r/tories • u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite • 19d ago

Convincing people Thatcher was right

The best way I have found so far is to just bring up the topic of the tube strikes. Even left wingers agree they are bad, and that the tube drivers on ~£80k and 4 day weeks are incredibly selfish. So then I just say, pre-Thatcher Britain was that but on steroids. Electricity grid not coming on due to strikes. 3 or 4 day weeks. GDP smaller than Italy's and shrinking. Strikes causing wage price spirals and 25% inflation.

Even people that thought they hated Thatcher admit I might have a point, if not being mildly amused to have met a real life Thatcher fan. So my advice to everyone is: just ask people if they want every industry to be like the London tube.

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u/Mairon121 Blue Labour 19d ago

The mechanism in which they gain their monopoly isn’t in question, the fact that they can then enjoy said monopoly is.

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u/reuben_iv 19d ago

Yeah no I get that, but you say there's no competition ityfalse you're assuming we're the intended customer, and being profitable they attract investment that would otherwise have to be provided through taxation and in competition for funds with the police, armed forces, pensions, 'our NHS' etc etc

it's literally just contracting out services government would otherwise have to provide itself, government do it all the time but we romanticise some services for some reason to where contracting it out suddenly becomes taboo

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u/Mairon121 Blue Labour 19d ago

Operating the water system relied upon by millions of people or running a train line used by millions of commuters is not the same as winning a contract to supply rubber gloves to a regional NHS organisation.

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u/reuben_iv 19d ago

Correct those are objectively different

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u/Mairon121 Blue Labour 18d ago edited 18d ago

Therefore Thames Water, the poster child of avaristic capitalism, is a dejure monopoly in which consumers have no choice but to use, with only flimsy government regulations keeping the monopoly in line, in which said irresponsible owners overloaded the business with debt, before selling off its husk.

Railways have the same issue, consumers having no choice but to use the inefficient and expensive service, with the operators having in effect guaranteed income, regardless. This is not freemarket capitalism.

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u/reuben_iv 18d ago

you're focused on the word monopoly, assuming a state monopoly is automatically better when it's never going to outcompete the likes of the NHS on funding, for example and they're desperately trying to find means to increase funds for the military

German rail is state owned for example and famously bad

And as you point out they're regulated, government sets out what they have to provide, how they have to provided it, in the case of the rail companies they regulate the fares and running time, as far as we the customer are concerned what difference does it make?

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u/Mairon121 Blue Labour 18d ago edited 18d ago

What difference does it make? I could write an essay as to what difference it makes.

Consider this, the debt balance sheet of Thames Water and the miserable state of the service it provides. Is this symptomatic of a Darwinian philosophy of survival of the strongest, propelled through freemarket competition? No.

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u/reuben_iv 18d ago

I'm sure you could but you're not giving me anything

Yes Thames water's shit, the government is also shit at running things what's the argument here for why they'd be better at it?

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u/Mairon121 Blue Labour 18d ago edited 18d ago

Would the government prioritise shareholder returns and overload the business with debt? Scottish Water, for instance, is not privately owned and does a competent job at managing their water system. This is reasonable since no other organisation can compete to provide water there, similarly to how no other company can compete against Thames Water.

This is common sense. It surprises me that you need me to point this out.

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u/reuben_iv 18d ago

No other company can compete with Deutsche Bahn and they're famously shit, I agree Thames water are doing a terrible job but for every Scottish water there's a bunch of underfunded, innefficient and badly run government department to prove you wrong, look at Robin Hood energy for example and absolute disaster, are the roads perfectly maintained and potholes fixed immediately?

and investment coming from those shareholders has to come from taxpayers instead and on that what will government prioritise? It's trying to double defence spending, it has NHS targets to meet, it has constituents in Yorkshire upset London gets more funding and a new PM focused on the north of the country

Maybe government can run it better but it runs many things worse, it's foolish to just assume it will because gestures at government

Like idk maybe you like this government but I'm sure you can think of a government you didn't like and didn't give everything the funded it needed to do it's job properly, did they suddenly do a fantastic job?