So polls like this are just as worthless as Bojos barber.
*ALL* critical infrastructure should be publicly owned!
This has been the case for years, no? Nobody fucking cares what the public wants.
You think the UK government should get MORE responsibility? Huh
The fact that there is a need for an energy price cap supports this argument. If privatisation was the best route for energy there would be no need for a cap.
Shame we never had a candidate running against Johnson before that advocated this.
Oh wait…
So many energy firms are closing down, isn’t that indicative that the price is right? As painful as the prices are? If they are price gauging then public ownership can ease that of course since energy is such a huge part of our lives
Remind me how much did the tax payer pay on Robin Hood Energy?