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Letter: Selling England by the pound
Monday 26th October 2009, 9:06AM GMT.
Letter: Brown’s proposed sale of Government assets expressly targets England’s assets; Scotland’s will hardly be affected.
The devolution legislation, which Brown more than anyone else, engineered for Scotland in 1998 makes sure of that.
The school playing fields and libraries of his Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy are untouchable. But every single one in every single English constituency is now under threat and up for grabs by any rich punter from anywhere in the world.
Whatever the economic worth of Gordon Brown’s proposed sale of Government assets, which Vince Cable has derisively called a “Government car boot sale” there is another aspect to it. It is very exploitative of England. All the major assets so far listed are either totally or predominately in England: the Dartford Crossing, the cross-Channel rail link, the nationalised bookmaker the Tote, the Government’s 33 per cent stake in Urenco and the invaluable real estate around St. Pancras and Kings Cross Stations.
But there are aspects of this fire sale of our English assets which in their way are even more pernicious and harmful.
In the last resort English local councils, even county councils, are subject to Whitehall dictat in everything.
This is why Brown made his announcement without consulting the Local Government Association in England.
That is why every asset of all English local authorities could now be sold off over both the heads of local councillors and the electorate.
It is vital that we have an English Parliament to address this imbalance.
B Lawson
Ludlow
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As in business if your cashflow is poor or non existent you sell your assets to release more liquidity.
This is a necessary move by Gordon Brown and the only way to recoup some of the losses that he and his government have incurred in the first place.
We don’t need a nationalised bookies!
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Tut..headlines..I dunno..you couldn’t name a Genesis album after it could you? More seriously wouldn’t be better to be buying other peoples assets off them instaed of the other way round? And what will we get for the Met Office anyway? would you buy it?
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Well you can’t sell the council housing stock off, city centres to insurance companies,energy providers to France and elsewhere ‘cos it’s all been done before.
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What IS the difference between Labour and Conservative??
Thatcher sold of profitable BT and raked in a fortune and that was just the start of privatisation.
Labour are doing exactly the same.
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An English parliament would have as much bias towards the south east as the uk parliament to various other regions. The Midlands are always overlooked in favour of the south, the north and Scotland. We should have a strong democraticly elected regional parliament. They would be more likely to understand our needs and considerations than remote London based institutions. Long Live Mercia.
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Big Beast,
You’ve lost me – we sell our assets to make money to pay our debts – how would spending money we haven’t got buying other people’s assets help?
Long live Phil Collins lol!
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I just meant wouldn’t it be good not to be in this situation of having to pay our incurred debts off for the next 10/15 years. Not a contentious point I would thought. We may pull out of recession next year technically but the bump along the bottom is going to be painfull.
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agree suellan the bookies can go for sure
also selling surplus land for development will spur growth, so we get cash and more buinsesses/houses/construction too, so its a win win for the nation and the economy
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English Exile, the difference between Labour and Conservative is clear. Labour have spent the money acquired from asset sales on education and the NHS. The Conservatives spent their money on 40% tax cuts for the rich.
Unfortunately, the unacceptable face of capitalism, in the form of greedy bankers, has derailed our economy for the moment, but the remedy for this is to take our money back from the banks’ profits, whilst continuing to invest in our public services.
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Well at least he’s not going to do anything really stupid like selling off half our gold reserves at the bottom of the market.
Oh, hang on….
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9# Peter, predictable Nu Labour garb and spin!!
Read ‘wasted’ not ‘spent’
Boom and bust is a thing of the past?
The 12 year Labour disaster is almost over!
Shame on Bliar and bottler Broon
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Peter, predictable Nu Labour garb and spin!!
Read ‘wasted’ not ‘spent’
Boom and bust is a thing of the past?
The 12 year Labour disaster is almost over!
Shame on Bliar and bottler Broon
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Drew,
I suggest you ask those people who have far shorter waiting lists for hip and cataract operations if they think the investment was wasted.
Or the people who need technically challenging treatments such as MRI scans, whether or not they think availability is better.
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Yes, the usual mythical 40% tax cuts from Peter. Does he not have another harp to play on. What he forgets and something a d—m sight worse is the Brown tactic of doing away with the 10p tax band for our poorest paid in order to increase the lowest tax to 22p and in one stroke made our poorest paid pay an extra 12p in the pound on their taxable pay. This to many was devastating.
Let’s also put the banking issue into context. Fact, Brown took the regulatory function from the Bank of England and gave it to the FSA, he then stopped the FSA regulating the banks. Banks were therefore unregulated and they ran riot. Fact. Brown has done absolutely nothing to curb Bank bonuses saying that it needs a “global” solution. The banks have increased the bonus “pot” this year from £4 Billion to £6 Billion to be paid before Christmas. Osbourne has said that he would stop this payment immediately and has made enemies of the banks for doing so. Clown and his little lap dog Liam Byrne (the dwarf with as much economic sense as a ten year old with his pocket money) slated and rubbished Osbourne but failed to come up with anything themselves. Let’s wait and see if Clown stops the £6 billion bonuses to the banks shall we, he has cosied up to them whilst the Tories and I quote from the Conference said to them. “WE ARE SAYING TO THE BANKS RIGHT NOW, WE ARE GIVING YOU FAIR WARNING”.
Labour did not aquire anything from assett sales, they sold our gold reserves at rock bottom, give away prices and what they put into the NHS and Education was all borrowed thereby creating the problems that we are now experiencing and which shortly, if Clown and co get in again, he will take back to pay off our debtors.
And when it comes to capitalism, Peters solution and philosophy is that of Marxism. He should be ashamed – every point he makes one can drive a coach and horses through it.
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Peter – “far shorter waiting lists for hip and cataract operations”. What??? What did you eat for breakfast? Don’t eat it again, it’s making you delusional!
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English Exile.
You are wrong about BT it only started to make large profits after thatcher sold it. the best thing she did. I know because I worked there.
Jumpy.
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