Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Hard left British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn appears to be embracing climate change as a wedge issue to overturn decades of British government retreat from public ownership of major utilities.
Labour’s John McDonnell says public ownership plan for services such as water and rail will “cost nothing”, while Corbyn adds it is necessary to prevent a “climate catastrophe”
Lucy White
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said the Labour party’s plan to bring services such as water, energy and rail under public ownership would be “cost free”.
The collapse of Carillion showed that privatisation had failed, he told the audience at a conference in London on “alternative models of ownership”.
McDonnell said taking key infrastructure assets out of private ownership was “an economic necessity”, and could be achieved at no cost to the taxpayer.
…
Later in the conference, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that nationalising energy companies was necessary to avoid a “climate catastrophe”.
“People have been queueing up for years to connect renewable energy to the national grid. With the national grid in public hands, we can put tackling climate change at the heart of our energy system,” he said.
“To go green, we must take control of our energy.”
…
Read more: http://www.cityam.com/280382/labours-john-mcdonnell-says-public-ownership-plan-services
Corbyn has also promised a crackdown on the press – he seems to have a real problem with news outlets which published what he describes as “smears” about his past, like claims by a former Soviet spy that Corbyn was a paid informant in the 1980s.
‘Change is Coming’ – Labour Threatens Free Press, Could ‘Ban’ Breitbart
…
His comments came after the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hinted at a crackdown on the free press, telling the media “change is coming” after right-wing papers published unfavourable stories about his meetings with a Communist spy during the Cold War.
The 68-year-old socialist held several meetings with a Czechoslovakian ‘diplomat’ in the 1980s, who now claims Corbyn was a paid informant. Corbyn has admitted to the meetings but denied knowing the man was a spy.
Whilst Czech authorities say the Labour leader is not on file as a collaborator, the former-spy said: “It’s not important what you can find in official documents. Don’t forget, a lot of them were destroyed.”
In the last few days The Sun, The Mail, The Telegraph and The Express have gone a little bit James Bond.
We've got news for the billionaire, tax exile press barons: Change is coming. pic.twitter.com/3ehSKfaAgZ
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) February 20, 2018
In a video posted to social media, Corbyn singled out The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, and Daily Express, accusing them of going “a little bit James Bond” and “continuing to resort to lies and smears”.
“Publishing these ridiculous smears that have been refuted by Czech officials shows just how worried the media bosses are by the prospect of a Labour government,” he said.
“We’ve got news for them: change is coming,” he added in a threatening tone.
…
It might seem difficult to believe a left wing firebrand like Jeremy Corbyn could gain traction in a comparatively prosperous Western country, but to dismiss Corbyn’s appeal is to ignore the very real hardships many Britains are currently facing.
Thanks in part to the botched green revolution and skyrocketing energy prices, life in Britain is very hard for a lot of people.
Elaine Morrall died in a freezing home – the state is tossing away people’s lives
Frances Ryan
The tragic death of this mother of four following benefit cuts shows how the government is failing even in its most basic duty – to keep its citizens safe.
When Elaine Morrall’s body was found at her home in Runcorn this month, she was wrapped up in a coat and scarf. That Elaine was only 38 and has left four children behind are heartbreaking details to a case that has rightly been shared widely on social media. But one aspect is particularly haunting: Elaine’s home was cold because, unable to pay the bills, she only turned the heating on when her children came home from school.
That Elaine’s social security had apparently been stopped recently makes this fact all the more painful. The Liverpool Echo reported that Elaine’s mother, Linda, wrote an open letter on Facebook describing how Elaine had had her benefits stopped repeatedly up until her death. Elaine, who had multiple health problems including an eating disorder and depression, had her out-of-work sickness benefit, the employment and support allowance (ESA), stopped this year. (Early reports appear to incorrectly say this was universal credit.) The Department for Work and Pensions states that Elaine’s ESA “account was closed” after she failed to attend three assessments this summer but her mother’s Facebook letter stresses Elaine had been in and out of intensive care in hospital.
