UK Interest Rate Rise

EarthRod

Maggie was responsible for selling off large swathes of UK's assets to 'save' the economy. Did your teacher not mention that?

Jezza99

No, I left school before she was elected . But if you are referring to privatising the dinosaur loss making nationalised industries, yes she did, and it worked well. If you just take BT as an example, the consumer no longer had to wait 3 months to get a phone installed, with the choice of a green one or a gray one, and many people also became first time share holders, and made a few quid out of them.

Everyone's a winner.

EarthRod

I was a BT telephone engineer installing new cross-bar then electronic telephone exchanges back in the 1970s.

Decided to get another job long before the mass redundancies were executed in the 1980s because the writing was on the wall, if writ small.

Jezza99

Inevitable bearing in mind that the nationalised industries were heavily over manned, which was a large contributory factor to their inefficiencies.

EarthRod

Before electronic telephone exchanges and associated electronic telephones etc, the system relied on electro-mechanical devices which required heavy maintenance commitments.

The new electronic exchanges were 'lock-and-leave' and only required a visit from one engineer occasionally to fix faults. The old Strowger electro-mechanical exchanges required full-time manning by several engineers.

Bearing in mind no money was available from the government in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s - so no development took place. As an apprentice in the late 1960s I was working on equipment that was installed in the 1930s and had shrapnel wounds from German bombs that fell near by.

Jezza99

Which is why it was so important that private enterprise could invest in the company, and transform it into the high tech, profitable organisation it now is.

Pacifico

Sorry but you are not selling State Ownership as good thing - looks like Privatisation was just what was needed.

EarthRod

I am not selling anything - just stating facts as seen from someone who worked for many years as a telecommunications engineer.

Other people can make their own judgements and form their own opinions.

EarthRod

...And where did 'private enterprise' get the money from to carry out the massive undertaking to convert all the telephone exchanges in the country from electro-mechanical to electronic?

Jezza99

You've asked that in the spirit of one who already has the answer Alan. So why not enlighten us?