The announcement yesterday that the government intends to float the post office and offer shares brings to an end one of the last bastions of national service. Not the last - one of the last. During my life time, a succession of governments have so far cashed in the chips of British Telecom, British Gas, British Rail and a whole of other assets. Sold in the name of the free market, these institutions have been steadily and relentlessly stripped bare by their new shareholders such that they have become all but unrecognisable from their former selves.
When I read this story break, it caused me to consider the other possibilities for cashing in. The big one is the NHS although in truth, this process has been in motion on the sly for quite some time now. Given the admission by its incumbent leader that it will imminently face a budget shortfall of £30 billion, the assett stripping of the NHS has ceased to be a subject of choice. For the record, Sir David Nicholson this morning reiterated his pride in the results he has achieved both as Chief Executive and as the former head of the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust. Chilling to consider his response given the scale of death which he oversaw.
Next on the list should logically be local government. This would be a real revolution. Your local council would be run by experienced business people used to delivering performance related results to shareholders. They would be entirely accountable for all their decisions and would need to justify every penny spent. I'm sorry to say though that given the track record of recent privatisations, this might culminate in a few redundancies with the current workforce being scaled back somewhat. Alternatively, the mainstay of the current workforce would remain in situ, able to get on and deliver the services to which they remain so committed. For this to happen though, it would be mean a lot of senior management and executives being sacrificed. Aside from the grandiose salaries this would save now, it would also save squillions in future pensions. Makes you think doesn't it?
Here is another suggestion. Why not privatise Parliament? Each of the MPs would be elected not by voters such as you and I but by shareholders. Their salaries would be performance related and they would see a salary reduction in the event of underachievement. Of course, this would be the norm in the private sector where nothing is guaranteed and you are only ever as good as your last week. Is this feasible? Well, in a sense, it might have to be. Given that the country is still failing to confront the rather sizeable pensions iceberg straight ahead of us, there might be few alternatives. Obviously, should this be properly addressed with pensions being converted to a new format, most of our current economic problems would be manageable in no time. If every public sector pension was immediately converted in to a money purchase scheme wher the size of the fund depended on how much had been put in and the performance of the fund in which it was invested, there would be far more level playing field in terms of the money people earn in retirement. Of course we all want to be comfortable in retirement, but at some stage, there has to be a distinction drawn between comfort and greed.
There is little doubt that the amount we pay to Europe for membership outweighs the amount we get in return. News this week that the European Court of Human Rights has questioned our right to imprison someone for life irrespective of their crimes, must be like bread from heaven for Nigel Farrage at UKIP. It was also in the last week that we eventually managed to direct Abu Qatada to a flight to Jordan at no small cost. I think if we really are deemed worthy of our say in a referendum on Europe, the result will be both resounding and unanimous.
No comments:
Post a Comment