Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63046067

Would like it if it was also nuclear power plants but sometimes instead of trying to incentivise private businesses to invest in renewables you just need to do it yourself.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

Long overdue. The fake free market has failed. Truss wants to spaff tens of billions against the wall with little/nothing to show for it.

Time to take back control.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

Powered by unicorns :spin:

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

EDF France is massively in debt, Not a great example of being under State ownership. Where would the massive sums needed to build a nuclear plant have come from if they had been state owned at the time.

The other companies tend to operate in multiple countries, and in multiple business areas. Any success they might have, is not from operating in a single business area or country.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

EdF's French nuclear power stations were built when the company was under 100% state ownership. The UK's nuclear power stations were built under state ownership.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

If done correctly I’m 100% in favour of it. But it won’t be done correctly.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

Yes, my concerns would be totally the same. But there's plenty of state-owned energy generators operating successfully across Europe, so there's no reason that a British one should be unsuccessful is there?

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

If there’s a country that can do it badly it’s exactly this one hence the state we are in. If the fake free market can’t trouser supernormal profits we aren’t interested in doing it.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

We have the civil service, they could muck anything up.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

The irony given that the politicians had to dismiss the most senior civil servant at the Treasury to push through the current economic car crash.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

It doesn't matter if it's green energy or not, it all goes into the same wires and market forces dictate the price.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

Now that is a good idea. :tu:


It's time we regained control over the money making businesses.



Same should be done for our railways, etc.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

And look how the Conservites scoffed when Jezza suggested it.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

Was that before or after they nationalised Bulb, Northern Rail, Southeastern Trains etc?

---------- Post added at 12:11 ---------- Previous post was at 12:01 ----------

They won't run it. Bulb are nationalised but their staff are not civil servants. Similarly, EdF (France) and Statkraft (Norway) are not run by civil servants.

Re: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
 

The historic problem with nationalised British corporations has been their debt sitting on the Treasury’s balance sheet. It’s a recipe for short termist political interference in operations - a classic example being British Rail’s APT fiasco. The train was rushed into service under pressure from Thatcher’s treasury which wasn’t prepared to put any more money in or wait any longer for necessary troubleshooting. Cue press runs in which the unready train made its passengers sick and headlines it never recovered from.

BR sold its patents to Fiat, which used them to improve its own developing tilting train technology. Today, that technology is cruising up and down the West Coast main line, where the APT briefly operated - it’s used on Virgin (now Avanti) Pendolino trains, which were designed and built in Italy and are used across Europe.

Direct government influence over state owned industry also hands far too much political power to trade unions, as Arthur Scargill and his predecessors ably demonstrated. Mick Lynch of the RMT presents a cautionary tale of where we could all too easily end up - he has been desperately trying to politicise his dispute for months. The government has been wise to resolutely refuse to get involved.

If we’re to re-examine the role of state owned utilities in the UK then the whole political culture around them has got to be radically different than in the past.