Forget Rip-off Britain, now it's SELL-OFF Britain...
 

After seeing on yesterday's news that the Aussies want to buy Thames Water, and that EDF, (French Electricity), own huge amounts of our electricity companies and gas supply, this morning's bulletin carried an article about the INDIAN Steel company, Tata Steel possibly tabling a £4.1 BILLION bid for Corus, which used to be known as British Steel.

God only knows what THAT will mean for jobs in the UK steelworks, and I live in the town with the biggest:(:( It CAN'T be good news:(

What has happened to the UK???

Alcazar

Previously nationalised industries got privatised and listed on the stock exchange and then someone bought all the shares.
Its not that difficult. :confused:

doubt many jobs will go tbh, i've worked in the construction industry (for a fabrictor and then engineer) for 5 years and its been in gradual decline anyway. cheap imports have lready killed of the british steel market, very few rolling mills etc left now

Scoobynet's beloved Tories sold off half the country, that's what!!

Still let's all balme New Labour for that too :rolleyes:

I personally think that the utilities should never have been privatised. The public are seeing the consequences now of course. Its a national treasure sold off for short term gain.

Les

Corus wasnt British anyway.

Corus was is Dutch! As is Shell Fuels!

Well your all forgetting Indian already own all the call centres :)

I'm waiting till they offshore the 999 service :D

FTI of the two poster about Corus: Corus IS Anglo-Dutch and was founded when the then British Steel Comapny merged with, (wasn't taken over by), Hoogevens of Holland, the Dutch Steel company.

Alcazar

:lol1: and there was I trying not to rub it in.

And for those of you old enough - remember what it was like in the 70s with the unions wielding huge power through the nationalised industries - Labour had this country borrowing off the IMF just to survive. Nationalisation isn't the answer. All they did was hide the extent of the troubles that this country had then by employing 4 people for every 1 job (my godfather, who spent most of his working life in British Steel used to tell some great stories!).

Privatisation was a wake up call, but in a free market economy, a company is always open to be bought or sold. I know we get very attached to 'our' industries, but we either have to adopt some form of American protectionism or accept that we may not always control these companies.

Shell, btw is English - Royal Dutch, is not surprisingly from Holland and the group is now 'Anglo-Dutch'.

Yep they sold it to the British people, many who are still shareholders in this country.

Chip

Don't be naive, Chip, MOST of the shares went to big investors, and most of those have been sold on to foreign companies....:(

Alcazar

It's happening with all nationalised industries. Next is the health service. I keep banging on about this one, but it's coming and some fat corporate cats from abroad will pocket lots of money creaming off the best bits of the health service while the rest of it crumbles:iamwithst . Recent reports of water companies being sold off after a couple of years and the owners making hundreds of millions of pounds will be repeated in time with companies that 'sell services to the NHS' being sold off and making lots of lolly for the owners. The policy pursued by the gvt, of course, is because of public demand. I haven't been asked what my demands are as a taxpayer and user of the health service - have any snetters?

Not too far from me the PCT has signed a contract with a South African company to assess all referrals to ENT and orthopaedics over a 5 year period. It (the NHS) will pay the company £25million a year for 5 years whether or not they see the agreed number of patients:thumb: . The ENT dept which will loose it's work has been exceeding it's number of patients it sees and treating patients earlier than agreed natioinal targets. The reward will be that patients will be seen by teams flown in from SA in a shiney new department and the company concerned will make lots of money, even if they balls up.:thumb: Oh, and the hospital based ENT department may shut down.:cuckoo:

Now that's improving public services and increasing 'choice';)

Rant mode off!

Well some of us with a bit of foresight did very well out of it thank you very much:)

Chip

Thames Water was owned by a Germany company anyway wasn't it?

RWE owned Thames Water which is indeed German. Powergen is owned by Eon that is German, TVR is owned by a Russian,Chelsea, Man utd........the list is endless

If water companies had not had been privatised then lots of the stuff they've done since would not have been possible if government run, the funds would just not have been there.

Our major airports are now owned by the Spanish. Which is another Govt cock-up. HMG used to own " a golden share " in the privatised airports.The EU declared "golden shares" to be illegal and ordered all EU Govts to givem them up. Ours did. Everyone elses said " F@ck that, we'll loose control of our airports". But hey, the Govt is happy, so that must be a good thing!

Spoken like one of Thatcher's 'children' :rolleyes:

Look at the bigger picture and see just how well off you are in the long term and even if you still are 'up on the deal' see just how many others aren't.

This place is freaking unbelievable at times.

Personally I don't care who owns what. Do I get a decent service (if not move elsewhere, it's a free market unlike nationalises industries) and does it offer value for money etc.

What HAS gone wrong (tories and NL alike although NL would have LESS excuse as they have the benefit of hindsight yet STILL manage to c0ck it up :D) is the mismanagement of the regulatory bodies. Having said that ofcom seem to be regulating OK I suppose unlike ofwat!

It's down the govt, not who owns what. The govt can give the regulators powers and have them enforced but are they (the govt) ensuring this is all done ok, I don't think so.

Give over:rolleyes:

The privatised companies are doing repairs AND giving out big dividends, from their huge profits.

And who pays? The water users! YOU!

My water bill has risen about 7 fold since I was first married. If they weren't making such a huge profit, in order to pay dividends, it might only have been four times as much, or even less:(

Alcazar

But NL are still borrowing off the IMF to survive Chris L.

Les

We might help our own industry - if we bought British stuff :thumb: For too long we have bought the cheapest manufactured goods & services mostly from overseas and are now paying the price...

Maybe get some ideas here Buy British to make the odd purchase a benefit to your friends, neighbours and family by keeping them in a job :thumb:

Mick :D

Another Labour supporter trying to blame current problems on the tory government from years ago :cuckoo:

So what exactly is good about the UK these days?

I really don't understand that site, it's a load of rubbish really. I didn't know Gap was British? And buying stuff from Argos? Surely that gives you a 98% chance that the goods are made in China.

And none of those British banks use Indian call centres?

LOL - so you judge my political bias based on one post - a mindreader you are not that is for sure. :cuckoo:

This particular problem being discussed in this thread was very much the doing of Thatcher's government, but it is has been reinforced (sadly) by the current incumbents

Sadly I cannot lay claim to support either major party as they are both short termists out for their own political gain at the expense of the electorate and have been that way for the last 25 years at least.

Who's better - hard to say really, but once you have aligned yourself to one or other you end up supporting them implicitly as is witnessed by many on here when in actual fact none of them are any good for the country.

Ho hum!

My thoughts in a nutshell:( I'd include the LibDems too:(

Alcazar