The "private" sector

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists...665737,00.html

A lot of what Monbiot writes is rubbish, and bunging a few iffy statistics in doesn't make it any less rubbish.

But the right of centre, (and I speak as one myself) do need to wake up to the huge amount of public bunce the private sector consumes. Its not just, or mainly, the direct subsidies, but all the externalities.

Of course Monbiot goes too far (I suspect he thinks taxes grow on trees sometimes, instead of being paid by companies and workers) but this sort of article does help put public spending in perspective.

(There are still a lot of lazy bastards working in the public services though)

The Guardian seems to have published a whole lot of nonsensical tosh of late, what with this, the other thread about well-educated MPs, and various other things...

EA , is it correct that your countries privatised transport sector now recieves more government hand outs that the industry recieved when it was state owned ?

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

EA , is it correct that your countries privatised transport sector now recieves more government hand outs that the industry recieved when it was state owned ?

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Can't prove it but I have heard this said as well, pretty sure it was on BBC news.

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

EA , is it correct that your countries privatised transport sector now recieves more government hand outs that the industry recieved when it was state owned ?

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You mean the railways and subject to the usual caveat about lies damned lies and statistics, yes, that seems to be correct.

Figures vary. The most favourable I have seen puts the subsidy at the end of the 80s at £500m pa (in 80's value) and the subsidy today at just over £1 bn, which would be a modest increase. However these are government figures and so are probably a lie. The least favourable puts the old subsidy at £1.3 bn in todays value and the present subsidy at £3.8 bn in the same values (Transport 2000 figures). Transport 2000 also say:

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The cost of the West Coast Main Line route modernisation now stands at £16.68 million per mile (at 2000-01 prices), compared with the East Coast Main Line modernisation in the 1980s at £1.8 million per mile (at 2000-01 prices) or even the French TGV Est – a completely new, high-speed line – at £10.84 million (at 2000-01 prices).

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Neatly illustrating the point, that should be engraved on the heart of every Tory, that private sector companies will guzzle public money and do no work too, if they are allowed.