It appears that you have considerable difficulty in believing how dire the old GPO and early BT were when in public ownership but I would expect nothing else from an individual who considers the only way forward is to nationalise, nationalise and then nationalise again and to pay for this all by borrowing ever more money and at the same time increasing taxes thus removing the incentive to work hard.

Customers had to often wait months if not years for a new phone line to be installed, now they complain if they have to wait more than a couple of weeks. Let's hope we don't see a return to those dark ages.

That's yer man. He confided his real role in a BBC TV programme about the CCU and the so-called Winter of Discontent. While laughing it down, for sure, Rose nevertheless gave a unique insight into the dark workings of the permanent government, over which the ballot box has no influence. And we can be sure that before broadcast, the content of the BBC (2?) programme had already been thoroughly vetted and then some.

Though still quite plain to see that even the Prime Minister's office (Callaghan in that day) was obsequious to the shadow government of the security and intelligence apparatus. I haven't really got the motivation to research this again, but the Times newspaper carried just nine articles (from 1977 to 1984) about Rose and the CCU. The CCU was no secret, but then again, it's true role - as a Black Propaganda Unit - was largely hidden from the public, for obvious reasons.

There's a transcript of an interview Rose did in 2003 with Virginia Crowe. He's guarded when he wants to be; refusing to name an adversary in the TGWU, for example. (see p.38 of the interview).

This is all besides the point. All we're really doing is disputing the use of Black Propaganda to demonise publicly-owned assets; loosing them up for looting through privatisation by High Finance. This verifiably happened with the GPO/British Telecom and is not really up for argument. Thought it's interesting to see people here still caught-up on the propaganda of thirty or forty years ago. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! But remember when some clown was trying to convince us that Iraq had Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction! There's lies, damn lies, and then there's the propagandists of Her Majesty's Government!

Cheers, edwin

Edited by deleted (Tue 21-Jul-15 18:09:38)

It seems you didn't read at least some parts of my post .

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Party landlines are a funny old legacy thing. Though it's only by putting them in context with the era that any comparison with today is insightful.

Landline ownership in the 1970s, like motorcar ownership, was way below the saturation we enjoy today. We had a party line in the early 1970s. It wasn't ideal, but we made do. We only really used the phone for emergencies and for brief voice calls to arrange appointments. Putting in a dedicated line for us eventually happened by c.1978; still pre-privatisation. The work must have cost thousands (all underground urban cabling).

It would be years before the GPO recouped its expenditure on us. But the GPO still did long-term planning; that's something you don't see very often with privately-owned BT. Today, it's all about gouging a quick buck to assauge the shareholders.

Truly fascinating how wonderful BT/GPO apparently were when it was a state owned monopoly.

The "gentleman" quoted below from another topic seems to think you are spouting utter nonsense:-

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Dealing with the BT Group is as bad as dealing with the state-owned monopoly that it replaced! There's still that same mindset, that same mountain of bureaucracy to fight though, very poor communication, missed appointments, and endless delays.

Edited by deleted (Tue 21-Jul-15 22:46:03)

In reply to a post by MCM:

It appears that you have considerable difficulty in believing how dire the old GPO and early BT were when in public ownership but I would expect nothing else from an individual who considers the only way forward is to nationalise, nationalise and then nationalise again and to pay for this all by borrowing ever more money and at the same time increasing taxes thus removing the incentive to work hard.

One argument I've never understood is the "things would be bad in public ownership because things were bad in public ownership in the past".

It's a false dichotomy to say "things must be bad in public ownership or great in private ownership" - they're not the only two choices.

The problems of public ownership in the past were because things were managed badly and run badly. Whilst the public ownership vehicle did/can make this happen, if you have things managed properly and overseen properly it doesn't have to be the result.

When it comes to private ownership, I don't understand how a for profit company, existing to return money to shareholders, many of them run to squeeze blood out of employees, penny pinch at extreme measures and pay rock-bottom wages (all leading to low staff morale) can be more profitable than a properly-run public owned organisation that exists to plough profits back into the service....

Rock bottom wages? Where are you getting that from? Repair engineers are paid a pretty good wage.

I agree that public or private can be bad.

However, a private company ultimately needs to make a profit. To make a profit they need customers. Therefore customer service is normally important. The problem is when a private company has little or no competition.

For a public company the problem normally is down to financing. If it makes a loss then the tax payer ends up shoring it up. If it makes a profit then the profits can often be taken to offset costs in other parts of government rather than invested. Customer service is largely irrelevant as public companies are almost always monopolies.

Private companies have no real incentive to try to compete against a public company as the public company can be bailed out by the tax payer.

Public ownership should only be required where there is no driver for a private company to supply the service or where it is required for social reasons rather than business reasons.

The issue we have now is because of BDUK's failures, there is no way to create competition.

Even as a separate private company, Openreach still wouldn't have any competition.

If we had proper FTTP altnets, I'm sure Openreach would rapidly roll-out FTTP also but we don't so we're screwed basically.

Virgin compete in 50% of the country. The also have plans to increase their coverage.

Some areas are being covered by alt-nets. Once Virgin have completed their rollout plus alt nets then there could be a pretty hefty chunk of the country where there is competition at the physical level.

BDUK should end up with 95% of the country covered by a fast service. The final 5% is expensive for anyone otherwise alt nets would have jumped in and taken them. The only way they will happen is further funding for someone to provide the service - the difficulties are EU rules around procurement which generally result in BT being the most obvious choice.

Alt nets don't exist where BT are because they can't compete on price - the cost to install FTTP is just too high. So - do you want Ofcom to force BT to raise their prices so that alt nets can get a return on investment? Don't think that would go down well.

In reply to a post by ian72:

For a public company the problem normally is down to financing.

Private companies have no real incentive to try to compete against a public company as the public company can be bailed out by the tax payer.

In reply to a post by arobertson545:

The issue we have now is because of BDUK's failures, there is no way to create competition.

Even as a separate private company, Openreach still wouldn't have any competition.

I agree with the points above, this is why I think Openreach should be a separate private company, with a levy or tax on every line/service they provide.

This should then be offered up as grants to everyone except Openreach on condition that it is used to finance infrastructure directly in competition with Openreach.

That new infrastructure should then have a levy or tax on it that can be offered up as grants - to any company including Openreach - for building infrastructure in poorly connected areas (e.g. rural).

In this way Openreach's directors would be responsible for only Openreach and it succeeding (rather than what is best for a wider BT Group), and investment could be generated for competition and competing infrastructure - which then could make a return to generate investment for areas deemed less/not commercially viable....

Edited by MrBukey (Wed 22-Jul-15 10:56:30)