Angry about rail fares? Get on board the renationalisation express

The campaign for the renationalisation of the railways is gaining momentum!

Here is CPO Director Neil Clark's new article from The Guardian.

The 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery of August 1963 has been marked with a plethora of articles and the publication of new books. But why all the fuss, because the reality is that we're living through a Great Train Robbery which makes the activities of Ronnie Biggs and Co look insignificant. While Biggs and his gang only got away with £2.6m, the privatised train companies have (perfectly legally it must be said) taken billions from the public purse since 1996 – and have had the chutzpah to also charge us the highest rail fares in Europe...

The whole article can be read here.

If you would like to support the CPO's campaign to end the Great Privatised Train Robbery, then any donations would be greatly appreciated! And we're always looking for volunteers to help hand out our leaflets at demonstrations, so please get in touch if you can help!

Save the Royal Mail!

Having sold off Search and Rescue, the manic privatisers in the UK Coalition are now turning their attentions to the Royal Mail, with an autumn sell-off planned. We can't allow the neoliberals to destroy our postal service in the same way they've destroyed our railways and other public services.

You can sign a petition against the privatisation here, and a model letter for you to send to your MP is also available. Also, please keep an eye on the CPO Twitter feed @PublicOwnership and the Save our Royal Mail website for details of forthcoming demonstrations/protests against the planned sell-off.

As to what a privatised postal service would be like, we don't have to look far: only to The Netherlands where privatisation has brought chaos (article here).  This chaos will be coming to the UK, if the Coalition get their way.
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Energy crisis? The answer is obvious: renationalisation

This piece by CPO co-founder Neil Clark, on privatisation and the 'Emperor's New Clothes' effect, appears in the Morning Star

.......Another good example of the Emperor's New Clothes effect is the current "debate" about soaring gas and electricity bills and what the government should do about them.
The "experts" tell us that we need more competition in the energy market. We need more regulation.
We need the government to "get tough" with the utility companies and make it easier for us to switch providers.
But the reason why our utility bills are so high and continue to rise year after year above inflation is a simple one indeed. It is the same reason our rail fares are so high and continue to rise year after year above inflation. It's called "privatisation."

You can read the piece in full here.

Search and Rescue privatisation reveals a coalition obsessed with privatisation

This new piece by CPO co-founder Neil Clark, on the UK government's latest privatisation plans, appears on The Guardian website.

From RAF search and rescue to Royal Mail and the NHS, state services are being sold off. The public don't back this extremism

You really couldn't make it up. As the RAF search and rescue service does heroic work helping people caught out or marooned in heavy snow in north Wales, the government announces that the very same service is to be privatised – with a 10-year contract worth £1.6bn being awarded to an American company whose headquarters are in Texas. "Our search and rescue helicopter service plays a crucial role, saving lives and providing assistance to people in distress on both land and on sea," said transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin on Tuesday. But why, when the SAR service is so excellent, and does such a fantastic job, is the government handing over all the work to a private company? We're told that the RAF's rescue helicopters are "ageing"; but can we really not afford to buy them 22 new ones?

It's not the only privatisation to be announced this week. The east coast mainline, which has been in public ownership since the previous franchise holder National Express quit in 2009, is to be reprivatised – despite the railway under public ownership being a resounding success.

Also, on 1 April, the Health and Social Care Act comes into force, which, in the words of the National Health Action party, "effectively abolishes the NHS in England after 65 years of existence". "We're not going to have a big bang privatisation for the NHS. We're going to have a very quiet one," says Dr Lucy Reynolds, in a recent interview for the BMJ.

These aren't the only privatisations – loud or quiet – we've got to look forward to in coalition Britain. 

The whole article can be read here

Renationalise now! : CPO Press Release on the 'spiralling' problem of Fuel Poverty

Monday 17th December 2012

New research by the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group has highlighted the "spiralling" problem of fuel poverty in the UK. As gas and electricity prices continue to rise way above inflation, the group has warned that around 300,000 extra households could be forced into fuel poverty within weeks, with around 9m people forced into fuel poverty by 2016.

The government seems to think that simplifying tariffs is somehow going to help solve this problem. Yet this policy is merely tinkering on the edges.

The Campaign for Public Ownership believes that the only long-term solution to the problem of energy company profiteering is to restore the energy companies to public ownership.

The problem lies in the ownership structure of the energy companies. Their overriding aim is to maximise profits for shareholders, (and in the case of EDF, to the French state). Instead of reacting with horror to the entirely predictable news that PLCs are putting the interests of shareholders before Britain's long-suffering energy consumers, we should instead be calling for the government to take the one step that will lead to lower energy prices in the long term. Restoring the energy companies to public ownership will mean that prices can be lowered, as there will be no shareholder dividends to pay.

It’s clear that unless the government acts, millions more Britons will be forced into fuel poverty. The great privatised energy rip-off  must be ended without any further delay.

Follow the Campaign for Public Ownership on Twitter!

The CPO has launched on Twitter.

Please follow us if you'd like to keep up-to-date with news/information about public ownership/privatisation, and receive details of our campaigns and press releases.

Why Britain needs public ownership: Meeting at 21st Century Marxism Festival

You can hear CPO Director and co-founder Neil Clark, Andrew Fisher of Left Economics, and Robert Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party, make the case for public ownership at the 21st Century Marxism Festival in Bishopsgate, London today. Details here and here.