I can’t stop reading the words Linda wrote about her daughter: “How many people have got to die before this government realises they are killing vulnerable people?”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/16/neglect-benefit-cuts-deaths-elaine-morrall
The British press regularly covers stories of people who froze to death or committed suicide because they couldn’t pay their bills – energy bills being a primary cause of financial difficulties.
British Conservatives in my opinion have failed the British people. They have no solutions to the difficulties ordinary people face, because they don’t have the guts to admit in public that their precious green energy policies are an unworkable failure.
This political cowardice leaves the field wide open for hard left politicians like Jeremy Corbyn to claim that the reason prices are so high is because Capitalism itself has failed, that only his brand of hard left socialism can restore hope and stability to people’s lives.
Desperate people sometimes make desperate choices.
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Change is coming. The green communist revolution is coming to confiscate private industries of fossil fuel hungry capitalists! Hail comrade Corbyn!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EqnefhZujJA/UqM0YJCgCpI/AAAAAAAAfXY/p6js5KdEO4I/s1600/600898_10202629652722533_1731473012_n-894.jpg
But Lenin was not a Socialist. He may not be the ideal spokesperson you portray him as.
Once again the left uses global warming as an excuse for control.
Sent from my iPhone
>
All you really need to know is that despite having no loyalty to any past leader of the party, nor even the party itself having voted against it over 500 times. There is nothing he values more in others, than unquestioning loyalty to himself.
A person whose idea of progress is to go back to the union dominanted 70’s
Eric, you wrote that “British Conservatives in my opinion have failed the British people. They have no solutions to the difficulties ordinary people face, because they don’t have the guts to admit in public that their precious green energy policies are an unworkable failure.”
You only have this half right. Let it be remembered that it was under Labour in 2008 that they brought in the Climate Change Act. The Minister responsible was a Ed Millband (more normally known as “Millitwat”.
The rabid lefties at the Grauniad who wrote this drivel (Frances Ryan), conveniently forget that it was their own beloved party and supported by the Grauniad that imposed this murderous act in the first place.
It must be said that whilst the Conservatives didn’t introduce this legislation, they all just as brain dead because they voted in through. Virtue signalling at its best. Utter idiots.
Well…I guess we should wish them “good luck with that”…because it’s always worked out so well in the past and all.
Utilities are commonnly regulated by govts for one simple reason – they are basically monopolies,which means that a free market does not exist in this business area. I’m amazed that supposedly free market folks (conservatives) think that a free market means no govt interference.
That’s pure nonse – when monopolies exist, neither a free market nor competition exists. The
requirement is competition – that is what regulates markets and ensures that profits do not
go beyond what is required to conduct business. Competition is required in every facet of life – without it, nothing works. Nothing.
Utilities are generally localized monopolies because of government regulation.
The argument who would want two or three separate power lines on each power pole?
The answer is me, if it would result in cheaper power.
Another alternative is to have a monopoly that owns the power poles and power lines, but have the actual generation of electricity be provided competitively.
The only place monopolies have ever existed, they existed because a government created and protected them.
There was never a Microsoft monopoly on operating systems. Not even close.
There were always alternatives.
You could buy an Apple, you could go with one of the flavors of Unix.
Just because most people voluntarily chose the least expensive, easiest to use option, is not evidence of a monopoly.
Well, it can be argued that most people didn’t chose M$, and that it wasn’t the least expensive, nor the more easy to use. And M$ got sued and lost some trials, so it can surely be argued that M$ dominant position (not monopoly) included some abuse.
Looks to me a State failure.
State let M$ take advantages of a few rules to checkmate some other more important rules.
But we digress.
The fact that a judge determined that MS was in violation of a law, proves only that a judge ruled that MS was in violation of a law. It doesn’t prove that actual abuses occurred.
Windows has always been way cheaper than any Apple OS.
The PC hardware has also always been cheaper than the Apple boxes as well. There were also way more options when it came to applications and peripherals, and those were usually cheaper than the Apple equivalents as well.
