Selling the family silver?
I recently finished ploughing my way through The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (thanks for the recommendation, asw_909). Well worth a read, but take it a bit at a time, sitting down, and make sure you are within easy reach of a strong drink, that's my advice. Mind you, that's how I approach most projects ;-)
Anyway, the main theme of the book is the imposition of extreme 'free market' solutions in times of crisis. These include the outsourcing of services previously performed by the public sector, and the consequent paring down of government to its absolute core functions (and sometimes beyond). Stay with me here, I'm nearly done.
So, there I was, flicking through the copy of New Civil Engineer, the sort of esoteric publication which used to provide such merriment on Have I Got News For You (or was it The News Quiz?), when I came across this article.
Alistair Darling: “We need to look at what non-essential public sector assets we can sell, so that we can free up capital for key projects.”
Now, "capital for key projects" is just the sort of phrase civil engineers like to hear, but let's take a cold shower and concentrate on the first part of that sentence. Here’s the list of proposed sell-offs*:
British Waterways
Ordnance Survey
Land Registry
Royal Mint
Defence Storage and Distribution Agency
Oil and Pipelines Agency
Met Office
Dartford Crossing
QE II Conference centre
So, the canal network, the Ordnance Survey and the Land Registry are ‘non-essential’? How about the Royal Mint? That slight disturbance to the Earth's gravitation field would be Isaac Newton spinning in his grave...
The Defence Storage and Distribution Agency?
Bear in mind the distinct possibility that any of these could pass into foreign ownership once sold. I’d like the Ministry-for-where-our-military-stuff-is-and-how-soon-it-can-be-somewhere-else to stay British, please. And preferably run in the national interest rather than that of a bunch of shareholders.
And no, I’m not keen on losing the canal towpaths to some property developer either if I’m brutally honest, but then there's always the chance that the new owner will put it to some revolutionary new use, like, say, bulk transportation of goods or something.
What bothers me about this is that some of these organisations seem pretty close to what you might call core functions. And if you've read the book I was rambling on about up there, you might find that a little disturbing. I do...
*Coincidentally, that £16bn is about what they are proposing to spend on upgrading Trident. Just by way of an example...
Anyway, the main theme of the book is the imposition of extreme 'free market' solutions in times of crisis. These include the outsourcing of services previously performed by the public sector, and the consequent paring down of government to its absolute core functions (and sometimes beyond). Stay with me here, I'm nearly done.
So, there I was, flicking through the copy of New Civil Engineer, the sort of esoteric publication which used to provide such merriment on Have I Got News For You (or was it The News Quiz?), when I came across this article.
Alistair Darling: “We need to look at what non-essential public sector assets we can sell, so that we can free up capital for key projects.”
Now, "capital for key projects" is just the sort of phrase civil engineers like to hear, but let's take a cold shower and concentrate on the first part of that sentence. Here’s the list of proposed sell-offs*:
British Waterways
Ordnance Survey
Land Registry
Royal Mint
Defence Storage and Distribution Agency
Oil and Pipelines Agency
Met Office
Dartford Crossing
QE II Conference centre
So, the canal network, the Ordnance Survey and the Land Registry are ‘non-essential’? How about the Royal Mint? That slight disturbance to the Earth's gravitation field would be Isaac Newton spinning in his grave...
The Defence Storage and Distribution Agency?
Bear in mind the distinct possibility that any of these could pass into foreign ownership once sold. I’d like the Ministry-for-where-our-military-stuff-is-and-how-soon-it-can-be-somewhere-else to stay British, please. And preferably run in the national interest rather than that of a bunch of shareholders.
And no, I’m not keen on losing the canal towpaths to some property developer either if I’m brutally honest, but then there's always the chance that the new owner will put it to some revolutionary new use, like, say, bulk transportation of goods or something.
What bothers me about this is that some of these organisations seem pretty close to what you might call core functions. And if you've read the book I was rambling on about up there, you might find that a little disturbing. I do...
*Coincidentally, that £16bn is about what they are proposing to spend on upgrading Trident. Just by way of an example...