Andy Burnham has ability to reverse the mistakes of privatisation: Yorkshire Post Letters

Justin Enthoven, Pateley Bridge, Harrogate.

For his first speech as prime minister, Andy Burnham spoke of wanting to achieve the “The biggest changes in the last 40 years.”

This was immediately interpreted by conservative voices as a yearning for a return to the ‘bad old days’ of the 1970s.

Kemi Badenoch even accused Burnham of wanting to return to the days of “endless strikes, rubbish not being collected, etc”.

Even those who were ideologically opposed to the drive to privatisation, that took place under Margaret Thatcher, would admit that underfunding of public services and utilities up to the 1970s had left them in an unsatisfactory condition.

The time is right for a total reassessment of neo-liberal economic thinking where the market is always right and the state needs to shrink as much as possible.

In the face of such negativity, the new prime minister’s desire to listen and move forward is refreshing. Facts rather than ideology should be the benchmark.

The country struggles with water shortages.

No new reservoirs have been constructed for 30 years.

Will the privatised water companies construct them while one of them is busy paying its boss a 14 per cent pay rise despite a ban on bonuses?

Water should be part of the national infrastructure and not in the hands of private companies often based abroad.

One of the arguments put forward for privatisation was that it put ownership in the hands of ordinary people through the purchase of shares which broke the model of public monopolies.

Setting aside the point that ‘ordinary people’ like Sid already owned public utilities having sustained them through the taxation system, these individual shares were duly sold and our public utilities are generally now owned by a very limited number of often foreign companies.

Furthermore, privatisation did not totally relieve the public purse.

Large state subsidies had to be provided to make the issue of rail franchises attractive to the private sector.

This is not an argument for wide spread renationalisation.

We need to objectively reassess our economy, find the right balance between private enterprise on the one hand and public good and national security on the other.

Our new prime minister has the character and ideas to approach matters going forward not looking back.

Paul Morley, Ribblesdale Estate, Long Preston, Skipton.

Let’s face it, he was incompetent, dishonest and a complete personality vacuum.

As such it was to be expected that they wanted the replacement to have charisma.

Unfortunately with Andy Burnham it has soon become obvious that that is all they got.

Not a quality that will bring the country back from the dark, sleazy depths where Starmer left it.