The mere fact that individuals who couldn’t even spell PC were able to take a Windows computer out of the box and get it to run speaks towards it’s ease of use.
MS published it’s Bios, and let anyone who wanted to create apps and peripherals. While Apple forced everyone who wanted to sell Apple products get certified by Apple first. This kept the quality of Apple apps higher, but also made them more expensive.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s, every computer store that I went into had both an Apple and a Windows section.
People could freely chose which they wanted to buy.
@MarkW
Just read me correctly. I only told that “it can be argued”. Obviously doesn’t prevent anyone to think they know better than a judge.
We digress anyway.
Judges are often wrong. Especially when the law they are using is itself wrong.
I don’t understand your point. Of course government interferes, always did, and always will.
Conservative are just aware that the king, the government, and the political forces are just that. Men with their own sins, flaws and sins. Not god or providence incarnates as lefties think (after Hegel / Engel / Marx basically transferred all Christian God Attributes to State, and in the process basically switched right and left political spectrum).
And they are given a wonderful and extraordinaire (quite literally) tool to achieve their goal: violence, ability to take away properties and life and get away with it. This is even the current classic definition of State, after Max Weber.
They must use sparingly. Well, obviously conservative are still men as other, and wont mind as much if state violence is used in their interest (abundant examples), but, still, they basically don’t trust the state, and stick to old basic “habeas corpus” set of rules
“when monopolies exist, neither a free market nor competition exists. ” + “Competition is required in every facet of life – without it, nothing works. Nothing.”
This is a fallacy. A common fallacy, but a fallacy nonetheless.
Do you think competition stops when the state regulates and organizes monopolies? Far from it. It just switch the competition from the technical ability to satisfy customers, to the political ability to please rulers. And it rises the stakes: you don’t just risk a market share and your current way of living (is that so important?), you risk gulag and life, your children’s included.
Communist is just as competitive a regime as any other. It is even more, actually. Trouble is, the competition is to please and bribe the referee, not to play the best.
A fair competition will result in some monopoly. This is fine. It will also overrule it as soon as the front runner take “too much” rest, or as soon as some other competitor manages to gear up. What is not fine, is the referee choosing the front runner, bullying other competitors behind so that they cannot really compete, etc. Which is just what Corbyn says he will.
The Labour Party’s promise to the British people;
‘Poverty for the many, not the few.’
Socialism always enriches those who run it, at the expense of everyone else.
This is typical capitalist thinking. Because you care about yourself, socialist do, too.
They don’t.
They accept shitty life for themselves (and for you, of course…). Even when the amass vast fortune, which some of them do (while most don’t), it is not for the good life, it is for the power. They do care about power.
They don’t care about the body. They care about the soul, which they want pure, that is, perfectly aligned with all other souls along the “party line”.
Socialists are just godless warrior-monks longing to turn Earth into Eden, leaving all sinners the choice between taking rebirth in the faith, or be put aside, or even die if they are too much a threat to the Church.
They dream of some sort of new worldwide Sparta fighting for the peace against an endless stream of demonic corruption from within.
Socialism is just a christian faith turned mad (did you know that Pilgrim fathers envisioned a communist society, except for the word that didn’t exist then? It almost killed them all, and survivors reconsidered. Mad they were not, and they put more faith in God that in their human ways. Socialists, being godless, don’t reconsider)
Capitalism is all about doing Judo with human flaws, to turn them into good actions. You are greedy? fine. Just sell me some bread and make a profit. You are mean? fine, just invest your money to get even more later, and upon death leave behind more than gold: a golden goose that humankind will benefit from etc. The result is, even sinful or even evil goals can be turned into good actions.
Socialism is all about terminating those flaws. The result is, even good goals can be turned into rationale for bad deeds, as the end justify the ways, and pure unadulterated evil ensue.
Yeah, I was just thinking about this — when is some lame-brainer gonna want to nationalize utilities and oil companies for the ’cause’.
