UK - Britain will pay the price for its 1970s-style war on the energy companies and banks. Who will finance the new power stations?

Profit has become a dirty word 

when it comes to fuel and banks

By Jeremy Warner

...................

Yet to go this route ignores the lessons of the past. Rewind to the 1970s again, and you find a publicly owned utilities sector that was profoundly more starved of investment than the privately owned one today. This was particularly the case with the water industry, but it was also partially true of gas and electricity. Publicly owned utilities were treated like milch cows by a revenue-hungry Treasury, and suffered accordingly.

Privatisation drove huge gains in efficiency and has helped deliver some of the lowest gas and electricity prices in Europe. If turning back the clock is what fires you up, then yes indeed, let’s reverse 30 years of Thatcherite reform. Just don’t expect a more prosperous economy as a result.


Read more: www.telegraph.co.uk