UK public has paid £200bn to shareholders of key industries since privatisation – study

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/16/uk-public-paid-200bn-to-shareholders-of-key-industries-since-privatisation-study?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

by Rewindcasette

4 comments

  1. We spend £400b on quangos that offer nothing to our economy whatsoever. But that’s the left for you.

  2. Not sure if I’m misunderstanding the figures somewhere, but I think that’s £200bn total since 1991. Which considering that includes water, mail, energy, busses and trains. That actually seems a fair bit lower that I would have expected. I was expecting something in the region of 200bn since 2020 alone given the cost of some of these industries.

    Not that that’s a good thing, but a small % of the shareholders are those with pensions, so indirectly *some* of that money is being returned to us.

  3. Energy companies having a profit margin of 55% between 2021-2024 when we faced massive rising costs should be seen as a national scandal. 

    The fact that many of the private rail, water and energy companies are owned or part owned by other countries state controlled bodies is an indication of how stupid this whole system is.

  4. Privatisation is an absolute blight on this country. I understood the arguments for it 10 years ago, but it’s rather clearly been an utter failure. It’s resulted in higher costs for both the public and government, for absolutely zero benefit. Time to reverse course.

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