Hi Beng135 – I’ve lived with public utilities and and private utilities in the UK, and I can tell you that Public utilities are far superior. I would like to see the utilities nationalised – because they are national infrastructure provided originally from the taxes of the British people and have been run much more cost effectively as a public service for all citizens rather than a private monopoly. Furthermore, I’d like to see nationalised health, and nationalised railways, and other transport infrastructure (like the Germans, French, Swiss and others with brilliant railway services). Our NHS has been one of the most extraordinary benefits I have known throughout my lifetime – it is an absolute treasure, although I have personally needed it rarely – thank god – it treats all people equally according to need, and thus benefits rich people by avoiding, for them, unnecessary interventions, and benefits poor people by letting them get on with their lives without the crushing fear of health problems.
So as for Corbyn. I joined the Labour Party specifically to vote for Corbyn as leader. He has been right on issues over and over again – especially the Iraq war, and privatisation of the NHS. So I would be very pleased to see him win an election and, as far as it is ever possible to believe those lying bastards, I trust him to try to do much of what he says – he has been remarkably resilient over the past 30+ years he has been an MP. Furthermore, the present policies put forward by the Labour Party are in no way ‘Hard Left’ or even very leftwing – they are th esort of things that are absolutely middle of the road for Germany and France.
What about Climate Change? He’s wrong on that.
Jay, I was a registered professional engineer for a major utility in the US. Utilities here are usually public-owned (stockholders), but all are regulated by state commissions, and have been for a long time. Profit-margins have long been regulated, and major projects must be approved. But at least until recently, the regulatory agencies have been responsible & not heavy-handed. But like everything else, the lefties are using the system (EPA), Sierra-Club lawsuits, stockholder meetings, etc as sledgehammers to dictate to the utilities what & how to build (windmills, solar panels and no more coal plants). This is from people that have no idea or care about engineering/economics. Nationalization of utilities here would just allow the government to go bonkers on it.
Thanks beng
Good summary
In other words, you live in a fantasy world.
Please look at the regulations those “private” utilities had to deal with and tell me again how “private” they were.
Since the government is so superior to the market in providing services, why not go whole hog and turn over everything to the government?
Hi Jay.
Socialist are usually nice fellows as long as you put their political ideas aside. Discussing these ideas just make them look no good.
I just say: Just do it. Be proud and bold Kibbutzim, build your health service, power utilities, socialist banks, insurance companies, supermarkets, factories, telephone home and car services, etc, all those things that just need you to commit to what you claim your ideas are, without any money issue. Get rid of those pesky capitalists who don’t want to be in for whatever reason (in which they are so wrong, aren’t they? but just show them, and they will beg you to be in later, since your system is SO better, isn’t it?), without you as a customer and a worker they will collapse anyway. You don’t need them. THEY need you.
I understand that you may have some issue building your roads, railroads, electric grid, but there are so much that can be done, right now. People calling themselves socialist DO include rich people, and even when poor, they collectively can muster much more capital than the whole of UK could just a few decade ago, and most country still can right now.
That is, if you real think what you say you think, and commit for real.
Some did, and they had literally nothing to begin, as they came barely alive from death camps.
Answer
…
(I really love this “sound of silence” song of Simon and Garfunkel)
PS: The reason why health care etc is initially cheaper when the government runs it, is because the government is forcing someone else to pay for it. But as Lady Thatcher said, eventually you run out of other people’s money, and the whole thing collapses.
The NHS is cheaper per head than the dilapidated US system because of economies of scale.
It is also cheaper to the users at the time of use because the payment is made by everybody (well or ill – it’s only luck after all) over their entire lives.
NHS is cheaper per head because it doesn’t provide much care.
Dilapidated? Another example of you knowing things that absolutely aren’t so.
Regardless of your delusions, health care is one of those areas that benefit the least from the “economies of scale”.
1 doctor can only see so many patients per day.
When you force the doctor to see more, you are decreasing the quality of care.
