Andy Burnham, "I was talking about the 1980s yesterday where things like water, transport, homes, energy, were broken up and sold off" "I was talking about that being the root cause of Britain's problems" "We gave up control" "We are one of only two countries in the world that... has privatised water and I think the British public is pretty clear that it is disastrous" My view: Andy Burnham is right to link Britain’s current problems to the great sell-off of the 1980s. Water, energy, transport and housing are not ordinary commodities. They are the foundations on which every household, business and public service depends. Once control is handed to private monopolies and overseas investors, the public pays more yet has less say over the essentials of daily life. Water is the clearest example: bills rise, sewage is dumped into rivers and seas, and shareholders have been rewarded while infrastructure has been neglected. That is not efficiency; it is the public being made to finance failure. “We gave up control” is the heart of it. Rebuilding Britain means taking back democratic control of the services we cannot live without — starting with water.show more

‘Britain’ didn’t sell off water to private companies. England did. Scotland didn’t. When will unionists acknowledge that conflating the UK with England is extremely irritating and possibly the last desperate throw of the dice in trying to cellotape the crumbling UK together?

He seems to be joining up all the dots & creating the right picture. But will he actually do anything about it to make the necessary changes & improve things? There's alot of damage to put right & the gravytrain riders aren't going to be happy. I hope he has the guts.

Nobody gives a shit about your view !! 😏 just show the vid & shut the fuck up

Britain does not have privatised water. Please. England is not Britain.

Scotland owns its water and it has never been privatised.

A lot of water has flowed under a lot of bridges since the 1980s.

And in the eighties the cost of living was excellent Burnham fuckin do one you useless asshole Burnham

His use of 'taking back control' is very intelligent and shows up the meaninglessness and indeed wickedness of those who have used the phrase otherwise.

Water was sold in 1989 near debt-free. The debt and dividend extraction came decades later, when money was free and a regulated monopoly was the thing to borrow against. Scotland kept water public, creaking anyway. The failure is cheap leverage, not the change of owner.

Nae need to worry about us up here in Scotland Andy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

But isn't going to nationalise them

Government wanted money so it sold assets. It said to allow investment so we didn't end up like we are now.

Well if you are going to lie might aswell make it a whopper

Pity he never talks about the fact the EDF energy is owned 100% by the FRENCH GOVERNMENT. Some is also owned by Spain and Germany.

Yes the British Rail and GPO were fabulous. Total delusion

They were sold to small investors, private individuals,then big companies bought them out. One of the reasons for the original sale was that everything was so badly run by the state & too much underinvestment. Neither govts nor business are better than each other in the long run.