[tome]

> privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources

Why does privatisation mean that the government can't build infrastructure? I think the answer is more likely nimbyism than privatisation.

I personally think it makes no sense to privatise infrastructure for which no competition can reasonably take place, and I'd include distribution networks of many sorts in that: water distribution, rail lines, electricity distribution.

But I'm not aware that privatisation means that the state can't take on reservoir projects. The problem is that development of all kinds in the UK is utterly crippled by nimbyism. The article mentions the proposed Abingdon reservoir but links it to the boogyman of data centres rather than call out what the picture obviously shows: it's being stalled by nimbys.

[krona]

Case in point, Thames Water has been trying to build a reservoir in Oxfordshire since 2006[1], but has only met resistance by the local planning authority and environmental campaigners (the two often working in concert when it comes to NIMBYism due to various statutory obligations placed on local authorities.)

A few months ago the government reclassified the project as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project to allow Thames Water to to take the proposal out of the hands of the local authority, potentially allowing the project to go ahead. [2]

If it goes ahead as planned it will be the second largest reservoir in the UK.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon_Reservoir [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9kp2d4d0vo

[PaulRobinson]

"Privatisation" does not preclude government investment in infrastructure.

"Thatcherism" does, however. It is a warped [Ayn] Randian view of capitalism and those who drive it. State intervention into the machinery of capital, even when it comes to essential infrastructure, is considered a corrupting influence.

Nobody able to change national policy within Downing Street or even ministries in Whitehall, at the time - or since - has had the gumption to say it's not working and we need to do something about it.

You are however right, that NIMBYism has also worked remarkably well - the planning process in the UK is the reason we can't build HS2 cheaply or quickly, and that is relatively painless compared to wind farms, solar farms (also often blocked), never mind building a dam and flooding an entire valley, which was the old way of creating new capacity.

[graemep]

I think you are misrepresenting Thatcherism. Thatcher was pretty pragmatic and did not want to privatise everything - e.g. Royal Mail and the Post Office - those were done by the very non-Thatcherite coalition government in 2013. They were also messed up (e.g. private ownership of the postcode database).

https://www.ft.com/content/1057f722-75d5-11e1-9dce-00144feab...

A lot of NHS privatisation was done by Blair and Brown - especially to facilitate Brown's use of off-balance sheet debt to fund spending while pretending the government was not increasing national debt.

A lot of privatisations were a good idea. I think most people would agree the government should not own oil companies, airlines, car manufacturers, steel manufacturers, or telecoms, etc. I think the mistakes need to be seen against the backdrop of a necessary correction of a lot of nationalisation.

The problem has also been regulatory. Why were water companies not required to build capacity? Why were they allowed to borrow in order to pay shareholders? This was all entirely foreseeable.

I think the problem is not an ideology, but the lack of a coherent ideology. Privatisation has become an end in itself, backed by politicians who do not seem to understand that its not a magic bullets, and there is no incentive for efficiency in the absence of competition. A private monopoly is usually worse than a state monopoly unless very closely regulated.

[mschuster91]

> I think most people would agree the government should not own oil companies, airlines, car manufacturers, steel manufacturers, or telecoms, etc.

People are starting to revisit the idea that oil and steel manufacture should at least be held domestically, if not run by the government outright, given the current geopolitical situation. Let's talk straight: if China and India would close down export for steel, or if OPEC decides to repeat the 70s... the Western world is fucked. And yes, that includes America, because most US refineries need OPEC oil for chemical composition reasons. The US is only net positive on oil imports and exports, it is by far not self sufficient. Add in a major war, we'd not be able to produce ammo, much less vehicles, even if we somehow found enough staff to man the plants.

As for telecoms: the base infrastructure should belong to the government. That is a lesson we in Germany are learning at the moment...

[coryrc]

> And yes, that includes America, because most US refineries need OPEC oil for chemical composition reasons.

I think you got that backwards, Venezuela needs US refineries because of chemical composition reasons. North America as a whole is self-sufficient.

> People are starting to revisit the idea that oil and steel manufacture should at least be held domestically

Oh good, lets push the inflation button even harder. I can only hope steel manufacture can someday be as efficient and competitive as US boat building.

[mschuster91]

> I can only hope steel manufacture can someday be as efficient and competitive as US boat building.

Better have expensive boats than no boats, particularly when preparing to wage war with a country that can be reached either by air - which means either missiles or nuclear bombers - or by water, the only option allowing for conventional warfare.

That's the thing we all have to prepare for, the inevitable confrontation with China.

In any case, the secret to cheap building is scale. When all you build is a few boats, planes or god knows what a year, of course each will be expensive. But if you build dozens, hundreds or - just look to WW2 - thousands of units, suddenly efficiencies of scale and standardization really kick in.

[Earw0rm]

This is efficient if you actually _need_ hundreds or thousands of units.

Which was clearly the case in WW2.

And _might_ be the case if the confrontation with China is proxy wars. Hundreds or thousands of spare units (of tanks, AA, helicopters, fighter jets) would be useful in Ukraine, for example.