If you save money by using people other than doctors to see patients, you are decreasing the quality of care.
“payment is made by everybody”
Translation, you are forcing other people to pay for what you want.
When you compare similar demographics, US health care is the best in the world.
Different countries have different mixes of demographics.
I knew the troll would bring up infant mortality.
The big problem with infant mortality, like most other health care statistics is that different countries define these things differently.
In the US, no matter how early or small a baby is, if it takes one breath post birth, it’s counted as a live birth.
Some countries count any baby that dies within 24 hours of birth as a still birth. Other countries count small babies as miscarriages.
That’s the big problem with socialists, most of what they believe they know, was never true in the first place, but that will never stop them from demanding more free stuff.
I’ve already answered that question, different demographics. When you compare similar populations in the US and Europe, the US comes out way ahead.
So Rob, in 17 minutes assuming you read my post as soon as it went up, you were able to locate and research the policies of the US and Britain in regards to how live births are counted?
Amazing.
So why don’t you show us the data you found, unless of course you aren’t just making it up again.
But does the NHS sufficiently cover opioids to drive overdose deaths in the population to the point of being statistically significant in halting gains in life expectancy? Only civilized health systems provide full coverage for that on a massive scale. By comparison the NHS is handing out bandages like the old utopian East German health system. /sarc
Oh boy, more boat people to deal with…..the Brits this time.
Let’s with priorities like climate and asset seizure, what could possibly go wrong?
Feb. 22 news
LONDON—The U.K. economy expanded less than previously thought in the final quarter of 2017, leaving the country further out of step with a global expansion that is powering growth among its major peers.
Let’s see,
Corbyn has support from a majority of students, elitist media types, and brainless luvvies. He is despised by patriots and people who work for a living and, therefore, will never win a majority in parliament.
The Guardain article about the poor woman who dies clearly states that she had personal problems. No one in the UK, who has a house and benefit payments, needs to die like her because of the cost of fuel.
Theresa May is a competent women but lacks inspiration. The Right needs a figure who articulates the value of capitalism and the idiocy of socialism.
The massive investment in water and wastewater during the last twenty five years would not have happened had the water authorities not been privatised.
Labour’s John McDonnell is on video record as being a straight up unreconstructed communist. No joke.
He hoped the 2008 crash would bring about his long hoped-for downfall of capitalism.
And there is hardly a terrorist organisation in existence that has not been praised at some point by his boss Jeremy Corbyn. No joke.
It is astonishing that the Conservative leadership, winning hugely in the poles, contrived to write a prospectus so bad that it nearly lost them the election. It is the closest escape since Dunkirk.
Fortunately the Ulster Unionists, who they then had to turn for support, are strongly against most of the policies promoted by the global warmers. Every cloud has a silver lining.
COMRADE corbyn (Trotskyite) and his appalling side kicks McDonnell and the rear end of a pantomime horse (Abbot) will say and do anything to take over the country and make one more failed marxist utopia that other people will pay for. They lie openly taking a page out of their puppet master’s book. Behind corbyn is a dangerous organization of marxist anachists called Militant Tendency who were thrown out of the Labout party 30 years ago because of their unacceptable unsafe practices… corbyn brought them back in and now they run the party!
Well I voted for him as leader of my party. And I voted for his party at the General Election.
But I’m not a Climate Alarmist.
That’s because the physics of the atmosphere and oceans does no determine the best way to run a society.
Fascinating how the socialist assumes that it is the job of government to run society.
Jeremy Corbyn is no fool. Advocating public ownership of utilities (he’s a socialist – why hasn’t he said this before?) will resonate well with older generation folk who remember when energy was more or less affordable and it was always there and you knew what the price was going to be and blah blah blah. And it will resonate with younger folk who listen to older folk talking about the good old days (I was there and they weren’t all that bad you know Mark, even if they weren’t perfect).
