ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
Peter Pinkney President RMT
Agnes Tolmie, past President STUC
Stephen Boyd, Research STUC
Harry Frew STUC President, UCATT
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP: Winning the Policy Arguments
Neil Findlay MSP
Lynn Henderson, PCS Scottish Secretary
Chris Stephens, SNP Trade Union group
Dave Watson, Political Officer Unison Scotland
The Morning Star’s autumn conference will discuss how to oppose
the current ConDem drive for further privatisation, of posts, banking,
government services and nuclear fuel, and hear the arguments FOR
public ownership.
Private enterprise in Britain is plainly not working. Business investment has
collapsed: lower than at any time since 1945. The mismanagement of the
financial system – with banks geared to maximising speculative profits – has
brought the worse economic crash since the 1930s.
Privatised utilities have proved spectacular failures. Ofgen warns of power
black-outs by 2015 as a result of lack of investment in the privatised energy
sector. Privatised rail has the highest subsidies in Europe – while the publicly
owned East Coast line has delivered almost £1billion in profit. A socially
disastrous housing crisis has resulted from the inability of the private sector to
provide affordable houses. Yet elsewhere in the world there is
economic growth – and it is generally in those countries where there
is a significant measure of public ownership and active public support
for industry. The conference will examine the policy challenges
involved in re-winning a mass consensus in favour of public
ownership.