Harold Macmillan Giving a Speech on Margaret Thatcher's Privatisation Policies

Water Privatisation Is a Con

Jun 30, 2023 | (Location: Thames Water HQ)

Kick these Tories out of office, once and for all time! The Tories need to go the way of the Whigs: into oblivion! The Tories have ruined this country. Tories pretend to be patriotic; however, they are anything but. Tories care not about their country or the people that reside in it; rather, they care about their own gain, their own profit, their own pockets and their own bank balances. Tories know the price of everything, but the value of nothing! – © Mark Alexander

Harold Macmillan Giving a Speech on Margaret Thatcher's Privatisation Policies

This is Starmer’s moment. Thatcherism has collapsed, and the Tories are at each other’s throats: This is no passing crisis, it is existential. Look at the polls – people don’t want the Tories or their agenda any more »

Privatisation of the NHS: Allyson Pollock at TEDxExeter

Apr 29, 2014 • This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The 1948 Act establishing the NHS gave the Secretary of State for Health the duty to provide universal health care.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 removes this duty and introduces a market. Allyson Pollock describes why we need to worry. Allyson Pollock is Professor of Public Health Research & Policy at Queen Mary, University of London. She is one of the UK's leading medical intellectuals, and undertakes research and teaching intended to assist the realisation of the principles of social justice and public health, with a particular emphasis on health systems research, trade, and pharmaceuticals.

She trained in medicine in Scotland and became a consultant in public health. Among her previous roles she has been director of the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh and director of research & development at UCL Hospitals NHS Trust. She is the author of NHS plc and co-author of The New NHS: a guide.


If you believe in a public NHS, the new health and care bill should set off alarm bells: The government is easing the way for the privatisation of the health service – where is the opposition to their plans? »

Doctor Exposes Plan to Sell NHS to American Corporations

Oct 25, 2021 • The NHS is in imminent danger.

Russian Communists Looking to Overturn Privatization
RUSSIA TODAY: Russia’s Communist Party faction has submitted a bill on nationalization to the lower house of parliament.

The legislation concerns the nationalization of companies that were privatized during the 1990s. Communists have always condemned the process of giving the state assets to individuals, many of whom turned into so-called oligarchs. 



Observers say the Communists are trying to use their populist “trump card” now as they have started preparations for parliamentary elections scheduled for December. At the same time, the government is now launching another large-scale privatization campaign.



The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) proposes that the state returns businesses that were “unfairly” privatized. But they support compensation of expenses to current owners after “the assessment of assets at the moment of privatization.” » | Friday, March 25, 2011

Cuba Lays-off State Workers in Privatisation Drive
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Cuba has begun the process of laying-off a tenth of its state workforce in a drive to push employees into small businesses that could mark the beginning of the end of the 50-year communist experiment on the island.

The state labour union announced this week that the first of some 500,000 employees could expect to receive "pink slips" immediately, effectively terminating their employment in the public sector where, until now, almost 90 per cent of Cuba's workforce have been employed.

The lay-offs will begin in the ministries of agriculture, sugar, construction, health and tourism, according to Salvador Valdes, the leader of the Workers' Central Union of Cuba (CTC). Workers, who on average earn a monthly wage of $20 (£13), were told to expect compensation of one month's salary for every ten years on the job.

Committees have been set up in each workplace to draw up the list of those jobs to be cut, the CTC said – a process that "will be free of favouritism, nepotism and paternalism". >>> Fiona Govan, Madrid | Wednesday, January 05, 2011

What to Expect from Berlin after Angela Merkel’s Return to Power
TIMES ONLINE – Analysis: For the past four years conservatives and liberals have been quietly expressing fears that Ms Merkel was a Social Democrat in sheep’s clothing, or at least in a woollen trouser suit.

Now the Chancellor has a chance to prove otherwise. The result will be a subtle change of Germany’s position in Europe.

Fuse the election manifestos of the two parties — the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats — into a single programme and you come up with a mainland European version of progressive conservatism: there is concern for social justice, a taste for financial regulation, but also a commitment to open markets, deregulation and (when market conditions permit) privatisation.

But while some of that may suggest an affinity with a possible David Cameron government, relations with the Tories are likely to remain frosty because the new German Government is firmly committed to the Lisbon treaty.

The new Berlin Administration will almost certainly see its main friend in Europe as Nicolas Sarkozy; the Social Democrats had some reservations about the French but these are not shared by the Free Democrats.

The main loser of the new government alignment could well be Turkey. The Social Democrats have been a champion of Turkish entry into the European Union for the past 11 years, first in alliance with the Greens, and latterly in Ms Merkel’s Grand Coalition.

Now the Social Democrats are in opposition and Ankara will be faced with sceptical governments in Paris, Berlin and Rome. >>> Roger Boyes | Monday, September 28, 2009