| Comment | As a point of opinion, I think people get too bogged down in private vs public and the nationalisation debate. Privatised services can be run very successfully with the right regulation, and nationalised services often have perverse incentives that lead to inefficient management.
The reason we privatised so much stuff in the 80s/90s - under both Tories and Labour - was because by that point most public services were bloated, inefficient and expensive. I do feel that the upsurge in support for renationalisation is only amongst those not old enough to remember how bad the previous public companies were. There's nostalgia for the Corporation Buses of the 1950s, but you won't find many people saying, "I wish it was like how it was in the 70/80s."
Changing the source of funding and the regulation model doesn't inherently make any difference to the quality of the service. While there is a good template in what Lothian Buses has achieved, we could just as equally have a well-funded and efficient privately-operated bus service if we just regulated e.g. First Glasgow a bit better. |
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