But it's hard to see a use-case for hundreds of B-2s, for example. By the time those things are flying in anger, twenty or thirty will do everything you're ever going to do.

[arethuza]

It's the problem with ideological thinking - from what I can see some privatisations worked well (e.g. Rolls Royce) and others went terribly (rail, water in England) - unfortunately they tend to get treated as all bad or all good.

[graemep]

I disagree about rail - nationalised British Rail was pretty terrible, had more accidents per distance travelled, and carried far fewer people. It think it made little difference.

Nationalised water in Scotland is no better than privatised in England and Wales, and has a higher rate of sewer leaks: https://theferret.scot/scotland-behind-england-sewage-leaks/

[teamonkey]

From the same site: https://theferret.scot/water-pollution-scotland-england-most...

One thing of note about Scotland is that water is free (i.e. paid for by taxes) there.

[JetSetWilly]

It isn't free but it is less expensive. In fact in Scotland the annual water bill averages to £490 compared to £603 in England. This is despite a lower population density (which means more infra required per person comparatively).

So despite the best efforts of critics, they can't really show that Scottish water is any worse in terms of sewage outflows etc - if anything it is marginally better on that metric, and significantly cheaper to run. And the actual water quality is good, although that has a lot to do with incidental geography. Why would I want it privatised?

[arethuza]

It's not free - there are explicit charges for it attached to our council taxes?

[graemep]

I entirely agree with you about ideological thinking. We need a pragmatic approach, and a willingness to think through complex problems.

[mr_toad]

The privatisations that go bad are usually monopolistic.

[bluecheese452]

Claiming “Most people would agree” is not strong evidence that something was a good idea. I could just as easily assert most people would agree that it was a mistake.

[alt227]

> "Privatisation" does not preclude government investment in infrastructure.

But if private companies are taking the equity out of the service via profit, then why should the government spend public money to build new infrastructure to support them?

[tome]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Firstly, it's a type error to say "taking equity out of the service via profit". Profit, by definition, does not come from equity. Secondly, the government should spend public money to build public infrastructure because that's one of the major purposes of a government. Thirdly, if you're saying "private companies will use that public infrastructure to make profit", then I guess, yes, they will, just like they use roads. But I would certainly say that if water companies sell water from public reservoirs to customers then they should be required to pay for that service! Why not?

[tremon]

They're saying that using public funds to build out private infrastructure is a huge transfer of wealth from the public to the rich, and if the subsequent profits of that investment disappear into the same private pockets (or even abroad), the ROI calculation becomes so unfavourable that there's no sound financial reason to invest. There's a huge difference between investing in government-owned infrastructure vs privately-owned.

[tome]

> Nobody able to change national policy within Downing Street or even ministries in Whitehall, at the time - or since - has had the gumption to say it's not working and we need to do something about it.

Thatcher's been dead for 12 years and out of power for 35, so I'm not sure why it should take much gumption. All it needs is national leaders who believe in the flourishing of the country, and that that requires infrastructure development, not just banks, software and scientific research. Unfortunately I don't see any such leader on the horizon.

[komali2]

> Thatcher's been dead for 12 years and out of power for 35, so I'm not sure why it should take much gumption.

Reagan, Thatcher, all the same, and their ideology kept alive by neoliberals (basically every politician that isn't an out and out socialist or snidely toeing fascism) and the Chicago school of economics.

Find me a national leader that believing in the flourishing of the country (and all the people in it) and I'll find you an entire political apparatus in opposition to that in favor of the flourishing of Capital.

[tome]

> Find me a national leader that believing in the flourishing of the country

But I can't find one, that's the point.

[refurb]

I’m assuming you’re really young.

The US and UK were in terrible shape before Reagan and Thatcher took office. Both improved after they were elected?

[komali2]

If you're going to assume my age, I'll go ahead and assume your race, because I can't imagine why someone would support think Ronald "Strapping young bucks" Reagan, President of "School desegregation is a bad thing," steered the USA in a good direction. The same guy that opposed the voting rights act? The guy that didn't want an MLK day because people weren't acknowledging the 'reality' of the man? The guy that vetoed the civil rights restoration act?

Mr. savings and loans crisis? The guy that tripled the national debt?

The epically failed war on drugs guy? That guy improved the united states?

[refurb]

We were talking about making the country better not the media circus around it.

The US and UK economies were terrible. Stagflation, “malaise”.

Reagan ushered in a decade of strong economic growth. I’m sure all races would trade of a higher paycheck despite the media comments.

[FridayoLeary]

In the UK the improvement was so massive that socialism died and Labour had to reinvent itself as a centrist party in order to stay alive. Thames water is horribly mismanaged and the rail as well is overpriced but i don't trust nationalisation to fix the problems. The government can simply cover up issues by providing subsidies.

Again if any politicians today were half the person Thatcher was things might actually get done. Even Blair might be an improvement.

[bluecheese452]

No?