The trouble is, re-nationalising energy will not bring back the good old days of coal fires in the grate, coal-burning power stations and a coal-gas plant behind the train station in every town. It’s going to be more of the green boondoggles, more expensive energy for everyone (unless he copies the Ontario model of borrowing against the next generation to make green electricity appear a bit cheaper – of which more later), no fracking of course, that’s bad, and no more nukes because they are bad too.
I’m glad I’m getting old, I won’t have to listen to this stuff much longer.
Ontario energy: I’m somehow maintaining two households in Ontario, one in the urban south and one in the north. Both have gas heating, gas water heating, gas cooking and a gas dryer (actually one doesn’t have a dryer at all). And the electricity bills for both are higher than the gas bills. That says it all for green electricity, even after the subsidy. All because they have taken Ontario’s electricity supply from about 76% “carbon-free” to about 86% (that’s delivered MWh, not installed MW). What a monumental waste of public money. What it would be like if we didn’t still have big hydro and big nukes and Alberta gas, …… don’t want to go there
My gripe for the day.
Ontario decisively sent out the message to low cost sector leaders in solar PV with their local content law to go away and the low cost leaders in utility solar PV did just that. Then they could claim support from higher cost participants in vote buying and green advocacy on the overall renewables goal. The ratepayers were stiffed twice in that maneuver.
Socialism always improves the lot of the poor, for a short time. The problem is that this improvement is caused by shifting resources from production to consumption, delaying of maintenance in order to keep costs down and eventually restricting service to those without political pull.
Long run, the poor are worse off.
I don’t think politics is the key to the amount of additional regulation that we have to endure today compared to when I was young, I think you have to look at the role of local government who only exist in order to regulate the lives of ordinary citizens like us it seems. The local councils love the idea of global warming because it gives them an excuse to regulate our lives for our own good which is what they want to do anyway you only have to look at the increasing licensing of jobs and compulsory education for occupations such as mine It is becoming more like living in an insect colony then a human society. The subsidies that renewable energy get from us is a scam but we are also being scammed with the housing crises which it seems requires us to build infinite new housing although the decrease in the death rate is not infinite and is matched by a lower birth rate and even the increase in immigration is not infinite. We have built more housing and we continue to build more housing but this has not solved the housing crises and is not likely to do so in future , rather then making building firms more wealthy we could look at regulating ownership so that nobody owns more than one home and non citizens cannot buy houses also we could give those who want houses loans to build there own houses at cost price rather then paying the market price.
Mate there’s a housing crisis because there AREN’T ENOUGH HOUSES.
“housing crisis” is a joke. What most of Europe experienced during WWII and after, because of war destructions and population expansion and population move from countryside to cities, THAT was housing crisis. It was easier to find a job than to find a home (can you imagine that, today?).
But nowadays? seriously? People easily find housing, they just find it too expansive; well, I guess housing is ALWAYS too expansive, no matter how cheap and confortable it. Just like earnings are always to small, and the work always too hard.
Just an excuse for more silly politics
You never want to lose faith in human nature and the ability to make the most of watermelon stupidity-
https://www.masterresource.org/electric-vehicles/norway-ev-subsidies/
Heaven help the UK if the spittle-flecked Jeremy Corbyn Laden and his merry band of swivel-eyed loony lefties ever get their grubby mitts on the levers of power…
Well with Brexit underway, their added policy mistakes would be glaring and fully exposed. Sometimes it takes hard lessons from headlong leaps in the wrong direction to make meaningful change in the right direction later. Good luck with that. Redistribution of wealth policies only get you so far in a declining economy–just ask the Venezuelan refugees. Invest in real estate in Dublin and Germany as a backup plan.
Jeremy Corbyn is only “hard” left in the febrile imaginations of Americans.
[The mods fear to imagine what you would consider “hard left”… -mod]
To a communist, everyone else is right wing.
I am in no way belittling the tragic death of Elaine, but her main failing was not gaming the system correctly. If she had set up as self employed – any sham business would do – she would be eligible for child tax credits. These are not means tested and probably would have allowed her to keep the heating on. Very sad.