This article by CPO co-founder Neil Clark appears on the Guardian's Comment is Free website.
"The government's objective with this bill is to liberate airport management from political interference … to enable airport operators to respond to the needs of their customers, rather than to the shifting priorities of politicians and officials," declared the Earl of Caithness as he moved the Thatcher government's 1986 airports bill in the House of Lords, which was soon to become the 1986 Airports Act. The privatisation of the state-owned British Airports Authority (BAA), we were told, would ensure that "better services are provided for all airline passengers".
I wonder if the Earl of Caithness (or even Margaret Thatcher herself), would have the courage to pop down to Hounslow and tell that to the tens of thousands of holidaymakers stranded at the BAA-owned Heathrow airport for the past three days.
The whole of the article can be read here.
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1 comment:
Thank you Neil for a great article. In support of your article:
Since the late 1970s the world has been made to look like a pathetic fool: every thing public is bad, every thing private is good. Every thing has been privatised: Water, Gas, Electricity, Telecommunications, Roads and Railways, Airports and Harbours, Health, Education and Housing, and every thing else that can be sold and privatised, forests, places of outstanding natural beauties, libraries, and more. They have even privatised and monetised what we call as “Values”. These days they even go to wars with private mercenaries, private security firms, private suppliers...All accountable not to the Parliaments, but to the shareholders of Halliburton and others, whose former CEOs become Presidents and Vice-Presidents.
Now please read the link below to see how a bunch of privatised corporations have brought dis-grace and misery to everybody in Britain and the rest of the world. All for the benefit of the share-holders, all for bonuses, no investment in needed infrastructures, passengers’ safety and comfort. They have so cleverly privatised all the profits and benefits and socialised all the costs. Heaven on earth for them and hell for the rest of us. Again a very clear demonstration of the huge short comings of the Anglo-Saxon Business Model that has said, loud and clear: NO to the Common Good.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/21/nationalise-airports-baa/print
Thus, given all that is happening around us, please let us come together and make the following project-our project-a reality:
What would a new economics and economy look like?
“As we prepare for our time together in Alexandria, ‘A Dialogue between Civilizations’ we must recognize that the civilizations of the world are entwined together in a global economic system which is incapable of functioning for the common good of humanity, other species, and this planet which is our home. Now is the time to begin a dialogue between civilizations on how to construct a new economic system and a new economics better designed to meet these ends”...
The Project: http://www.gcgi.info/images/downloads/2010-gcgi-new-econ-project.pdf
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kamran
.........................................
Kamran Mofid PhD (ECON)
Adjunct Professor, Dalhousie School of Business,
Dalhousie University, Canada
http://sba.management.dal.ca
Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative
www.gcgi.info
Globalisation for the Common Good, Alexandria 2011
http://www.gcgalexandria2011.info/
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